INTP CENTRAL

I may be 2 months behind on my rent and have recently relapsed on crack cocaine, but at least I still have best noob of 2010 going for me, which is nice.

I was too sensitive for INTP Central i joined right before this forum came into fruition, but ended up finding my home here.
I like my cardboard box here and if you knock it over I will kick your ass.

Does .999…=1?
Classic

Happy Birthday month, INPTc (only because I cannot remember the exact day). This would have been your 20th anniversary; however, you didn't quite make it that far. But I remember you well. And with fondness.

If you were still alive, you would be happy to know that your sister still survives. And to be quite honest, she's a much better person than you. So maybe it's all for the best.

I never quite fit in there (except for at the very beginning with the IRC crowd for a short time). Some of it was my fault, too. I had anger issues, and I also didn't really grasp how the forum was in blocs (roughly political), and came off as a fence sitter, which many people hated.

Julius_Van_Der_Beak said:

I never quite fit in there (except for at the very beginning with the IRC crowd for a short time). Some of it was my fault, too. I had anger issues, and I also didn't really grasp how the forum was in blocs (roughly political), and came off as a fence sitter, which many people hated.

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I've always found you to be more of a telephone line percher than a fence sitter.

Julius_Van_Der_Beak said:

I never quite fit in there (except for at the very beginning with the IRC crowd for a short time). Some of it was my fault, too. I had anger issues, and I also didn't really grasp how the forum was in blocs (roughly political), and came off as a fence sitter, which many people hated.

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Well, do INTPs ever "fit in." Even amongst other INTPs, I don't think so. And I can assure you that the vast majorority of folks on INTPc were fence-sitters. Again, just the nature of an INTP even on a mostly anonymous internet forum. I also suspect we all had anger issues 20 years ago. I mean, I didn't, but most folks on that forum seemed to.

I guess what I am really saying is that you fit right in. Never let the most vocal people in any room be representative of the norm because they are not.

What was your username there? I don't recognize it (which I suppose is your point).

Haight said:

Well, do INTPs ever "fit in." Even amongst other INTPs, I don't think so. And I can assure you that the vast majorority of folks on INTPc were fence-sitters. Again, just the nature of an INTP even on a mostly anonymous internet forum. I also suspect we all had anger issues 20 years ago. I mean, I didn't, but most folks on that forum seemed to.

I guess what I am really saying is that you fit right in. Never let the most vocal people in any room be representative of the norm because they are not.

What was your username there? I don't recognize it (which I suppose is your point).

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Socks. INTP's would do very well at an interesting socks convention. Real connections would be made. Friendships forged and rivalries born. It would be at least as good as Game of Thrones. Especially if Matt Berry shows up.

I have to disagree. When I started this forum, I had numerous socks. There were times when I would go for days just talking to myself and replying favorably to my own threads. It was basically just Ivy, me, and all my socks. But maybe you're right. Some of the socks were friends and other were definitely enemies.

Something to ponder, I suppose.

Haight said:

Well, do INTPs ever "fit in." Even amongst other INTPs, I don't think so. And I can assure you that the vast majorority of folks on INTPc were fence-sitters. Again, just the nature of an INTP even on a mostly anonymous internet forum. I also suspect we all had anger issues 20 years ago. I mean, I didn't, but most folks on that forum seemed to.

I guess what I am really saying is that you fit right in. Never let the most vocal people in any room be representative of the norm because they are not.

What was your username there? I don't recognize it (which I suppose is your point).

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msg/ msg_v2/ SlabBulkhead

Julius_Van_Der_Beak said:

msg/ msg_v2/ SlabBulkhead

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Yeah, I remember you as msg / msg_v2 I think.

--

I started at INTPc and it was important to me at the time. I was coming from a very repressed life (surrounded by traditional and religious people) and felt smothered. I had huge imposter syndrome for a variety of reasons, enough to make that one post I did that caused such a big splash over there. It was the first time I actually felt like I could just be someone who could freely speak and figure myself out finally. I didn't need to pretend to be someone who fits within the lines in order to be accepted on some level. So it was an extremely helpful place.

I was glad this site could be set up this place to help everyone overall feel better rather than fighting over turf and what the atmosphere should be like.

So I'm kinda winsome about INTPc being gone, although Ptah put in a few years to keep something going. I don't know if that's any better than the INTP forum, which is pretty much not the site it was when I was there (kinda went from meaningful and deeply thoughtful conversation, to now just a random small collection of idiosyncratic members where no one is really engaging what others say and you can't really have a real conversation). Maybe it's better to have good memories than watch a dying corpse gasping for air.

And on that sordid note....

Haight said:

Happy Birthday month, INPTc (only because I cannot remember the exact day). This would have been your 20th anniversary; however, you didn't quite make it that far. But I remember you well. And with fondness.

If you were still alive, you would be happy to know that your sister still survives. And to be quite honest, she's a much better person than you. So maybe it's all for the best.

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Lies and slander! INTPc was always better than this place (of course, I mean for INTPs, not the rest of you riff raff). I can see how non-INTPs would find this place a better fit.

INTP went down for the same reason this place has faded, a general trend to move away from long post discussion forums. INTPc had a smaller base than this one (naturally, being primarily an INTP specific forum). Eventually the active poster base faded to a point that interest could not be sustained. The trend here is in the same direction alas.

The Cat said:

Socks. INTP's would do very well at an interesting socks convention. Real connections would be made. Friendships forged and rivalries born. It would be at least as good as Game of Thrones. Especially if Matt Berry shows up.

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https://www.tiktok.com/video/7329634550810676522
Yes I totally see Laszlo at a sock convention.

ceecee said:

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7329634550810676522
Yes I totally see Laszlo at a sock convention.

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If not him, then surely Jackie Daytona.

Totenkindly said:

Yeah, I remember you as msg / msg_v2 I think.

--

I started at INTPc and it was important to me at the time. I was coming from a very repressed life (surrounded by traditional and religious people) and felt smothered. I had huge imposter syndrome for a variety of reasons, enough to make that one post I did that caused such a big splash over there. It was the first time I actually felt like I could just be someone who could freely speak and figure myself out finally. I didn't need to pretend to be someone who fits within the lines in order to be accepted on some level. So it was an extremely helpful place.

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I remember when you were Jennifer. You're background seemed very different from me, but you were intriguing. I could see you questioning things, and you seemed like a decent person, unlike my usual impressions of evangelicals.

I joined INTPcentral towards the end of my junior year in college. In one of my first posts, I got into a fight, with a prominent member (but probably a decent person), no less. Because I didn't know how to handle it properly, it may have caused many problems for me throughout the years. If I'd had better insight into people at the time, I would know that you tread delicately in threads where people rant about their relationship. I'd found the IRC crowd, however, and hung out with them there over the summer, and that was enjoyable, except for one guy was an asshole towards me because I talked to his girlfriend, too much. I'd befriended her in the spring, and she had told me I "didn't know how cute I was." (I figured out the probable reason the boyfriend hated me so much later.

The senior year of college was especially rough. External circumstances were difficult, I did not get along with my roommates, as was usually the case with roommates, and they made things especially uncomfortable for me. I had also made the excellent decision to stop taking anti-depressants (which I continued for much of my twenties, which coincides with my time on INTPc). I screwed things up with the friend, because I wanted her to be more than a friend, and said something kind of shitty, and things were never the same between us, unfortunately. I regret that. It's never good when you say or do something that ruins a friendship forever, no matter the gender.

It's hard to know how much of my experiences were because I have a knack for screwing things up, and how much is people being dicks. But, I think a lot of the responsibility for the way things started was on me, at least in hindsight. I'm not sure to what extent a lack of understanding.

The only thing I'm going to say about the end of my time there is that I still didn't feel I deserved my six-month ban because there were two or three members who seemed to act maliciously by pushing the right buttons until I exploded. But, it seems to me like I would have been welcomed back at the end of the six month ban. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a great state of mind at the time, and felt as though I had to pick one forum or the other (and preferred TypoC). I was also angry at some of the recent political stances much of the forum had taken, especially because some people had made so much hay out of my political stances; this was much worse, to my mind. So, I essentially gave them the finger, and I don't blame them for permabanning me after that.

There are certainly members who I would love to speak to more, though. Even most of the people I clashed with I could let things slide, even if that extends to the pandemic discord (which is a whole other saga really).

Totenkindly said:

I was glad this site could be set up this place to help everyone overall feel better rather than fighting over turf and what the atmosphere should be like.

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What I like about this place is the people I've met, and that's why I've stayed here. I've learned some valuable new perspectives. I'll add that, including the Discord, this place often has a really cool hang-out vibe to it, and that's what I'm looking for.

The nostalgia I have centers mostly on this place, my first year at INTPc, and some of the INTPx pandemic discord. I liked the first year or two at INTPx, too. I felt that was relatively united as a community; later things became much more acrimonious, but I won't get into that.

I like intellectual stimulation. Politics can be interesting and worth discussing, too. But, I don't like feeling like I have to avoid stepping on eggshells and I actually don't feel that way here. They don't care about eggshells here, they care about people being dicks. A more common sense view often prevails.

I don't really care whether I'm secretly some kind of NF or not, either. I would not shock me to my core to learn I am an NF girly man, forcing me to commit suicide like in that one episode of Westworld.

I do me.

In summary:

SensEye said:

Lies and slander! INTPc was always better than this place (of course, I mean for INTPs, not the rest of you riff raff). I can see how non-INTPs would find this place a better fit.

INTP went down for the same reason this place has faded, a general trend to move away from long post discussion forums. INTPc had a smaller base than this one (naturally, being primarily an INTP specific forum). Eventually the active poster base faded to a point that interest could not be sustained. The trend here is in the same direction alas.

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Well, I guess all of us don't outgrow the angry stage or "youth angst," as it were. Oh well, so much for that theory . . .

I had a theory, mostly based humans being change averse, that most people arrive at the sites based on learning about MBTI and wanting to learn more about themselves. Once they completed that phase, they either stayed because they enjoyed the camaraderie and the relationships they had forged, or they gained what they sought and left. The ones that stayed did so based on the reality of being a rare personality type in terms of percentage of total population and that the people they befriended were staying around as well. So, when you, me, and all the others arrived on the forums we found people just like us. Many of them. Like the family, or real-life friends, we wished we had.

Unfortunately, things change. People change. Real life happens. And people move on. At that point, the family we found tends to splinter over time. We want that feelings of oneness that we had when we arrived to last forever. But it doesn't. Nothing ever does. At that point there is denial, exiting or anger, and then acceptance. Those that reach acceptance tend to stay longer.

The interesting part, however, is people are in various stages of these phase all the time. Since, of course, you generally don't have the same people that arrived at a point in time leave at the same time in the future. So most people are going through this. However, the OGs at INTPc didn't have that issue. Why? Because there were around 20 people that were there from the beginning that simply stayed for a long time. So, if you are there at the outset, you have a better chance of not realizing this eventuality. Especially if you don't care about anyone else that has come and gone because you are content with that OG family.

Maybe that's interesting, or maybe it's just me. Probably just me.

Haight said:

Happy Birthday month, INPTc (only because I cannot remember the exact day). This would have been your 20th anniversary; however, you didn't quite make it that far. But I remember you well. And with fondness.

If you were still alive, you would be happy to know that your sister still survives. And to be quite honest, she's a much better person than you. So maybe it's all for the best.

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Would it though? Considering how much contempt the membership of INTPc had for this place and what it represented in contrast to INTPc's burning desire to maintain some sense of internet pseudo-science typing purity, I'd beg to differ.

Just as an example, the only reason I ever ended up here was because I sought to see for myself what it was the reason everyone over there complained about this forum, only to discover this was overall a better fit for me.

INTC's demise was largely its own undoing -- remember that whole cringeworthy "witch trials" deal where everyone who wasn't a self-identified INTP, or wasn't deemed sufficiently INTP but the forum's inner circle was ceremoniously banned in a very public fashion? Let us not even point out the inherent irony of a bunch of self-identified and self-described social outcasts seeking to implement the same tools often used against them essentially place those not INTP enough in some kind of "other" status. The irony is that most of the people who partook in that charade weren't even true INTPs themselves.

That whole ordeal served as an inflection point for the forum, which slowly hemorrhaged membership and activity beyond that point. The attempt to create a INTP safespace was the catalyst for the forum's own undoing.

I believe it would, yes. It was good at heart, but not necessarily at practice.

The demise of INTPc was definitely its own doing. I wrote about that recently somewhere around here. In short, it had an "expiration date," so I helped facilitate that.