Does anyone notice going through the various forums here that every type things they are THE type most misunderstood???
I'm starting to think it's just people in general can't understand themselves so they blame it on the rest of the world.
I agree with the first line for the most part, I agree with the second only somewhat.
If we're focusing only on type and not other factors here, then I think everyone is going to feel misunderstood because everyone is unique. In our daily lives, we all deal with people who are different than us, and most likely these people aren't going to be the same type as us. Then, we come on PerC, and when we talk to people of different temperaments, we feel a lot of the same thing that we do in our daily lives. This also happens to people outside of our type, even if they have the same temperament. But, when we post on our own type's forum, we start seeing so much we have in common (and maybe even have a tendency to ignore what's different about us as people). This makes us then feel "Hey, these people
get me! But all of those other types don't. Man, my type is misunderstood."
The funny thing is we focus so much on it that we forget/ignore how we're misunderstanding other people. So I think that's why it happens to everyone of all 16 types.
I will say, however, that some types probably feel more misunderstood than others. N's in general do, but that's probably because sensors outnumber intuitives in real life (assuming all of the supposed statistics are true, I know that's been debated). I think I's tend to feel it more than E's as well. I also think feeling males and thinking females may feel it a bit more.
I'd say NF's feel the most misunderstood, with INFP at the top and INFJ second. ESTJ's probably feel it the least. But I think everyone feels it to some degree.
I do agree that part of this is people not understanding themselves. I actually think learning about the MBTI has helped me understand myself so much better. The funny thing is that for me, learning about other types has helped me learn a lot about myself, because I can see how I'm different than other people. That's why I like learning about type so much...it's helped me organize the things about me that are true for people in general, and the things about me that are more related to my type.
However, I think I understand myself way better than a lot of people outside of my type. So I don't think the feeling of being misunderstood is solely attributed to a personal misunderstanding that people have of themselves.
. Confusing them, studying their reactions, surprising them and have them second guess me. This gives me so much power if I'm underestimated. I suppose this is Ni in action. Ni users don't want people to know where they're coming from. I'm even using Ni looking at being misunderstood from this angle actually.
