INTJ: How do others see you? (ISFJ mom's opinion of me)

[Metamorphosis]

Originally Posted by Uberfuhrer

By the way, does anyone know of other INTJs who have an unusually morbid sense of humor? I guess you can say other people perceived my sense of humor as really morbid (my mom says I'd make a good mortician). And I sometimes catch myself laughing and thinking of witty James Bond-like puns when I watch prime time television.

yes, but my ENFP friend (Hexis on here) and his ISFJ girlfriend both do also

I don't think I've ever had so many evil laughs as when I just watched Mr. Brooks.

[rivercrow]

Originally Posted by Uberfuhrer

By the way, does anyone know of other INTJs who have an unusually morbid sense of humor? I guess you can say other people perceived my sense of humor as really morbid (my mom says I'd make a good mortician). And I sometimes catch myself laughing and thinking of witty James Bond-like puns when I watch prime time television.

Most of my friends have gallows humor, regardless of Type. I worked as an obituary writer for a while and learned that half the morticians have a similar sense of humor. (The other half are really stuffy.) My IxTx cousin, who is a mortician, is one of the good kind, so we have a ball when we meet, which isn't often.

[Uberfuhrer]

I laugh at the Holocaust videos all over YouTube. I also laugh when I read the comments about the Hilary Duff interpretation of The Diary of Anne Frank shown on Robot Chicken. Watching people suffer and get upset is just amusing to me...and I'm really not ashamed of it either. And the fact this kind of humor is upsetting to most people is part of the reason it's funny. You can say it, I'm a horrible person!

However, I also like slapstick humor like The Three Stooges or the first two Home Alone movies. I like everything from racial to sex humor, though I'm actually pretty bad at telling these jokes; I usually stutter.

[Usehername]

Originally Posted by rivercrow

I think the similarity is probably the Extraverted Judging. Both of you would apparently come to closure quickly--faster than someone with an Extraverted Sensing function.

All moms--and anyone over the age of 30--master the "knowing smile." The best counter to that is a return "knowing smile" with no counterargument. Trust me.

(Or, just admit that you need to pick your battles and this one could be a Pyrrhic victory.)

Thx--I'll try that "knowing smile" next time. You'd think, though, that one could follow well laid-out logic. Apparently not.

[Usehername]

Originally Posted by Jennifer

As far as superficials, I guess she was right; but as far as essentials, you were.

I think you are a little better off because you understand that people work differently; your mom still thinks that everyone works similarly and she's "wiser" than you are. But it also puts more burden on you, since you are actually wiser in terms of evaluating people for who they are.



Yeah.

I know it doesn't make you feel any better or solve your problem, but my mom is an ISFJ as well and still doesn't understand me. She tries hard to accommodate me, but we have a lot of trouble having any sort of conversations that I would find meaningful; at best, I have to talk about the things she's interested in, on her level.

I do try sometimes to stretch her, but I can't do much of it, and that's disappointing to me. My heart sinks when she gets that "deer in the headlights" look and becomes totally baffled, and we have to change the topic.

So vent all you want.

Thx, Jennifer.

I remember making a very firm promise to myself to not talk about any topic of substance with my mother ever again b/c it only ever seemed to lead to frustration (and, when I was younger, sometimes grounding!) ANd lately I've been trying to have more mature conversations with her.

I after reading your post, though,... well... this is exactly what I foresaw then, foresee now, and... anyway. I'll probably avoid real conversation with her for a few months. I'll try the "at her level" stuff.

[rivercrow]

Originally Posted by Usehername

Thx--I'll try that "knowing smile" next time.

It'll add to your "mysteriousness" quotient, which is always useful. When you get into the working world/grad school (or hit 30, whichever is more terrifying), learning to not rise to bait is useful.

You'd think, though, that one could follow well laid-out logic. Apparently not.

Nope. You have a mess of barriers beyond just logic.

First, she's your mom. That trumps most arguments, until you've "proven yourself as an adult," whatever that means for her.

Second, she's older than you. There's a "Wet behind the ears" switch that gets flipped at a certain point--I had it happen when I went back to grad school. I was 10-18 years older than most of my fellow students and kept getting the old-fogey feeling about all these kids who were "wet behind their ears." I was painfully aware of it, tho, so I managed to kill it off so I could listen. I think for SJs, this is much harder to do.

Third, if she does have a Feeling preference, then you'll have to learn to speak in values, not principles, in order to convince her. You can learn to do this--we all have to learn to some extent--but even then you'll have to deal with barriers One and Two.

And finally, you'll have to communicate in S, not N. Again--can be done, but you still have barriers One and Two.

Yeah--I do think barriers One and Two are the biggest. Especially One. Yup.


Edit: BTW, I'm married to an ISFJ and my mom is prolly ESFJ.

[Jennifer]

Originally Posted by rivercrow

Most of my friends have gallows humor, regardless of Type. I worked as an obituary writer for a while and learned that half the morticians have a similar sense of humor. (The other half are really stuffy.) My IxTx cousin, who is a mortician, is one of the good kind, so we have a ball when we meet, which isn't often.

I saw a "Captured" (on video) show last night on MSNBC, where they walked through the days of four LA County coroner investigators... so they filmed each as they went to a site to investigate and process a dead body. Two were suicide gunshot wounds to the head; one was a woman who got hit at night on the highway; and one was an old man who killed himself by throwing himself under a bus.

The first investigator was a pixie-ish 28-year-old blonde -- not sure of her type, I think she was ISTx, probably P if I had to pick -- but the deadpan jokes were just flying as they examined this dead body, had to drag it out of the boat it was found in, and then she literally had to put the face back together so that they could take an ID picture. (She actually said, "Let's see if I can get the eyeballs back here to about where I think they would have been" -- it was so funny, because it was so horrible and said so casually. And then she had to literally "hold the face together" with her hands while the photographer snapped the pictures.)

There was no disrespect, it was all just standard banter, but they did have to simply joke about things and keep the tone casual... or the situation would have become too horrible to endure, I suppose. She said she could distance herself from it. The joking is part of that.

[Uberfuhrer]

To be perfectly honest -- and I don't do it very often (other than with family members) -- I'm probably more likely to lash out at an xSFJ type more than any other type. I just don't like when people express their concern for me.

[Metamorphosis]

Originally Posted by Uberfuhrer

To be perfectly honest -- and I don't do it very often (other than with family members) -- I'm probably more likely to lash out at an xSFJ type more than any other type. I just don't like when people express their concern for me.

Indeed. Particularly when it involves me doing something unnecessary to preserve my safety/well being, which I am perfectly capable of doing on my own.

Although, it probably wouldn't be the type that I would most likely lash out at. In my experience, that has been ENTJ. However, the fact that most ISFJs fold out before escalating an argument with me helps.

[Uberfuhrer]

Originally Posted by Jennifer

I saw a "Captured" (on video) show last night on MSNBC, where they walked through the days of four LA County coroner investigators... so they filmed each as they went to a site to investigate and process a dead body. Two were suicide gunshot wounds to the head; one was a woman who got hit at night on the highway; and one was an old man who killed himself by throwing himself under a bus.

The first investigator was a pixie-ish 28-year-old blonde -- not sure of her type, I think she was ISTx, probably P if I had to pick -- but the deadpan jokes were just flying as they examined this dead body, had to drag it out of the boat it was found in, and then she literally had to put the face back together so that they could take an ID picture. (She actually said, "Let's see if I can get the eyeballs back here to about where I think they would have been" -- it was so funny, because it was so horrible and said so casually. And then she had to literally "hold the face together" with her hands while the photographer snapped the pictures.)

There was no disrespect, it was all just standard banter, but they did have to simply joke about things and keep the tone casual... or the situation would have become too horrible to endure, I suppose. She said she could distance herself from it. The joking is part of that.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't have gotten that. I'm always looking for puns and stuff -- like the stuff in James Bond movies.