Hanging Out All Day

I didn’t plan on spending all day with Warner. After all, that’s not something middle-aged men are supposed to do, hang out all day; we have responsibilities.

He has been perfecting vegan congee, he said, so I should come try it out. He is not Chinese, so if you are a congee-Nazi, you might think, “That doesn’t look like congee,” but it was damn good. Call it what you want.

By the way, he made that bowl too. He is quite anal about what he makes.

I’m INTJ on the Myers–Briggs personality test, and I was pretty sure he is too. Sure enough, he told me he got INTJ too. It’s one of the rare types, only about 2% of the population. We both had a laugh reading the description because it’s spot on. It’s almost embarrassing; I wondered if I’m that predictable. This one in particular: “They’d rather be right than popular. This may explain why so many fictional villains are modeled on this personality type.”

Most people, when they are debating, would let contradictions slide if it’s not worth hurting the feelings of the other person. This is particularly true if the person is their boss, client, or woman. Not me or Warner. It’s not that we are blind to their feelings. We know what the emotional impact would be; we just think it’s more important to resolve contradictions and get to the bottom of it. So, imagine what would happen when the two of us argue. It can go on for hours or even days. It turns into a competition of who can put our feelings aside better, no matter how insulting, humiliating, or irritating it might get. It’s like we are testing how strong our allegiance is to reason.

After congee, we went to check out the Japanese bakery nearby in Williamsburg. We both homed in on the mont blanc. He said he wasn’t sure if he could eat the whole thing. I said I could eat three of them. So, we went ahead and bought two. After dessert, we went back to his apartment and sipped on beer and wine on his balcony with an unobstructed view of downtown Brooklyn.

It’s not that we don’t respect feelings; we just don’t like our emotions obstructing the view of who we truly are. In the end, INTJs are humans too; what we find behind these feelings are just deeper feelings.