Dating with Myers and Briggs

Twice in my life I have started a new job and been asked to take a Myers-Briggs personality test.  The first time the company used the formal Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) instrument.  Most recently, the minister at our church handed me a sheet of 4 cartoons and asked me to pick which person in each box was most like me.  As Rev. Davis said while handing me the cartoons, "It's important to know who you're working with."

Yes, it is.  It's also not a bad thing to know who your friends are.  One of the reasons Tom and I got along so well together is that our "types" had so much in common - I am an ISTP and he was an ISFP.  The ISP in both types means that we were both introverts, more interested in process and accepting things as they are than in closure and searching for hidden meanings.  I was the thinker, who anticipated and solved problems; Tom was the feeler, who taught me to live in the moment and kept us connected to the other people in our lives.

Now that I'm dipping my toe back in the dating waters, I'm wondering whether I should start carrying that sheet of cartoons in my back pocket, or at least somewhere in the depths of my purse.  Separating the extroverts and the thinkers among us from the introverts and the feelers is usually fairly easy, but what about the sensers vs. the intuitives, or the judgers vs. the perceivers?  I'm not sure I could sustain a relationship for more than half an hour with an ENTJ without feeling steamrollered, and having me around for very long would probably drive an INTJ nuts.

Getting to know anyone is a long-term process, and the danger in dating is becoming hooked on an isolated attractive aspect of the other person before the discovery process reveals basic incompatibilities.  Unfortunately, people answering probing questions about themselves, whether in person or in an online dating service questionnaire, tend to shade their answers to sound as alluring as possible.  I think they'd be less likely (and less able) to do that with the "pick a cartoon" testing method, and it's certainly faster and simpler than weeks of "getting to know you" Q&A.  (If you have read my personality type summary by now, you can see how this preference reflects my thinker bias.  Let's eliminate as much of that time-consuming fuzzy-feelie stuff as possible.)

It all boils down to this: who is that guy I shared dinner and a fireworks display with last night?  Inquiring minds want to know.

"Instead of labeling a person and putting value judgments on his or her behavior, you can learn to see your partner’s behavior as reflecting personality type, not something designed to offend you. Many couples even learn to see the differences in a humorous light." ~The Myers & Briggs Foundation,  Couples and Personality Type

Shopping for Beefcake, Part II

OK, I said my next post would be a book review. I lied. Sue me.

After a couple of false starts, I cancelled my subscription to Our Time.  My heart just wasn't in it.  I didn't really believe that I was going to find anyone as compatible as my husband Tom had been, and after Barry, I was more sure than ever that I would rather be alone than with the wrong person.

At that point, several of my friends got into the act, separately deciding that I was the perfect match for someone else they knew.  I received several "introduction" offers; one friend even wanted to fix me up with her brother.  This was all very flattering, but somewhat unsettling.  After all, if things went really wrong with any of the potential dates (particularly the brother!), it could mean the end of the original friendship, too. 

I don't want to go into the details, but I more or less accidentally met one of the guys last weekend, and our mutual friend phoned him with my phone number.  He called tonight and we have a dinner date scheduled for Friday.

If my matchmaking friend is right, this guy is almost too good to be true - kind, flexible, smart, and a year younger than I am.  I know from meeting him that he's funny, modest, and has a terrific tenor singing voice.

And he IS beefcake!!

Of course, now I'm panicked.  Have I gained too much weight over the last year?  Am I too out of shape to interest a long-distance bike rider?  Can I get by on my so-called wit and semi-obsessive personality?  Will I manage to flip part of dinner into my lap (remind me to wear something in a dark color)??

My parents met due to the machinations of matchmaking friends.  Who knows?  Maybe history will repeat itself.  Or maybe I'll have to move on to the next friend, and her single brother.

“To get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” ~ Mark Twain

"What were you thinking, man?"

One of my guilty pleasures is Castle, a TV series about a crime novelist.  In one of my favorite episodes, Castle's 70-ish mother Martha sets up a "My Face" page and posts a 30-year-old photo of herself on it.  Her high school sweetheart, Chet Palaburn, sees it and sends her a "friend" request, which totally panics her - what happens if he wants to meet and thinks she looks like (in her words) "Dorian Gray in reverse?"  She finally accepts his request and flips to his page, only to see a photo there that's even older - possibly dating back to his high school days.  Her final words are, "Chet Palaburn.  What were you thinking, man?"

Between my pre-Barry online dating experiences and the ones I've had lately, this (or its female equivalent) could well be THE question for members of the electronic lonely hearts clubs.  Don't people who post photos from 10 years and 50 pounds ago want potential partners to recognize them when they finally meet in the flesh?  One of my male friends showed up for a date with someone allegedly his own age and faded right back out the door again when he saw a woman old enough to be his mother waiting for him.

Old and Photoshopped photos are not the only way in which online daters mislead others.  I've met people who lied about their height, hobbies, hair, and religious convictions.  Perhaps the worst example of bait-and-switch I ever encountered was the man who claimed to be a non-smoking social drinker but turned out to be a chain-smoking recovering alcoholic.  OK, in most of these cases I probably would have refused to meet the guy at all had he been honest - but wouldn't that be better than a personal rejection after the truth comes out?  And no, buying me a drink or even dinner isn't going to overcome the fact that in person he strongly reminds me of one of Santa's less attractive elves. It's all I can do to keep from blurting out, "What were you thinking, man?"

I thought (silly me) that we were all looking for the best possible fit with another person.  I was initially heartened by the number of men who list honesty as one of the key traits they hope to find in a woman - but some of the very guys who insist on an honest woman see nothing wrong with fudging the facts on their own resumes.  WWYT, M?

Maybe it's time to go back to flirting with guys in the produce section of the grocery store.

"For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth." ~Bo Bennett

Shopping for Beefcake

I've never believed in astrology, or Fate with a capital F, or even God as an entity with a close-up and personal interest in me, but sometimes the stars do align and events arrange themselves to herd me inexorably in one seemingly inevitable direction.

Take my move to New York.  The very day I was turned down for a major promotion at my last job in the Midwest, I came home to find the National Underwriter in my mailbox with an ad for a New York job I was qualified for on the back cover.  Less than a month later, I was working just off Wall Street.  Had I received that promotion, I'd probably still be living in South Dakota.  Had the ad appeared a week earlier, I wouldn't have given it a second glance.  Had it been a few weeks later, I might have been reconciled to my passed-over state.  But no, it showed up when my sense of injustice was at its white-hot peak, and the rest is history.  Kismet?  Well, maybe.

Something similar has been at work this last month.  First I took advantage of some awesome after-Christmas clothing sales to augment my work wardrobe with sharp new stuff.  Next the staff at the church whose website I maintain hounded me into getting my picture professionally taken for the church directory, and it was way better than I expected.  Then I tired of trying to figure out how to squeeze the gym into my schedule and bought a folding exercise bike I can use at home, which lets me exercise in two ways - by pedaling while watching TV, and by muscling it in and out of the closet and setting it up and taking it down.  And after all that, Barry (with whom I technically broke up almost 2 years ago) finally realized that I was never coming back and found a new sweetie.  I am - O joy! - forever off the hook with regard to his computer and personal problems; he said he wants to make "a clean break."  Free at last, free at last...  So I signed up temporarily (for free) with OurTime, the dating website for people 50 years old and up.  Just to window shop, you understand.

As I've mentioned, Barry and I met through Match.com, so I've done the online meet and greet thing before, but it's different this time.  Then I was trying to be as open-minded as possible.  The guy was three inches shorter than me?  Fine, I'd wear flats forever.  He lived on the other side of the greater Phoenix area?  No problem, I was commuting most of the way there already.  He was supporting a deadbeat child and a houseful of grandchildren?  How nice that he was a family man.

PB (post Barry), this is no longer the case.  Life with him seems to have permanently depleted my supply of tolerance.  I am surveying the offerings emailed to me as if they are plastic-wrapped trays of hamburger labeled "Manager's Special."  Why are they there?  Are they too close to expiration?  Like a fussy shopper I sort them into the "Yes," "No," and "Maybe" buckets on the site.  I throw smokers, short guys, sports fanatics, East Valley residents, and guys who can't spell or hate to read into "No" faster than I would discard a package of ground beef with an off smell.  Call me shallow, but I don't want to settle; I want someone who is a good fit in as many ways as possible.

The one area where I'm still being lenient is looks.  Many people don't photograph well, and I'm more interested in what's inside the guy's head than outside it.  Mind you, I wouldn't be UPSET if the right guy turns out to be beefcake too...

"I've been dating since I was fifteen. I'm exhausted. Where is he?" ~Kristin Davis