My Favorite INFJ

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First, the promised writing news: My next YA novel, BACK WHEN YOU WERE EASIER TO LOVE, officially releases April 28, 2011! I have an almost-final copy of the cover, which I should be able to post by next week. If you've already seen the "working cover" you know how much I love it and can't wait to share. Do you think it's possible for your personality to change over time? I've been mulling it over lately as I've been working on a new manuscript. The main character is a lot me now. She's also a lot like I was as a teenager. Which makes sense--I feel like I'm exactly the same now as I was ten or even twenty years ago.

I'm just happier. Healthier. And I have more friends. But does that change a personality? Would my friends now even recognize the me of days gone by?

When I was taking a psychology class in high school, we took a field trip to a nearby university and each filled out a questionnaire determining where we fell on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The MBTI determines where you fall on  four spectrums:

Extraversion (E) Introversion (I)
Sensing (S) Intuition (N)
Thinking (T) Feeling (F)
Judgment (J) Perception (P)

This means there are sixteen personality types, depending on which four traits you prefer (this is a super-shortened, not-that-great summary).

I was an INFJ.   A quick look on Wikipedia shows that only 1-3% of the U.S Population is INFJ, making it the rarest personality type.  Which figures.  INFJ is often called "The Sage," personality type, which is kind of cool, but not really.  It's especially heavy on the "not really" when you're seventeen years old and your personality type is represented by this:

I memorized my friends' personality types (because I had so few friends, this was easy).  For a time, I took to referring to them as, "My favorite ENFJ," or "My favorite ESTP."

A week or so ago, I was reading the Shrinking Violets website and found that in this day and age, you can actually find the Myers-Briggs Type for your blog!  Of course, I immediately typed in my url and got this:  ESTP.

My blog's personality is the opposite of mine!  On each one of the  four spectrums!  Crazy, no?   The best part is that ESTP is often called "The Doer" as is represented by:

Doesn't she look kick-a?  And unlike me  in every way?

I would love to be this girl.  But I am not.  I don't try to hide that on my blog, do I?  I keep it real, don't I?  Or has my personality changed?  Will I soon wake to find myself wearing knee-socks and casually holding a ball of some sort?

So the next day I was sending a message to a friend via facebook when I saw that she'd taken a facebook-app version of the MBTI.  So of course, I had to take it, too.

I know there's been much controversy surrounding facebook of late.  I haven't shown much interest because facebook doesn't really do that much for me (or I for it).  But seriously, love orr hate it, the MyType app is awesome.  It gave me a quick but comprehensive eval which determined I was...yep.  An INFJ.

Can I represent myself with this, instead?