understanding being the peacemaker with an investigator's soul

the shift from intp, and what is means to have the language from personality assessment for how you've always been

so it started at a shake shack in japan.

i was studying abroad my last semester of college. it was like last october and i was with two friends i had made who were both the kind of people who take up rooms the moment they walk into them. they’re obviously confident, direct, fast-moving, zero patience for ambiguity. we were eating and talking and somehow we ended up down the rabbit hole of personality tests, pulling them up on our phones right then and there over burgers and milkshakes in tokyo.

they came out as entp and entj. both eights on the enneagram with one being an 8w7, one an 8w4. which made sense. these were twenty year olds who knew what they wanted and moved toward it without apology and probably looked at me like i was operating at a frequency they couldn’t relate to but appreciated.

i came out infj. and 9w5 on the enneagram.

i had taken the myers-briggs before when i was in high school, gotten intp, and left it at that. and i’ve never taken the enneagram but they brought it up to me and i wanted to try it. and sitting there in japan, reading through the infj description for the first time, something happened that i was not prepared for: i felt recognized. not in the way personality tests usually feel validating like the vague flattery that applies to almost anyone who likes thinking about themselves. this felt specific. this felt like someone had been watching me and written it down.

i want to tell you what i found.