Rethinking Modern Dating Through the Lens of MBTI

Modern dating feels broken for so many people right now. It's like a game you never wanted to play but somehow found yourself in anyway.

After attending multiple speed dating events recently and reflecting on my own experiences, I started wondering: what if we approached dating through the lens of personality type instead?

In this episode, I share my frustrations with today's dating culture, provide a brief overview of MBTI (Myers–Briggs Type Indicator), and explore how understanding personality differences could fundamentally change the way we approach dating, compatibility, and connection.

Maybe the goal isn't finding more matches...it's about finding the right ones.

Curious to find out your personality type? Take the free test at 16personalities.com.

Email CT: ct@TheMindfulSPX.com

Connect on social: @TheMindfulSPX

Check out our website: TheMindfulSPX.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome back or welcome to the Screw You podcast. My name is CT, and help you understand why you love the way you do. Today I want to bring up something that has been on my mind, as I've talked about in other episodes. I feel like dating is completely broken right now. Doesn't really matter the container that we create for those connections, whether that's online, speed dating, it seems to be very prevalent where I am. There's a lot of speed dating events, which can be good or bad, or maybe just neutral. What I and I've been doing a lot of that, and what I what I've experienced is it doesn't even matter the container, the box that we're creating those experienced experiences to be in, because we're not coming into them with the right mindset. There's a lot of companies here locally that are putting on these speed dating events that are essentially the same. Oh, this one there's a host, this one it's more based like solely off your phone, whatever it might be. But the point is like it's essentially the same thing. It's five minutes to eight minutes with each person. Some feel more natural or more organic than others. But here's the kicker. The first one I go to, the there was like two empty guy slots, meaning that during the speed dating rounds, then as a guy, you would have two breaks. So if the speed dating rounds are eight minutes apiece, and I literally had back-to-back empty slots, it was just randomly how that was that was you know scheduled out. But literally, then I have you know 15 or 16 minutes or whatever it is, uh completely free. And so it was kind of a weird thing of like, okay, I'm supposed to be like doing speed dating, but I'm just gonna sit here twiddle my thumbs. Why I'm saying, why I'm bringing that up to you is that in that break, I start talking to one of the other guys that was on break, and he goes to me, yeah, this is good. I I just got out of a marriage, and it's just good I'm talking to people. And there's no shame or judgment on that experience. That's just completely different than where I'm coming into that space with. And so I don't know if it actually hit me then, but in reflection, it was just like, wow, like literally everybody is coming into these with a completely different mindset around what they're looking for and what they even want to get out of this. I could go on and talk about that forever, but I want to just slightly switch the gears to talk about the main point of this episode, which is what if we came into dating from a basis of personality types or personality typing than what we currently have. And why I'm bringing this up, and I guess man, I should back up here real quickly. So MBTI, Myers Briggs type indicator, is a very popular personality test that you can do online for free. So literally just put like MBA MBTI test you know into your web browser choice, and you should be taken right there to their site. With their test, there's 16 different categories. They're all labeled by letters. I'm not gonna go through them all, but just to give you a general breakdown, there's E or I. So that's just really how to get your energy. Are you more extroverted or more introverted? That one's pretty straightforward. Then there's S or N, which is S for sensing, N for intuition. So if you're sensing, you're you're relying more on your five senses, facts and details in what's happening right here, right now in front of you, versus the N being intuition. You're relying more on your gut, you're focusing on big picture ideas, patterns, and future possibilities, but you can kind of do that in a more abstract way versus it having to be literally, you know, staring you in the face. Then there's how you make decisions, so T for thinking or F for feeling, and then how you organize your life, J for judging, P for perceiving. This may kind of sound like funny um words. So the J, you prefer structure, planning, having things settled and decided, versus P for perceiving, you prefer prefer to stay flexible, spontaneous, and are open to new information. Now that doesn't mean that just because you are J versus a P that you don't like to be flexible or spontaneous or open to information. Um that's just how they they kind of broke it down. So for myself, I am I, introverted, N intuition, F feeling, and J judging. I'm an INFJ. I don't like the word judging because I feel like I'm the most non-judgmental person ever, and I try to express that here on the podcast. So it's just kind of funny that that is the word, but INFJ is my type. When I first found out about this, I think I was in, I think I was in college. I don't, I don't think I knew about it in high school. I think it was like college or maybe shortly after. INFJ is the rarest personality type. What I can almost guarantee you is gonna happen if you are new to this, or if you have, if you know your type, you probably felt this when you did the test and started reading the different attributes of your type, is you're gonna feel very seen. You're gonna go, wow, I didn't know that. I thought I'd like I thought that was just uh something that I thought, or you know, I felt alone in this or that. And that's um it's kind of a cool thing, but very particular in my in my sense of always kind of feeling on the outside, like I can talk to everyone, yet I don't really have like a main group of friends. It's just like not how I have traveled the world. You know, I have a friend over here, a friend over there, uh, may come and go, maybe long-term, whatever it might be, but it's not like I have I've like never really associated with some like big group of friends that kind of society, you know, showcases that we're all quote unquote, you know, supposed to have or supposed to do life in that way. I don't know why I'm sharing that that piece of it, but that's just one aspect to my to my type. It feels good, it feels validating to to know that you're not alone in whatever type you are. Now, if we swing that to relationships, why I feel like this would be a very interesting angle to come into dating and relationships with, and I guess we can just go straight to just like the dating part, and I don't even have to go to the relationship. I I guess it's all combined into one, but okay, so if we go from like a first date, if you're meeting somebody that is a good match for your type, you're you're not necessarily good. Obviously, we need physical attraction. So that like that's that's a given. We all need to feel that. We can have the best types in the world, like it'd be like very compatible in that way, but if we're not attracted, it's not gonna work, right? So just that aside. But if you're meeting people, so like for me, I uh INFG, I think it's like ENFP is a very specific match, that it's sort of like they see the world how I think about it, or vice versa, which means that we can then have really cool conversations and really kind of rift off each other and volley that ball back and forth because we just kind of see the world in adjacent similar ways. And I'm sure that if you think back to your relationships or even just friendships, there's probably people that instinctively are like, yeah, you know, I really hit it off with this person or that person. And we may not know what their types are or what what their type was and what your type was, but I can guarantee you there's probably some synergy there because that's just like that's just how it works. Um, it's kind of like astrology. So I'm a Scorpio, and if uh, and so it's a water sign, and for Scorpio Scorpios, it's usually like other water signs that are a good match. I am no astrology expert, but when I think about the personality types, it's very kind of similar to the astrology in my mind of you know, there's certain matches, certain types that are going to be attracted to me, or I'm gonna be attracted to them because of that compatibility. And so if we take a wide lens view, I think we are as a society, we're putting so much emphasis on the physical attraction and the shared hobbies when well one that literally just doesn't matter at all. So that's that is obvious, but we're all just defaulting to that. And I think that's a it's a really poor way to think about and search for that long-term sustainable partner. And just in my experience, I felt so underwhelmed, so like underfed, undernourished, however, we want to explain that, by the current dating culture and and speed dating and whatever other dating events there may be out there, that I'm like, there's gotta be a better way. So this episode is just me. I don't have anything concrete. This is just me in my head talking to you in your ears and expressing a different way that we could think about dating. So much so I'm thinking about what if we started a speed dating environment that had to do with astrology or personality types or both combined or whatever it would be, just to get people to connect on a foundational level at something that's that's different than what's out there right now, but to me, more importantly, what actually would speak to sustainability, more so than just, oh, I find you attractive, or oh, we both like to hike, or oh, we both like sushi. We're we're just meeting each other on a different wavelength. I'll put the 16 personalities test, uh, MBTI, in the show notes. So if you are not familiar and you want to take that test, you can just go right to right down below this podcast episode, click on that link, and you can take the test for free. Thank you for being here. Hopefully that was helpful, insightful, gave you a new perspective on dating and relationships. As I said in the last episode, I would love to hear from you, make it really easy, something called fan mail. You can go into the description, you should have a text link there that simply says fan mail. You can click there and send me a message, voice, or text, and I can reply to you as well from there. I'd love to know where you're listening from, what your favorite episode is, or anything that that you deeply resonate with. And if you have ideas for future episodes, I would love to hear that as well. One last favor to ask if you could leave a five star review wherever you are listening, helps to expand the reach of this podcast and get new listeners across the world. Thank you very much for being here. Until next time, take care.