This is Hi-Fi

Learning about personality types via mechanisms like Myers-Brigg is pretty interesting and downright fun.

(EDIT 02/28/2005: Just went back and apparently the Keirsey Temperament Sorter isn't free anymore. No biggie, just google for Myers-Brigg and I'm sure you can find a free test somewhere).

Going on a ski trip for about 5 days with a single person can be pretty taxing unless you really know someone very well. I certainly know that I can be a pain in the butt about some things. In this case, we know a lot of little facts here and there about each other. However, we're not exactly best friends and on the grand scale of things, we're relatively new friends. When you know someone really well, you have no trouble reading all of their signals. When you don't know them that well and you misread some signals, things can get kinda dicey. This morning was a case in point. JB was clearly in a fairly crabby mood, that may have been reasonable, given the circumstances. We spent most of lunch barely acknowledging each others' existence. I could tell she was not super cheery, and I tried to cheer her up, but it was failing miserably.

I know enough about her, to know that on the Introvert/Extrovert scale she is pretty far to the I side. Should I have known better than to try and engage in any conversation, at all? I don't know. It's always hard to tell. I'm not a person that tries to fix everything or everyone's problems. However I generally like to think that if it's in my power to try to cheer someone up, I do so. A small part of it is them, but to a large extent it's me. For one, it makes me feel good to be who I am. I also like to think that I'm not a completely insensitive prick that is oblivious to my surroundings. Most importantly, if this is someone that I'm going to spend 90% of a 120+ hour continuous period, having a stormcloud around isn't going to make my world any better. I know one thing though, after being snapped at a couple times, I knew I needed to just walk away and leave her with some alone time. It's hard to be introspective enough to say "I need to be alone, right now" or "I need to be around other people, right now". I guess I can't fault her for not doing that.

I sometimes get mislabelled as being placating, when it's really just that I have a personal stake in the outcome that might be non-obvious. I guess I don't want to go back to shutting people out of my life when it's convenient to me. I know that was a major issue with one of my past friendships/relationships. I like to think that this is part of becoming a better person, and not necessarily a different person.

Today, I knew enough to eventually just walk away...