INTP is one of the rarest personality types, according to the Myers-Briggs classification. These people seem to have their own perception of the world, which doesn’t make much sense to those around them. The architect personality is known for a set of quirks and contradictory traits that contribute to this misunderstanding.
Here are some examples:
INTPs are of those people who value independence and freedom of thought most of all. Among other things, the architect personality tends to be independent of social expectations and the opinion of other people.
Commonly, INTPs just don’t find things like social acceptance, admiration, and attention worth spending their time and energy on. They simply don’t care about this stuff so much.
On the other hand, the architect personality type is one of the most socially awkward ones. They have a hard time trying to establish and maintain social contact.
Being around other people often drains them and makes them feel uncomfortable and anxious. It feels particularly intense at large social gatherings and in the company of people who don’t have much in common with the INTP.
This is quite contradictory because an INTP will never make conscious efforts to win everyone’s attention and admiration. At the same time, they may get disappointed and angry with themselves because of their social ineptness and inability to easily find a common ground with other people.
INTPs often seem indifferent and overly rational when they deal with interpersonal relationships. For example, someone with the architect personality type will never pretend to be nice and interested in someone just to show that they have good manners. They simply see no sense in having a nice chitchat with their neighbors or tolerating a distant relative who asks embarrassing personal questions.
An INTP always looks for a reason and meaning in everything, so if these don’t exist, they won’t bother wasting their time on it.
At the same time, INTPs are some of the most loyal and sincere people when it comes to close relationships. No matter how reserved and distant they may be with others, they are funny and easygoing with their loved ones. They just have a different comfort zone around different people.
Moreover, INTPs are deeply sensitive – even though they rarely show it – and get hurt easily. They tend to bottle up their emotions and spend hours overthinking and worrying about their relationships. The architect personality type just doesn’t like to show their feelings to others, even the closest ones.
No matter how cold and distant they may seem sometimes, be sure that your INTP is fiercely loyal and deeply cares about you.
INTPs are deep thinkers who can’t live without reflecting on existential matters and trying to understand the essence of everything.
If you have the architect personality type, you will know that feeling when you can’t sleep at night because of your overactive mind. You just lie in your bed, desperately trying to find the answer to an eternal question or the solution to a life situation. You think over different scenarios and finally, reach some conclusion. It all sounds so sensible and well-formulated in your head.
However, when you try to share your thoughts with your colleagues in the next morning, they look confused and don’t quite understand what you mean. Thank social awkwardness for that – it often makes an INTP sound less capable and intelligent than they actually are. But it’s not the only problem the architect personality faces here.
An INTP can’t always find someone to have a deep conversation with. It often happens that those around them are not really interested in all these matters that fascinate and puzzle an INTP. This can be a real struggle, especially in today’s shallow society which cultivates narrow-mindedness and stupidity.
The truth is that the architect personality type loves to talk to people, but only when the conversation topic is worth it. Why spend your time having a boring small talk about TV shows or food when there are so many intriguing things to discuss? This is the way an INTP sees it.
The architect personality type is highly analytical and perceptive. They are really good at reading people and predicting the outcomes of relationships.
They often see people’s hidden motives and inconsistent behaviors before everyone else does. While an INTP tends to be socially awkward in practice, they are great at the theoretical aspect of interpersonal relationships.
If your best friend is an INTP, I’m sure that they have given you many useful tips about your relationships. Sometimes they are able to predict what will happen between people or how a relationship will end. And usually, they are right.
But what happens with their own relationships? For some reason, this insightfulness disappears when an INTP is involved themselves. They often don’t see the most obvious things and get genuinely astonished when their partner wants to have a “serious conversation”.
INTP women may particularly struggle with relationships and family matters as many of their perceptions and behaviors are not typical of women.
Maybe this happens because the feelings they have for their partner mess with their analytical ability. Also, an INTP is a rational thinker in the first place, so making sense of feelings and love matters is not their strength.
The architect personality has a vivid imagination and an endless creativity. They are constantly thinking about new projects, ideas and questions.
The purpose of their life is to entertain and expand their mind with new knowledge and ideas. For this reason, an INTP will often have a whole plethora of projects and plans they get enthusiastic about in the beginning.
However, when it comes to implementing these plans, this enthusiasm fades away somehow. The INTP tends to overthink things and this is what happens when the time to act comes. Before they do anything, they think about all the possible obstacles and scenarios why it may fail. As a result, the project often remains just it – a project.
It’s because INTPs are purely theoretical thinkers and often struggle with the raw reality of everyday life.
The architect personality type is considered one of the most intelligent ones. In fact, statistically, INTPs tend to have the highest IQ scores among the MBTI types. They often excel in theoretical fields like physics, mathematics, astronomy, etc. and become notorious scientists and innovators. Albert Einstein is the most remarkable example of this personality type.
INTPs are deep thinkers and passionate learners who often have vast theoretical knowledge about all kinds of subjects. But what happens when they have to deal with mundane everyday problems like doing some paperwork? They may find such a simple task really draining and challenging.
If you know an INTP, you may often wonder why such a highly intelligent person has such a hard time dealing with these insignificant issues. Despite all their intelligence, they can be unbelievably impractical in certain situations in daily life.
It’s not only their theoretical mind to blame for this but also their tendency to overthink things. When faced with a task, an INTP will need some time to think about all the possible ways to perform it and choose the best one. No need to say that this approach is not always effective when you need to make a phone call or buy a tablecloth for your dining room.
And most importantly, INTPs hate all kinds of mundane stuff, whether it’s some paperwork or just a boring and monotonous task. They like to spend their time and energy only on the things that challenge their mind and stimulate their creativity.
People with the architect personality may seem weird and quirky at first. You may struggle to understand them in certain situations and decode the way they think about some things. However, if you manage to get closer to them, you will see a deep person and a loyal friend fun to spend time with.
If you are an INTP, can you relate to any of the above-described traits? Do you often face misunderstanding? Please share your thoughts with us.
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I found your article to be spot on and one of the better articles I've read in a while. I'm an INTP that thought I was an INTJ for years lol. Jacob you should look into cognitive functions between INTP and INTJ if you want to see the real differences between the two. That's how I determined that I'm an INTP, before that I thought that I was and INTJ which I believe is common for INTPs as INTP is the most judging perceiving type. INTP/INTJ are similar so you'll notice a lot of things interlap between them, but there are some major differences that took me years to find and now that I've seen them they explain the differences between me and my best friend who is an INTJ.
Going back to the article I agree with "B" part 6 is off, although if you rephrased it you'd be correct. I'd say I suck at mundane nitpicky stuff that's required like doing paperwork.... If it's buying anything I'm great as long as time isn't a factor or if there is no way of researching something before I buy it as it really drives me crazy lol. Timelines is my mortal enemy.
I will say that while I'm great at theoretical I'm incredibly inept at sensory stuff. For instance it took me 10 weeks to realize that there is a second microwave in the kitchen at work and I had looked around multiple times seeing what was in the kitchen... My mind somehow overlooked that as one microwave as to me one was enough until 10 weeks later another coworker was using the microwave when I wanted to use it. Then I wanted another microwave, but didn't realize it existed until I had waited for my coworker to finish using the microwave, put my food into it and saw another coworker open the second microwave while I was using the first one. I found this pretty comical and pathetic on my part. I think I only store the info that I need, anything extra I don't store. I can be somewhere for years and not recall what's where minus what's important to me so my friends find that particular. So this is an issue for me as I had my first networking project at a plant recently and after going on job site I totally spaced what almost the entire plant looked like inside... I find this comical, but at the same time really really sucks as now I only have my notes to do the job and I can't recall any of the rooms with the senior engineer that I'm working with. Meanwhile on hard theoretical engineering problems I'm badass and solve them faster/more complete then my coworkers and am viewed as extremely insightful/out of the box thinker.
Thank you for your feedback! I guess more or less, all INTPs are impractical - it depends on many things, including one's position in the N/S spectrum. After all, INTPs are theoretical thinkers in the first place.
And I fully agree with you about the mundane tasks and that the worst part about paperwork etc. is the monotony and a lack of interest/creativity, so I added it to the part 6.
Yes definitely true...find Hard to keep up in socially challenging situations...very comfortable wid my own people but wont utter a word wid new ppl
I also am an INTP. It still amazes me how spot on the traits are to who I am. It frustrates me how long it takes me to make a selection in a store or restaurant; be it curtain/bed sheet colors, what I want to snack on, or when presented with a vast menu. It doesn't help that our society feels the need to add more choices to our already insane amount of crap to chose from. I have dreamed as a child of a place in the middle of nowhere where nature and simplicity are the way of things. I am still chasing that dream here in middle age. Discovering who I am and how I am at this stage of my life will help guide me toward this dream. This site has been of great help, as have numerology, I Ching, Tao, Tarot, and Astrology. They all point in the same direction. Thanks goes to all who contribute to this site
Never heard of this personality trait before (I'm English living in Belgium so I think I'll have to find the dutch name for it).
But it's the first trait I've read about that really explains what I'm like. Very interesting read.
Even Point 6... I'm no good at anything I don't find interesting, usually not cause I can't but because it takes so much energy to put myself to it, like paperwork, taxes, paying bills and stuff like that. Usually I do everything last minute because of that...
Paperwork really sucks the joy out of my life. Try being an INTP female changing your name after marriage...it's my own personal hell. ;-) Anyway great article! I feel like my brain can only handle one practical task a day, even if it's making one phone call to my bank or emailing someone I don't normally talk to.