• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Trying to identify this person's "type".

imagica

New member
Joined
May 5, 2013
Messages
3
MBTI Type
INFP
Ahead of time, please excuse any grammar errors, strange wordings, and typos. Its late and my mind is all over the place today. I'm sure it's still readable ;)

So, I'm a writer who's been at a bit of a block for some times so I'm just doing various exercises right now until I get back to where I want to be. I'm creating characters that I can perhaps use in whatever story I write but for now it's to get the juices flowing. When I make a character profile for a character I usually describe their appearance fully, assign an MBTI type to them, have them answer interview questions, have diary entries, give them histories, etc.

Well, I wanted to make a character that I base off of my coworker because he's such an archetype but he has the potential to make a complex and interesting character. I don't know him THAT well personally enough to do the test from his POV or anything, but a lot of you seem to be really good at identifying types so maybe you can help me out?

For the rest of this I will just refer to him as "Creepy" because that's been my nickname for him at work, haha. It will make sense in a moment. When he first started working at the restaurant I work at (he's a busser), a lot of the girls there thought he was VERY cute. Kinda handsome. But as time went on, interest in him kind of dwindled to say the least. First off, he was very quiet. He got the job because he was friends with a few of the guys who work there too, but he's nothing like them from what I can tell. They're all just very stereotypical frat boy types. When he's around these guys he does have a tendency to get a little loud and engage in petty banter like them, but for the most part he's kind of quiet. We kind of noticed he made a few kind of dumb mistakes with his work, like misjudging how many plates will fit in a rack and then having them all fall over and break, forgetting important things like leaving silverware in the dishwasher so we don't have any new silverware to use. He also said a few kind of dumb things like he didn't realize that Christmas was celebrated outside of the US and that honey came from bees.

Then, the girls I work with decide to try to see if they can get some words out of him and one asks if he wanted to hang out with everyone after work one day and his response was "If you hung out with me, you'd be roofied." He then became known for being rather quiet but when he did talk, he said some really creepy/disgusting/ weird stuff, haha. He would occasionally tell stories about getting wasted and waking up covered in blood that wasn't his, or casually crack a really vulgar sexual joke in the most inappropriate situations. He often does this in a very dry and deadpan way. He seems to lack any kind of social filter at all because he will say these things with supervisors around. It hasn't gotten him into trouble or anything because they've kind of just accepted that that is who he is I guess. I always thought it was kind of hilarious to be honest, but some of my coworkers besides the ones that really know him are afraid to be around him because they joke that he's going to be the guy that comes to work with a gun or he'll be the next Ted Bundy or something. I've gathered from both his friends and my own experience (I tend to have dark humor as well, just more of a social filter) that this is just his humor. He kind of goes out of his way to make people feel uncomfortable, I'm not sure why. Other aspects of his humor are the occasional random pun (I asked for help with rolling silverware and his response is "I don't know how. They never taught me. I wasn't enrolled."), being kind of loud and silly, and shock value.

Well, then one day I was at work, helping in the back, having my first real conversation with him and come to find out he's actually an incredibly sweet guy. Not very intelligent, I'll be honest, when it comes to common sense, but like when it comes to relationships and things, he cracked out an occasional gem of wisdom. Then out of nowhere in the conversation he mentions that his friend killed himself the day before. And how he now occasionally has suicidal thoughts. After that, he'd occasionally joke about killing himself. He did end up attempting suicide, apparently. His friend told me that I wasn't really supposed to know, but I guess he stabbed himself in the gut. Which is a totally horrific and ridiculous way to do it. He's fine now and since then he's been even quieter and more serious. He doesn't seem to try to get attention with shock value as much. He doesn't joke about suicide anymore. He's a lot kinder, but he's still very depressed because his suicide attempt eliminated his ability to join the Air Force, which is what I guess he wanted to do. I did mention he wasn't too smart but when it came to talking about flight, mechanics, and things like that, he seemed to know what he was talking about.

Since this has gone on a while I guess I'll just list a few things that might be important.
  • While being fairly quiet around most people, when he finds a girl attractive, I notice he is very flirty, asks the girl a lot of questions about herself and seems genuinely interested in what she has to say. He'll engage in flirty and playful banter with her and call her "sweetheart" or whatever.
  • Speaking of women, whenever he checks out a girl at work or when I've met his gfs or whatever, they tend to be rather fake looking but still beautiful. He has an apparent "type".
  • He does not at all engage in small talk ever.
  • He's quick to notice when people make small friendly gestures toward him and will acknowledge it not with a thank you or anything, but a "sweet!" and a nod.
  • His four moods tend to be a) flirty b)loud, silly, inappropriate, and random c) sarcastic d) deep, sensitive, and introspective
  • His friends describe him as literally the best friend anyone could ever have. Apparently very loyal.
  • They also describe him as rather hilarious to be around at parties when he's intoxicated.
  • Even his closest friends acknowledge there are a few screws loose upstairs, but still, like I said, he's a really great friend.
  • Kind of gets his feelings hurt if people point out the fact that he is in fact weird or creepy, but frequently refers to himself as such.
  • Seems to always be listening to people's conversations.
  • While kicking back after work we were playing Scrabble oddly enough and he was surprisingly good at it and seemed more into it than anyone else.
  • Can have a child like fascination with things like when we were playing Scrabble; when cleaning a table he saw that someone drew a detailed picture on a napkin and he was strangely really entranced by it. Another time at break when he finished eating he took a bottle of honey and drizzled patterns all over his food tray, all the while looking like he's having the time of his life.
  • Even though he has a reputation of being weird and everything he still is full of surprises.


Sorry this is incredibly TL;DR, but I just really want to know what his type is. I tend to be really fascinated by people and notice their quirks and people like him excite me when it comes to writing characters. Gotta love weird people. But hey if any of you can help me out, that'd be awesome. I'm just dying to know.
 

Thalassa

Permabanned
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx
I can't believe you don't realize how intelligent he is. I doubt he was serious about not knowing that honey came from bees or thinking that people outside of the U.S. don't celebrate Christmas; what tipped me off to this is you also explaining he says in a dry, deadpan way that he wakes up covered in other people's blood and will roofie girls who hang out with him. Well that and he's good at scrabble and makes puns about the silverware.

I also wonder why you an INFP would find this person so strange.

I think he may be an IxxP of some kind, from what you're describing with his interaction style.
 

imagica

New member
Joined
May 5, 2013
Messages
3
MBTI Type
INFP
Well, I mean if you talk to him, he also seems to have trouble with nuance and reading between the lines a bit, and with the honey coming from bees thing, I could read genuine confusion, but that's besides the point. There are different areas of intelligence.

And I do find him strange. I'm strange. I think a lot of people are strange in their own way. I also find him and "strange" people interesting and fun and I tend to be able to get along with them better. We get along at work rather well. I don't find "strange" to be a bad thing ever. I know a lot of people at work who aren't his friend view him as strange and in a bad way. I don't.

I've done some thinking about this and ISFP sounds about right. I know he's definitely an ISxx. He's clearly introverted and picks up on small details of things. I think F because he can be very sensitive and kind. I also just get more of a "P" from him as well.

:shrug:
 

Thalassa

Permabanned
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx
Well, I mean if you talk to him, he also seems to have trouble with nuance and reading between the lines a bit, and with the honey coming from bees thing, I could read genuine confusion, but that's besides the point. There are different areas of intelligence.

And I do find him strange. I'm strange. I think a lot of people are strange in their own way. I also find him and "strange" people interesting and fun and I tend to be able to get along with them better. We get along at work rather well. I don't find "strange" to be a bad thing ever. I know a lot of people at work who aren't his friend view him as strange and in a bad way. I don't.

I've done some thinking about this and ISFP sounds about right. I know he's definitely an ISxx. He's clearly introverted and picks up on small details of things. I think F because he can be very sensitive and kind. I also just get more of a "P" from him as well.

:shrug:

What kind of nuances? I mean to me it sounds like he purposefully is being "creepy" so I doubt he doesn't know any better, it's more like he enjoys it. Also, doing things like overfilling the dishwasher or not bringing silverware is just lazy, irresponsible, IDGAF kind of stuff...both of the things you've described I've seen in lots of young men. It doesn't scream "dumb" or "serial killer" to me.

I don't know why you're so surprised he was good at Scrabble if he does things like makes puns about the silverware. I don't think he's dumb.

Even if what you said is true, that he really didn't know honey came from bees, it's possible that he's ignorant, not stupid. What's his family background? Did he come from a home where he wasn't pushed to learn any kinds of facts from books, or from neglectful parents who didn't teach him these kinds of things?

ISFP or ISTP may be right for him, but I think ISFP is probably more likely. Some of his traits seem almost INFP-like, and I was trying to hint that to you.

Childlike enjoyment of random drawings on napkins and drawing pictures with honey? I mean I could even see a very young ENFP doing that, and also being dumb about "common sense stuff."

Of course I don't know what he's like in person, but he certainly does not sound "slow."

There's a difference between ignorant and unintelligent. This guy sounds intelligent, but hey if he didn't know that people outside the U.S. celebrated Christmas, he may be very poorly educated.
 
Top