S vs N

[pardo]

I can't decide if I'm S or N.

In online tests I get INTJ, INTP, ISTJ or ISTP.
I ruled out the J because of the descriptions: my lifestyle, history and behaviour preference scream "P".

But I don't really understand the difference between S and N and I don't really understand the questions related to it. I can't associate myself with neither.

Previously I thought I was INTP because it's a profile commonly associated with nerds. But now I'm not so nerdy as I used to be (at least in mindset), AND I think I understood that an ISTP can easily be a computer and videogame addict like me. I had serious shyness problems during all my adolescence so I think my reclusive life might have evolved the Sensing preference in uncommon ways (like being a computer wiz but sucking at sports and general "action" because the shyness prevented me from doing stuff outside).

Anyway, I can't evaluate properly because I really want to be ISTP. It's my favourite profile overall. I don't want to think of myself as a perpetual social misfit like the INTPs.

[rhinosaur]

Welcome to the club.

I thought I was INTP at first, too, but then I read the following type description:
ISTP - Introverted Thinking with Sensing (http://www.murraystate.edu/secsv/fye/ISTP.htm)

In addition, interacting with other ISTPs feels much more natural, and it always seems like we have a lot more in common than INTPs. Occasionally I still question it, and there is a lot that doesn't fit, but ISTP feels more like me than any other type.

There are several other ISTPs here who originally thought they were N's. Hopefully you'll get a chance to chat with them.

I hope you figure it out.

[pardo]

Some additional considerations...
When I was a child the teachers always told me how intelligent I was. I was the pride of the class because I was so good. But that was in primary school. In high school I sucked completely, because I wasn'interested in studying and memorizing all that stuff. I've always been good at understanding things fast, but not at accumulating the knowledge. Accumulating knowledge for me mostly comes by actually having a concrete need and thus DOING the thing whatever it is. In university I did decently only because it was my beloved technical field, computer science.
Having been told so many times how "intelligent" I am by the teachers in primary school, I somehow automatically believed that I had to be good in sciences. And my pathological shyness has engrained in me the idea that I had to be an intellectual type of person, because I was so bad with people and couldn't do anything outside for fear of being seen and laughed at. So I embraced the INTP stereotype when I discovered MBTI, even if I felt a little inferior as an INTP exactly because I wasn't so purely knowledge-oriented as a true INTP "should" be. I know many things of an intellectual nature, but now it seems to me that they are all things that I learned because either I needed to, or because they replaced other "wordly" activities that maybe I would have done without the damn shyness issue.
An INTP is supposed to want an intelleectual job, but I don't. I changed enough jobs to know for sure that I CAN'T live behind a desk ruminating all day. I want to move, to be around people, in a big environment were I get to put my hands on different things in many different places. The more I learn about myself in the real world, the more I notice that my "intellectual" side resides only in my own hobbies, while as a general rule of behaviour I'm not intellectual at all, I'm just fast at grasping facts and putting things together and I need less explanations than most people, but that's all there is to my supposed great NT mind, I'm not creative nor I can't foresee the future or think strategically.

[Randomnity]

With those test results alone, I'd say ISTP (or second choice INTJ). I could have written most of what you did. Looking at the descriptions helped me realize that I was ISTP and not INTP (or INTJ, etc).

this is my favourite: ISTP - Introverted Thinking with Sensing (http://www.murraystate.edu/secsv/fye/istp.htm)

[Edahn]

You sound like a classic O to me.

[rhinosaur]

this is my favourite: ISTP - Introverted Thinking with Sensing (http://www.murraystate.edu/secsv/fye/istp.htm)

Hey, that's the same one I posted.

[pardo]

I thought I was INTP at first, too, but then I read the following type description:
ISTP - Introverted Thinking with Sensing (http://www.murraystate.edu/secsv/fye/ISTP.htm)

YES, that profile is practically ME. 100% every phrase verified.
The only word that doesn't apply is "good at sports", but I would have been if I wasn't clinically shy. Still, I'm a good swimmer and was a decent runner before I moved to this gas-chamber city centre but I'm restarting as soon as I move out in the suburbs.
ISTP..... but I must keep investigating.

[Jeffster]

Some additional considerations...
When I was a child the teachers always told me how intelligent I was. I was the pride of the class because I was so good. But that was in primary school. In high school I sucked completely, because I wasn'interested in studying and memorizing all that stuff. I've always been good at understanding things fast, but not at accumulating the knowledge. Accumulating knowledge for me mostly comes by actually having a concrete need and thus DOING the thing whatever it is. In university I did decently only because it was my beloved technical field, computer science.
Having been told so many times how "intelligent" I am by the teachers in primary school, I somehow automatically believed that I had to be good in sciences. And my pathological shyness has engrained in me the idea that I had to be an intellectual type of person, because I was so bad with people and couldn't do anything outside for fear of being seen and laughed at. So I embraced the INTP stereotype when I discovered MBTI, even if I felt a little inferior as an INTP exactly because I wasn't so purely knowledge-oriented as a true INTP "should" be. I know many things of an intellectual nature, but now it seems to me that they are all things that I learned because either I needed to, or because they replaced other "wordly" activities that maybe I would have done without the damn shyness issue.
An INTP is supposed to want an intelleectual job, but I don't. I changed enough jobs to know for sure that I CAN'T live behind a desk ruminating all day. I want to move, to be around people, in a big environment were I get to put my hands on different things in many different places. The more I learn about myself in the real world, the more I notice that my "intellectual" side resides only in my own hobbies, while as a general rule of behaviour I'm not intellectual at all, I'm just fast at grasping facts and putting things together and I need less explanations than most people, but that's all there is to my supposed great NT mind, I'm not creative nor I can't foresee the future or think strategically.

Yep, you're ISTP. Case closed. The Jeffster has spoken. As a new member of the SP club, here's your members jacket and hat, refreshments are over there, there's a mountain climbing simulator wall over on the left, the arcade is right there, and if you need me, I'll be over in the music center. :woot:

[alicia91]

I could also have written your post.

It was only after investigating this stuff for a while that I concluded that I was ISTP. Before that I thought I was INTJ for a long time, and ISFJ for a short time, but I never really related to the descriptions. Even now, I don't think I'm a typical ISTP since I'm not good at sports (though I like working out at the gym and yoga) nor am I a dare-devil (do amusement parks count?).

I found my type after studying the Keirsey info and knew that I was an SP. Then it took studing the cognitive processes to arrive at ISTP (kept getting ISFP for a while).

I can relate to what you wrote about education and intellect. I am also intelligent (I know that I have an IQ in the Superior range) and also did very well in school - I was on the honor roll through high school, though I struggled to maintain my grades in subject which bored me. I also am a fast learner and don't need a lot of explanations, but unless I'm out there applying it, things have a tendancy to go in one ear and out the other, or I understood it only long enough to do well on the test then poof - 'what the heck was that all about again?' On the other hand with things that interest me, I tend to become an expert on. But nevertheless, I was pushed by my parents to study economics and political science in university (to become a lawyer), but I knew after two years that it just wasn't going to be a good fit for me. So I took some time and decided to get a degree in Interior Design (big switch!!) since I do think I have some creativity and love architecture, art and such. But I've come to the conclusion that I have trouble being creative for other people and prefer to either be creative only for myself or do something more hands on for people. So now I work with realtors doing Home Staging (getting properties ready to be sold). Seems like a good ISTP job, though I struggle with the social and business aspects of it. Sorry to be rambling on so much about myself.

This might be helpful.

ISTP - INTP/INTJ (http://www.bestfittype.com/istp_intpintj.html)

Hey Jeffster, I'm first on the mountain climbing simulator!