Myers Briggade

Back on the home front, my friends and I had somewhat of a weekend ritual of sitting on what we called "the bench." It was, as you might imagine, a bench. It was downtown on Idaho St., and we would go there as spectators in a phenomenon common to downtowns nationwide called the cruise. This was a time and place where teenagers would drive around in circles waiting for something to happen, although I was never sure what. Instead of driving around, we sat on the bench, ate pizza and drank Dr. Pepper. Good times, fond memories, etc.

At one point, we thought we could make good (better) use of our hours spent on the bench by finding me a date to homecoming. You see, I was a rare breed of social outcast, one who thought he was better than everyone else, yet was petrified of the world outside of his basement or beyond the sound-proofed walls of the band room. As such, I did not go to many school dances because I said I was too good for everyone but actually because I was scared of everyone. Anyways, we actually Kinkoed ourselves some flyers to hand out on the cruise which consisted of a brief checklist that would qualify or disqualify my would-be dates.

I will not go into too much detail, but generally things like "Are you an heiress to a thrown" and "Do your friends describe you as 'easy'" (there was much dispute as to whether this was a qualifier or a disqualifier). One of the questions that to this day I consider to be most brilliant was this: "Do you take offense to fat jokes?" Although it gets the point across, it does so with the utmost diplomacy. It is a question to which no one can take offense, but that everyone has to answer honsetly. That was the idea at least.

The reason I mention this is because I took the Meyers-Briggs exam today and I found a lot of the questions to be along the same lines as "Do you take offense to fat jokes?" Now, I don't know the results (I will find out tomorrow morning), but here's what I understand so far. You don't want to be an overly emotional, paranoid loner who can't mind his own business. However, the questions in the exam try to ask you exactly this as subtely as possible.

• "So, ummm, do you have a lot of friends?" (Are you a complete loser?)
• "And do you generally trust those around you?" (Are you paranoid of everything in life?) "
• "Do you frequently give others advice?" (Are you a nosy busybody?)
• "Okay then, do you eat brownie batter and watch SpongeBob Squarepants late at night on Nickelodeon?" (Are you an absolute emotional wreck?)

In the end, I think that it just tells you if anyone will like you. Any bets how my test results will be?