J is for Judgey

It’s been 4 days since I have left the house, and I am….restless. Maybe I am more extroverted than the MBTI test said I was:

After my last blog post I started to compile a list of my friends by MBTI, and it’s been super interesting to analyze the results (sample size ~40, see chart A below). Although the friend list isn’t comprehensive by any means (if I don’t have your MBTI feel free to reach out), the data is essentially confirming what I already said: opposites attract, except for the whole J/P thing.

To be precise, the data suggests that I have a slight preference for E’s and F’s, versus a much stronger preference for N’s (E/N/F are all opposite traits of what I expressed preference for).

What’s also interesting is that I have a stronger preference for N’s than I do even for J’s…probably because in recent years I’ve befriended cool P’s who are on-time and can commit to things. (As a side note, it does appear that P’s tend to be cooler people in general.)

In addition, I also wonder how much of my being a J has to do with the fact that I’m super judgey. (To be clear, though, that’s not what the Judging trait indicates in the MBTI.)

“Why do you think I’m judgey?” I asked my roommate Cory last week, after multiple people asked me how Lent was going (I had declared on Facebook that I was giving up being judgey over Lent).

“It’s your personality,” Cory started. Ugh, I don’t like where this was going…

“ISTJs are known to be judgey. Well, ESTJs really since they tend to be more vocal, whereas introverts keep their opinions to themselves, but obviously you don’t do that. Plus you’ve made it part of your persona, and it works for you.”

It didn’t feel right to classify an entire MBTI type as being judgey, but the rest of what Cory said sounded accurate: I don’t keep my opinions to myself, and among other things I describe myself as a “judgmental friend” on my Facebook profile.

Since Lent started I’ve been reflecting on what it means to be judgey as well as how I am judgey:

• Is it different than being opinionated?
• What category of things am I more judgey on versus others?
• Is it ever okay to be judgey?
• Why am I so judgey?

To answer the last question — I think this has to do with my general philosophy in life: yolo. Life is short, and you have to make the most of it. What I mean is — it took a long time for me to become my authentic self and develop my own opinions, and I enjoy sharing those opinions with others. In so doing, my hope is that other people will be authentic with me, no matter how different their opinions are. My ultimate motivation is to learn more about the people in my life.

I do recognize, though, that sometimes my strong opinions can turn other people off because I come off as judgey. That was why I decided to give up being judgey this Lent, because in general I don’t want friends to feel judged when they tell me something I totally disagree with. While I don’t think I can ever not laugh if a friend tells me they like boneless chicken wings, I think I can at least try to be as neutral and straight faced as possible for everything else.