One interesting fact about me is that I tend to be addicted to those online personality quizzes.

Whether it is “What Harry Potter character are you?,” “What 90’s alternative band should you listen to?” or “Can I guess your age?” I find these meaningless tests to be an amusing way to pass my free time.

Now there is one online personality quiz which is the king of online personality quizzes, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a personality quiz developed by two people without any background in psychology that determines your preferences among four sets two binary behavior functions (based on psychology legend Carl Jung’s Typology).

According to this test, you could prefer either introversion (prefers to keep to yourself) or extroversion (prefers to be outgoing and around others), sensing (trusting senses) or intuition (trusts gut instincts), thinking (prefers using logic) or feeling (prefers using emotion), and judging (preferring order) or perceiving (prefers to go with the flow).

These are after all preferences and do not refer to your ability.

You could be a thinker who does not use your brain or a temporary extrovert.

Here is a funny picture that describes the functions in a comical way. Accurate? Nope, but still pretty funny if you ask me.

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But even with preferences, it could be difficult for this test to exactly pinpoint your exactly what you prefer. Previously, I wrote an article about what my personality type was and how it impacts me as a theater artist. I have previously typed as an INFP (introverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving).

However, I took that test during a very difficult period in my life where I dealt with (for a lack of better terms) a rather life-scarring event leading me to suddenly turn into this complete stranger, so I decided to take that test once I started recovering. The first time I took it, I tested as an ENFP (the same preferences only, I preferred extroversion over introversion). Then I took it again and received the result of INFP.

I was confused and had a major identity crisis.

I took this test over and over again just a few months ago and received the result of INFP over and over and over again without fail. How could I suddenly get the result of ENFP. So I took it a few more times, and I seemed to go back and forth between ENFP and INFP.

As I healed from this dark time in my life, I decided to take the test several more times. I received the result of ENFP almost every time. Then, I decided to research what ENFPs behave like.

It turns out we are the most introverted extroverts. We are extroverts who need a lot of alone time and actually spend just as much time alone as introverts.

We are also very curious, creative, get stressed easily, tend to be very random and out there, and absolutely HATE anything we perceive as micromanaging (such as people trying to tell us how to behave and rules) which definitely sounded like how I was when I was growing up. Also, I happened to find many “fictional ENFPs” especially relatable (like Steven Universe and The 11th Doctor…oh great…those are my spirit animals…).

So… all this to say, ignore that previous article.

 

I am not an INFP after all. I am an ENFP. Now, I have two things left to do: figure out how my ENFP personality impacts me as a teacher and theater artist and figure out where the shortcomings of this test are and what would be a more accurate alternative since you know, I am a bit addicted to personality tests.