[Rather Unusual]

I am consistently and excrutiatingly absent minded. I can contemplate the very deepest and most obscure depths of the universe and people...but come across as a complete fuckwit when it comes to the basic little details of everyday life.

A recent example: I stupidly invested in an unusually designed wristwatch with no numbers that I sometimes have to examine at length in order to deduce the correct time. A random guy on the street asks me for the time. I later come to realise I misread my own watch and informed him it was an hour earlier than it actually was. I probably made him late for wherever he was headed.

It's chronic. I'm always losing random inanimate objects and I also have a tendency to take about ten seconds to realise someone is attempting to converse with me. (Note the word "attempting")

The problem is most likely my habit of drifting off into another dimension when I'm supposed to be concentrating on something.

Can anyone relate? Inferior Se? A general trait of the iNtuitive? Depression? Undiagnosed brain tumor?

 

[TDMmyriad]

Hah yes, I think you'll find a lot of people who can relate around here A combination of not being too aware of our surroundings (and perhaps not too interested), and being very interested in other thing.

 

[LesleySolitude]

I make silly errors too... orz. An error similar to yours was that I once set my alarm clock to the wrong time I believe inferior Se do play a role here. I also feel we INFJ with Ni dominant will look at the big picture rather than the small details, resulting in the omission of little errors. e.g. My friends can easily find out the errors in subtitles, articles, or in speech. while i'm often the one who need the reminder from the others.

My attention span is a problem too, again inferior Fe + dominant Ni. I often have difficulty in long conversations/ speech, sigh, that makes me look silly XD But I believe it's just because INFJ are too goal/meaning-oriented (due to Ni) and we tend to get detached from anything without much meaning in reality...

 

[OldManRivers]

I am absent-minded, carry on parallel thoughts in my mind, and one word at random starts a new thread of thought.
But I an in my dotterage. Old men can get away with a lot of things!

 

[Setsuna]

Oh man, this sounds like me. If I had a nickel for every time my mom has said, 'Wow, that didn't start happening to me until I was in my late forties,' I'd have at least enough nickels to buy myself a drink. XP I space little things pretty much constantly. I forget what I'm going downstairs to do before I've reached the bottom of the staircase. I answer the phone at work and realize seven seconds into the conversation that I'm actually supposed to be listening to what the person on the other end is saying. Once I locked my keys in my car at a gas station in front of the pump... while my car was still running. Yup, the more I disuss this issue, the more I remember what a moron I truly must appear to be on a day-to-day basis....

 

[CuratorOfWeird]

I do think this contributes to the perception that I'm "a bright girl with no common sense". It makes others laugh so I don't mind it too much. I've learned to join in on the laughter, it's just much easier and a lot more fun.

 

[A_Stah]

I am constantly sort of picked at for my dazed and borderline catatonic looking demeanor in many situations...mainly the kind where I sometimes just drift off when walking with maybe my classmates and teachers. It gets annoying, you feel ostracised somewhat, but hey, I guess that is what we experience sometimes as the INFJs that we are. Just everyday situations, paying money to cashiers, sitting on a train with friends, working, during prayer, I just get called out because it looks like I have borderline Alzheimer's.
:laughing:

Which is a scary prospect, in all actuality my memory has become several times worse over the past few months....really short term...almost as if I have a sort of 'loose grip' on certain processes that I was meant to go through prior, like just now, I forgot to include the world 'loose' in 'loose grip', after I had it pretty fixated in my head as the proper metaphor to use. The loose grip meaning I literally can't let it slip, or it will simply be gone forever.

But yeah, the lesser developed Se, just allows me to detach myself from whatever is too tasteless in the material world, and traverse my own plentiful, yet the somewhat void expanse that is my mind.

 

[SophiaScorpia]

I think that would be our inferior Se. When we are in our reverie state, it's our Ni working and doing its business and we, buried in the deep recesses of our minds close ourselves to the external world and we can't notice the happenings outside our body.

Once, I tripped and landed face square at the school canteen because I was busy planning for a school affair. Imagine my embarrassment. Another: I spilled coffee on my uniform because I was busy *again* thinking. Sheesh.

 

[Vivid Melody]

The only thing that keeps me alert is the fact that I'm a type 6 (or perhaps that's just the other thing that happens from inferior Se - too focused on the details) but even I drift off at times like some mentioned in this thread, especially if I'm working out a problem in my head. I usually try to isolate myself during those times because I know I'm not going to hear anything anyone around me is saying and it's going to come off looking rude (like I'm ignoring them). Sometimes it's hard for me to shift from Ni mode to Fe mode when I'm in the "zone" but when I am in a good place, everything flows just fine.

 

[Elinor Dashwood]

I once walked into a handicapped railing on a ramp in broad daylight. As I crumpled to the ground with my hands over my crotch, a man stopped to ask me if I was okay.

"Yes," I replied, "I'm just an idiot."

I couldn't sleep on my stomach for a week. It looked like I had been abused in a very private place.



Wait, what were we talking about?

 

[Sheena20]

I also have a terrible short term memory. I feel bad sometimes when I don't remember something my boyfriend has said to me, and I feel like an idiot. I'm also so lost in my thoughts that I will bang into something while doing something or drop something or misplace something. I also have a hard time finding things because I don't remember where I put them.

 

[zwanglos]

Go up to the cashier to pay and absentmindedly hand her your entire wallet?

Been there.

Be so flustered by that mistake that you walk out the store without picking up the thing you just spent $30 on?

Done that.

 

[PeaTea]

Funny story from my childhood. I played baseball for a few years, which I was horrible at so I played the least exciting position: left field. I literally have video footage of me goofing off, playing with sand, what have you out in left field. So whenever I would do something absentminded or zone out and become unresponsive when I was growing up, my dad would say "Peter, you're out in left field". Of course, he's the oppositely grounded ISFJ; he was just playa hatin.

 

[PeaTea]

Go up to the cashier to pay and absentmindedly hand her your entire wallet?

Been there.

Be so flustered by that mistake that you walk out the store without picking up the thing you just spent $30 on?

Done that.

Check and check.

Any INFJ males been at the urinal when someone suddenly opens the door? Your heart suddenly takes a leap as you think to yourself "Oh crap, what if I'm in the women's bathroom and it's a girl?!" Then you laugh at yourself: "I'm peeing in a freaking urinal right now".

 

[ibage]

Any INFJ males been at the urinal when someone suddenly opens the door? Your heart suddenly takes a leap as you think to yourself "Oh crap, what if I'm in the women's bathroom and it's a girl?!" Then you laugh at yourself: "I'm peeing in a freaking urinal right now".

This is one of the main reasons I made it a habit to go in the stalls. That and being a tad gun shy.

In any case, I have the reputation of "losing" things only to have it in my hand. Keys, my wallet, my phone and sometimes shoes.

Aside from that, I also tend to zone out during certain conversations if they're not seemingly important. I'm very guilty of doing this to my friend a lot. When he brings up the subject in a following conversation a day or two later, he gets slightly angry when I ask about something he told me previously. Thankfully, he's gotten used to it.

 

[LyricalWhip]

Hahah yeah... I've locked my purse in the trunk--hahaha forgot my keys were in my purse. DAR!
Locked myself out of my own home--DAR! Smh. So not cool....

 

[sremmij]

I am consistently and excrutiatingly absent minded. I can contemplate the very deepest and most obscure depths of the universe and people...but come across as a complete fuckwit when it comes to the basic little details of everyday life.

A recent example: I stupidly invested in an unusually designed wristwatch with no numbers that I sometimes have to examine at length in order to deduce the correct time. A random guy on the street asks me for the time. I later come to realise I misread my own watch and informed him it was an hour earlier than it actually was. I probably made him late for wherever he was headed.

It's chronic. I'm always losing random inanimate objects and I also have a tendency to take about ten seconds to realise someone is attempting to converse with me. (Note the word "attempting")

The problem is most likely my habit of drifting off into another dimension when I'm supposed to be concentrating on something.

Can anyone relate? Inferior Se? A general trait of the iNtuitive? Depression? Undiagnosed brain tumor?

I am exactly like this. For example, today, my ESFJ grandmother handed me a bunch of paper bags and told me to throw away one, but my mind was focused on something else, so I threw away all of them. She yelled at me and pulled my ear afterwards.

 

[septic tank]

Me:

Chronically loses flute during high school.

Vice principle picks up misplaced flute one day.

Calls me down to the office to get it back.

Has to play flute for the vice principle to get flute back.

Never loses flute again.

 

[Windblownhair]

I always end up wandering around parking lots, looking for my car. I never think to encode that information when I park.

The same absent-mindedness means once I get home, I consistently lose my keys and phone. Usually they end up somewhere easy to find, but sometimes I'll go crazy only to find my keys in the freezer or someplace equally random.