ESTJ seeks INFP: Looking for love through personality tests
He's an ENTJ, an extroverted doer. His ex-wife is an INTP, an introverted thinker. They had lots of things in common — except the traits that mattered in the long-run.
"She loves to go relax with a book. To me that's deathly boring. I get recharged by playing soccer and interacting with a lot of people."
If any of this makes sense you've probably taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality measurement developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs. Today, the questionnaire is used by 2 million people a year and in nearly 90 of the Fortune 100 companies.
The four-letter acronyms have helped employees and their bosses learn whether they're analytical or intuitive, bold or cautious, sociable or loners. They've learned what type of people they work well with and how to work around those who baffle them.
Indeed, the thumbnail descriptors are so eerily accurate it's no surprise that they've found new life in the online-personals ads.
The evidence is plentiful, from mentions in Match.com profiles ("thoughtful ISTJ seeks similar") to entire dating sites, such as TypeTango.com and JungDate.com, designed in large part around the Myers-Briggs or its close companion, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter.
Most singles learned their type after taking the test at work or plucking a version from a self-help book. They're now using it to help them find a partner who not only likes to walk on the beach, but also can carry a lively conversation while walking on the beach.
"I found it fascinating because it fits me to a T," says Marino, who took the Myers-Briggs as part of a team-building exercise at an old job. "I know who I am and I know the people I match well with."
So this time around, the 34-year-old college recruiter from Bothell is going for someone closer to his type, an E all the way.
No introverts, please
One 38-year-old single, an executive chef from Seattle, included his type as an icebreaker.
"Instead of what's your sign, it's what's your Myers-Briggs," says the chef, who asked to remain anonymous. Like many involved with online dating, he's concerned about privacy. That, and he doesn't want certain flaws attributed to him lest they turn off a potential match. He's an ENFP, which stands for extroverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving. Like other ENFPs — think Martin Short and Robin Williams — he's outgoing and funny. And he's looking for a likeminded woman, preferably another E like his ex-wife.
He did date one opposite type after moving here from Texas in October, a woman he says was "really neat," but whose introversion became problematic.
"It was like dating my father."
Now he's careful to avoid the more reserved types.
"Some screen people out because of lack of education, money or good looks. But if I'm reading somebody's profile and I see an I for introvert ... next!"
That the types have jumped from the workplace to the personals makes sense to Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington. She used the principles behind Myers-Briggs to develop her own temperament-matching test for the Seattle start-up, PerfectMatch.
"Part of the genius of Myers-Briggs is that it's not just characteristics, it's how characteristics fit together," Schwartz says. "It taps essential elements that are important for teamwork. Well, that's a really good idea for relationships as well."
Niche dating sites use MBTI
This new application for the workplace tool seems to be lost on CPP Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif., the publisher of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
The company, which publishes other kinds of psychology assessments as well, doesn't track the varied uses for MBTI, says spokeswoman Siobhan Collopy. If it did it may be surprised.
JungDate.com, TypeTango.com and Match-Marks.com are relatively new and still rudimentary online-dating sites that match singles according to their temperament.
The 3-year-old Match-Marks doesn't accept personal ads, but it does offer a Myers-Briggs tool called LoveTypes that helps users determine their four-letter temperament. It also matches them with the types they'd be compatible with, and offers advice on how to write a catchy profile based on their type.
On TypeTango, users plug in their type when they register. Their matches are shown according to age, location and, of course, type.
TypeTango was created as a college project by Vladimir Kornea, 24, who lives with his parents in Ridgewood, N.Y., and is also looking for love online.
"As I was reading people's profiles on other dating sites, I noticed that I was trying to figure out their MBTI types," he says. "It immediately seemed obvious that there is a market for a dating site based on the MBTI."
He's now trying to turn it into a profitable business. TypeTango has gotten about 3,700 subscribers since it launched in September 2002. That's a speck compared to Match.com's 12 million users, but one that could fill a niche as the $313 million Internet-dating market splinters into specialty sites.
Still, Kornea isn't putting his own love life into one basket. He advertises himself, and the fact that he's an INTP, on Match.com.
"I like to keep a profile on a number of sites."
Not good for finding love
Although the Myers-Briggs remains the most widely used personality test in the workplace, its use as a love-finder is bringing mixed results.
Jami Barnett, a 29-year-old office worker in Renton, thought she'd get along great with another INFP. Easily spooked by the loud extroverted type, she liked the idea of an introverted, intuitive, feeling and perceiving partner who also happens to be a Christian.
Yet after a few dates with a man who fit the type perfectly, Barnett lost interest. "It was unreal how much we had in common, but it was rather boring. It was like talking to myself."
Now Barnett is looking for an opposite. Not an E — she still finds them scary — but definitely an ISTJ.
"I think having interests and experiences in common is good. I don't think being the same personality type is necessarily good."
This may be because singles are misinterpreting or misapplying what they know.
Jungian therapist Doniella Boaz has used the Myers-Briggs in her relationships counseling for 27 years. She says it's good for helping couples understand each other, but that it's unwise to use it to eliminate potential partners.
"There is no ideal type to go with any other type," says Boaz, who practices in Seattle. "You can't say I'm an ENTJ, I would never go with an INFP. Any kind of box that we put people in is limiting and therefore unfair."
Batyah Chliek, a 53-year-old life coach from Bellevue, agrees.
She included her type, an INFP, in her Match.com profile thinking that she'd attract likeminded men and repel those who she wouldn't click with.
It did neither. One date turned out to be her polar opposite.
"Of course, I'm an INFP, and that's what we are."
Another was an INFP just like herself. But instead of sizzling chemistry, the encounter felt flat.
"Sometimes I think there's something that's indefinable," Chliek has concluded about love matches. "Just some kind of spark."
Shirleen Holt: 206-464-8316
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