INTP
by Nico Grey
Part 3
January is a cold, dark month in Vermont. Josiah was starting to wonder if people's moods didn't reflect the climate during that time of year. Even his morning oatmeal had felt a bit off that Wednesday. A darker shade of beige. Perhaps it had sat off the heat a little longer than usual before he found his way to the breakfast table.
Arriving at school, nothing felt any different to Josiah. Gossip in the halls and in his homeroom was brisk and agitated. He noticed a lot of anxious looks and a few angry ones, too. Josiah had never loved school. But he had always found it tolerable. Now he was starting to wonder how much more he could tolerate of the social activity that took place in the institution.
It was a relief to find Mr. Fisher in a much improved mood when he arrived for English class. His demeanor was more engaged in what was happening in class, his emotions more in tune with his students. The class discussion sizzled again.
Mr. Fisher assigned a short writing assignment for his students to end the class. As he was walking around the room, checking to see if anyone needed help, he patted Josiah's shoulder in passing.
"You're a good man, Josiah Brantley," he whispered.
That puzzled Josiah. Teachers rarely made any physical contact with students. It wasn't forbidden in the Ball Mountain School District, but most teachers recognized that there was just too much risk of misunderstanding over physical contact or emotional engagement. They avoided it.
It was an unusual feeling for Josiah. But he realized that the praise, whatever he had done to earn it, did make him feel good.
Josiah arrived in the cafeteria, exhausted after an hour playing basketball in Physical Education class. He filled his tray then exited the serving line. He inspected they tray's contents and shrugged. It wasn't inspiring. Then he looked around to see if his customary seat was available.
Josiah noticed that Ian was already sitting at his usual table. For some reason, it gave him a warm feeling to see the kid back in school. He slid into a seat at his own table and checked out the room to see what else was happening.
The mood wasn't good. There were a lot of whispered conversations and surreptitious glances, many of them directed toward Ian's table. Josiah also noticed that Jodi was getting her own share of attention.
He glanced back at Ian and tried to figure it out. Something felt different. It took him a moment to recognize the difference. Ian was sitting alone.
Ian often appeared to be sitting alone after the Physics class incident, but this time Josiah realized that there was absolutely no one else at his table. Josiah slowly figured it out. Like an injured animal is shunned by the rest of the herd, afraid that its weakness would attract predators, Ian was being shunned by his peers. The realization made him miserable.
It was a relief to see Jodi get to her feet and start walking resolutely toward Ian's table. Josiah noticed that she was carrying something in her right hand. A peach. That would be a nice gift. He wondered where she had even found a fresh peach anywhere in Vermont during January.
It seemed like everyone in the cafeteria was watching Jodi as she approached Ian. When she arrived at his table, Josiah thought he seemed reluctant to make eye contact with her. She just stood in front of him expectantly.
When Ian finally looked up, she set the peach down firmly next to him. "There," she announced loudly. "It looks like the rest of you." She stalked back to her table as the cafeteria erupted with laugher. It wasn't lost on Josiah that Daniel and Russ appeared to be leading the hilarity at their table.
Josiah sat in shock for more than a minute. How could Jodi do something so cruel to her own cousin? He liked her! She couldn't possibly be like this. But he had seen it with his own eyes.
Ian hadn't moved. He hadn't even glanced at the peach. His lunch sat untouched in front of him. Josiah wasn't sure, but he thought he noticed Ian's shoulders trembling.
Josiah was still stunned by what he had witnessed. He had no idea how to respond. He tried to think, but nothing happened. So he just acted. He did what felt right.
Josiah picked up his tray and walked deliberately across the cafeteria. He stopped in front of Ian's table. The kid couldn't even look up at him.
"Can I eat lunch with you?" Josiah asked gently.
When Ian glanced up, the pain in his eyes was palpable. But Josiah thought that he also detected a flicker of hope. At least he hoped that was what he saw.
"Can we please just go somewhere else?" Ian pleaded.
"Whatever you want," Josiah assured him. "But don't you think it might be better if we stayed right here and finished what we came to do?"
Ian considered the suggestion. He glanced around the room. He looked miserable, but he nodded. He reached slowly for his fork as Josiah sat down and joined him.
Before he tucked into his meal, Josiah directed his gaze around the cafeteria. He made it a point to lock eyes briefly with anyone who was staring at them. He nodded resolutely, then glanced down at his tray.
"Would you like this?" he asked Ian, indicating a blonde brownie propped haphazardly on a small plate next to his milk. "It's a little too beige for me."
He smiled and passed the dessert across the table to Ian. He was trying to organize in his mind what Ms. Porter had taught about the Myers-Briggs assessment in class the previous day.
Josiah was feeling particularly pleased with himself when he and Ian arrived together in Chemistry class.
"Can I sit with you today?" they asked each other simultaneously.
Ian's mood had improved considerably over the course of lunch. Although, to be fair, there really wasn't any other direction in which it could have gone. After the initial excitement, most of the rest of the students had ignored Josiah and Ian. There had been a few die-hard jerks, but Josiah was pretty sure that, in piling on, they were damaging their own cause far more than they were hurting Ian.
It had bothered Josiah to watch Ian's pain as he endured the occasional insults and what he was sure was the disdain of everyone else in the room. But the kid had slowly pulled himself together. He and Josiah talked about the Myers-Briggs lesson that was the subject of their Psychology class. Josiah was surprised to learn that Ian's mother was a psychologist, so he had already been exposed to his own private instruction at home.
Ian's mother, it seemed, wasn't a huge proponent of the Myers-Briggs assessment. But she did see some merit in teaching students how to take an objective view of their own personality and of the people they interacted with. The assessment was one way of looking at people and the way they behaved. Josiah suspected that Ian had probably taught him more about Myers-Briggs over lunch than he had learned in class so far.
When Josiah and Ian arrived at Ms. Porter's classroom, they didn't even bother asking each other. Josiah went to his customary seat in the back of the classroom and Ian found an empty desk next to him.
Ms. Porter seemed pleased to see Ian, and even more pleased to see the boys sitting together. Josiah suspected that she knew a lot more about what was going on between her students than most teachers would. Maybe that just went with being an expert in psychology.
Ms. Porter explained that she would have the MBTI assessment results for each student in a couple of weeks. She reiterated her warning that no one should take the results too seriously. The test might give useful information about the way an individual thought and how they preferred to interact with their environment, but everyone could still decide for themselves whether they agreed with the result and even if they decided to act on the traits that the assessment identified as their strengths. Or they could choose to act against type. She also reminded them that everyone used all of the personality traits measured by the assessment at different times. The test only identified those traits that it believe each person preferred to use, or was most comfortable using.
Ms. Porter explained that each of the eight traits identified by Myers-Briggs was measured along one of four axes, or scales, and that each axis had one trait at each end of the scale. The first axis measured traits called Introversion and Extraversion. Some people, called Introverts, preferred to respond to the world around them by turning inward, by thinking more than acting, preferred social interactions that had depth and that were meaningful, and preferred to recharge their emotional batteries by spending time alone.
Extraverts, on the other hand, turned to the world around them for stimulation, tended to prefer action over thinking, enjoyed frequent social interactions, and actually felt more energized after spending time with other people.
She explained that almost everybody is both Introverted and Extraverted to some degree, but most people have a preference for one form of interacting with the world over the other. She told the students that when they received the result of their assessment, their score on each axis would be measured on a scale of one to one hundred. People with a higher score exhibited a greater preference for one trait over the opposite trait on its axis. She also explained that when identifying a Myers-Briggs "type", Introversion was abbreviated with the letter 'I' and Extraversion was abbreviated with the letter 'E'.
The next axis, she went on, measured how people preferred to gather information in the world. The two ends of this axis were identified as Sensing, 'S', and Intuition, 'N'. People who preferred to pay more attention to reality, and to the things they could learn by using their own senses, leaned toward Sensing. They liked facts, details, and hands-on experience.
People who liked to deal with the world by understanding patterns in things, and through their impressions, were using what Myers-Briggs called Intuition. They were people who preferred to think about possibilities, enjoyed abstract theories, and liked to imagine things that hadn't yet happened.
The third axis used by Myers-Briggs measured how people preferred to make decisions based on information they had gathered. Some people preferred Thinking, abbreviated 'T'. Facts and objective data meant a lot more to these people. They were more consistent, logical and often impersonal when making decisions.
People who preferred Feeling, abbreviated 'F', were much more likely to consider people and emotions when they made decisions and arrived at conclusions.
The fourth Myers-Briggs axis, or scale, measured how people deal with the world outside them. It discriminated between people that preferred Judging, 'J', and people that preferred Perceiving, 'P'. People who leaned toward Judging preferred structure and making firm decisions. It considered people who preferred Perceiving to be more flexible and adaptable. They were also more open to new things and idea.
When she was through, Ms. Porter reminded the class that everyone exhibits traits from each side of the four axes at different times. The Myers-Briggs assessment simply measured which end of each scale was more comfortable for individuals.
She added that one advantage of knowing which type you were was awareness of your preferences, especially for making decisions about careers and considering compatibility with close friends and in relationships. But, she advised them, knowing preferences also made it easier to recognize when you might be better off acting against your type, and helped make conscious decisions to occasionally change behaviors.
Finally, Ms. Porter explained that one of the interesting aspects of Myers-Briggs is that in the end each person was identified as leaning toward one of sixteen personality types, using the label of their dominant trait from each of the four axes. Each of these personality types was given its own name, in addition to its four letter label. Some people thought it was fun to identify with their type name and the personality characteristics that were generally associated with each type.
Josiah noticed Ian rolling his eyes when Ms. Porter said this. He thought she might have noticed, too, because she glanced in their direction and smiled.
Ms. Porter explained that in the next class she would talk about each of the sixteen personality types. But as an exercise to conclude the day, she asked each of the students to think about where their personality might fall on each of the four axes and try to figure out what the assessment they had completed would conclude about their personality type.
She told them that some people would lean strongly toward one trait or the other on each of the four personality trait scales, some might not lean too strongly one way or the other on any of the four, and that most people might have one or two fairly strong personality traits, but would score more toward the middle of the scale on the other two or three traits. She asked her students to think about not only which end of the four trait scales they thought they most identified with, but also whether they thought they might lean strongly toward any of the personality traits. Then she asked them to write down the personality type they thought was likely theirs, and left them to consider their choices.
Josiah was excited on the bus ride home, not that there was anything particularly thrilling waiting for him at home. The school day had been filled with drama. It wasn't something that he enjoyed being involved with, but he thought that he had handled his role in it reasonably well. He was particularly pleased that Ian had actually been smiling when they parted ways at the end of the school day — although that may have been over an outlandish Myers-Briggs personality type that he made up for Josiah. But really, Josiah was pretty sure that Ian had been happy. And he found that also made him happy.
Josiah was also quite intrigued by the Myers-Briggs assessment and learning what it might tell him about his personality. He had always spent a lot of time thinking, but he had never worried too much about precisely who he was. He just was. Now he was wondering if there might be real value in having more understanding of himself and what made him tick, to borrow a phrase. He never had trouble being patient, but he really didn't want to wait a few more weeks for the result of the test.
When Josiah arrived at school the following morning, he was still feeling pretty good about himself. He was pleased to find that no one appeared to be paying much attention to him in the hallway, despite his role in the school drama the day before. And in homeroom there wasn't any unusual reaction to his arrival. In fact, it almost seemed as if the scene in the cafeteria had brought that drama to a close. It happened and now no one cared.
He glanced around his homeroom but surprisingly couldn't feel any enthusiasm for his classmates. Amy Hampton was still smart, pretty, quiet and she seemed nice. But there was just something about the way Jodi Corse looked that Josiah couldn't get out of his head. Unfortunately, there was something about the way that she had been behaving that he also couldn't forget. He thought that he might have to look somewhere else if he was going to find a girl that he cared to get to know better.
In English, Josiah was pleased to find Mr. Fisher still in good spirits. His instruction was engaging and fun. The conversation with students was interesting and flowed easily. When the period ended, he called Josiah up to his desk.
He met Josiah's eye evenly. "Thanks for standing up for Ian during lunch yesterday. That took a lot of courage. Even more important, you showed real character. I'm very proud of you, Josiah."
Josiah blushed. He wasn't sure what to say.
"I didn't really do much. But what the other kids were doing was wrong. I thought I should protect him."
Mr. Fisher considered that. "I don't know that Ian needs a protector, Josiah. But he really does need a friend."
Josiah thought about the self-confident kid that Ian had appeared to be earlier in the school year. He seemed much more comfortable with people than Josiah was. He was apparently a star athlete. It seemed like he could have his pick of friends.
Josiah felt oddly comfortable with the adult. Much more so than he usually did with grownups. "Would it mean that I have to go out for soccer?" he kept his expression innocent.
"It would help," Mr. Fisher laughed. "He likes you, Josiah. It would matter a lot to him if you were his friend. A lot." He caught Josiah's eye and held it for emphasis, before murmuring "thank you" and releasing his gaze.
No one seemed to pay any attention when Josiah joined Ian in the cafeteria. Conversation going on around them sounded quite normal. There were even a couple of freshman boys sitting at the table again. Josiah greeted them casually, then bumped fists with Ian. It almost embarrassed him that Ian was grinning nearly from ear to ear, but it also felt good.
While they ate and chatted, Josiah scanned the room for any sign of new trouble. The only people that seemed to be paying any attention to them were Daniel, Russ and a couple of their friends. Even Jodi was focused on the people at her table and was speaking quietly with them. To Josiah, she looked a lot smaller than she had the day before. It was almost like she was trying to disappear.
While he and Ian chatted, Josiah drew the other freshmen into their conversation. They didn't have any classes in common, so he asked about the courses they were taking and shared some of his experiences with the same teachers the previous year. As the lunch period was winding down, he and Ian were becoming part of a comfortable little clique.
It was almost going too well. So when Ian glanced up and flushed, Josiah wasn't surprised when he turned to find Daniel and Russ standing behind him.
"What's this? The no-pubes table?" Daniel sneered loudly.
Josiah was surprised to find himself acting without thinking again. Something unfamiliar — maybe emotion — seemed to take over whenever the bullies started picking on Ian. He pushed his chair back, stood, and turned to face them.
"Now you want to look at mine, too?" he demanded loudly. He didn't bother to control his volume. "You want another video, pervert?" he reached into his pocket and started to pull out his phone.
The look in Daniel's eyes was an interesting combination of fear and rage. For several seconds, his decision hung in the balance. Fortunately, staff monitoring the cafeteria were paying closer attention after the previous day's drama and were reacting before Daniel and Russ had even reached Josiah's table. Russ saw them coming, got Daniel's attention, and the two quickly faded back in the direction from which they had come.
Ian was watching Josiah with a mix of shame and gratitude. The expression on the faces of the other freshman looked more like hero worship. Josiah couldn't figure out how to react.
"I wonder if that sort of thing goes on around here often," he muttered. "Those two guys have some real mental problems." His expression brightened. "Maybe we should ask Ms. Porter why perverts act like that during our Psychology class today," he suggested to Ian. The other freshmen thought the idea was hilarious. Ian just looked rather queasy.
One of the freshman turned toward Ian, then paused to consider for a moment. "Is it true that you don't have your pubes yet?" he asked quietly.
Ian noticed that Josiah was starting to react angrily. "Yeah. It's true, Jake," he cut in. He hung his head.
"That's okay," Jake assured him. "Mine just started a few months ago." He shrugged. Mother Nature. What could you do? "Doesn't stop you from being cool."
Ian's demeanor didn't change much. But Josiah noticed that his breathing seemed more level. Calmer. He tipped the freshman a brief wink and an approving nod.
Josiah was feeling cautiously optimistic by the time the bell rang for the next period.
Ian was quiet during Chemistry class. Josiah decided that the best he could do was give him some space to work through the lunchroom encounter in his own way.
He found that Ian was ready to talk about the incident when they took their seats in study hall. "Is that what the rest of this year is going to be like?" he wondered.
Josiah tried to reassure him. From what he had observed, most high school drama ran in short cycles. People got fired up over some event, often trivial. The rumor mill turned out its rotten fruit. There would usually be threats of confrontation. Occasionally there might be a confrontation. Then the tension would just leak out of the situation, usually fairly quickly.
Within days there would be some new gossip for everyone to focus on. The parties to the old conflict generally let things drop. There might be some lingering resentment, but it rarely flared into open conflict again. That was just how a lot of the social life in high school worked.
"I'm not sure Daniel is going to let this go." Ian wasn't convinced. "Did you see the way he was looking at you during lunch?"
Josiah nodded ruefully. "I probably shouldn't have said anything to him. Just stood up and let him do something if he dared. The teachers wouldn't have let it get out of hand. I usually don't get that upset."
"What happened?" Ian was watching Josiah closely. "You're usually so calm and logical about everything."
Josiah had a hard time explaining his reactions, even to himself. "They just piss me off. They're being so nasty to you. And you didn't even do anything that should make them angry. It's wrong!" He didn't stop to consider how Ian had formed such a firm opinion about the way he approached life.
"I think it's probably about Mr. Waxon," Ian speculated. "For some reason, they really hate him. I mean, it wasn't the most exciting class. And I guess maybe that's because he's not the most exciting teacher."
Josiah recalled his Introduction to Physical Science class the previous year, and couldn't disagree with that assessment.
"But it isn't like he's shitty to anyone. If we do what we're supposed to do in class, he's usually alright."
"So what actually happened that day? What happened with Waxon's Power Point?" Josiah wanted to know.
Ian explained that several of the older students had arrived early and were fooling around at the teacher's desk before the class started. When he saw the projection flash 'Waxon Whacks Off!' up on the screen, he realized it was a bad idea. But for some reason the older kids were determined to 'get' the teacher.
Ian suggested that changing the screen to 'Wax On! Wax Off!' — "like that old karate movie with the Japanese guy" — would still make their point, but in a way that was subtle and ambiguous enough that the teacher couldn't get really upset about it.
"They wouldn't listen to me. I guess I should have just let it go then," Ian acknowledged. "But I knew it would cause lots of trouble. So I tried to edit the screen. They tried to stop me. And Mr. Waxon came in while we were still screwing around at his desk."
Josiah didn't understand why Daniel, Ross and the older kids were so angry with Ian. "You're the one that got punished!"
"I don't know," Ian shook his head. "They still embarrassed Mr. Waxon. Most of the school knows about it now."
"Daniel says it's because Waxon and Harding really think they did it."
"They probably do," Ian agreed.
"But they punished you." That didn't make any sense to Josiah.
"I admitted that I was messing with his laptop. And I guess Mr. Waxon just needed someone to pay for what happened. He won't even let me back in Physics class this year! You know," Ian snickered ruefully, "Daniel and Russ may sorta have a point about him."
"And you got suspended?" Josiah asked.
"Three days," Ian shook his head again. "But that was Mr. Harding. I think he tried to give me more. But my mom ended up calling the principal and even threatened to complain to the school board about Mr. Harding." He seemed proud of his mother's support but uncertain about the workings of the adult world.
"Oh! Maybe I saw her that day!" Josiah was reminded. "I saw a lady with blond hair kind of chewing you out," he cringed when he realized it might not be a fond memory for Ian. "My bus was going right past a house a little south of town. I recognized you in the driveway."
"It wasn't that bad," Ian assured him. "Mom was just explaining how I might have handled that situation better. Maybe I was a little stubborn about hearing it. But she wasn't angry with me."
For some reason, Josiah was relieved to hear that.
"So you'll be in Chemistry for the rest of the year?" Josiah was rather pleased with the idea. He wasn't particularly close to anyone else in the class. He had already shared more conversation with Ian in class than he had with anyone else all year. "But haven't you already passed the Chemistry exam." He wasn't sure, but everyone always took Physics after they had passed Chemistry.
Ian appeared somewhat conflicted. "I did. But maybe I can get some extra credits for taking it again. Ms. Grissom and I kind of figured out a plan."
"She's cool!" Josiah enthused. "She was my guidance counselor last year."
"She thought it would be good for me to be in your Chemistry class." Ian flushed and glanced away.
"And the study hall together worked out great, too!" Josiah added. "We can review Chemistry or get ready for Psychology. Whatever we need to do.
It felt good to see Ian's smile.
Josiah found that having two classes, a study hall, and a lunch period with Ian made the school day a lot more enjoyable for him. He managed to drag himself through homeroom, Math and Social Studies at the start of the day. By the time third period arrived, he was already looking forward to lunch and his afternoon classes. Mr. Fisher always made English interesting. And while the increased social interaction in Physical Education wasn't his favorite part of the class, he was a fifteen-year-old boy with some athletic ability. It was usually fun. Together, it all made school a lot more interesting than it had been before.
Reflecting on his improved attitude toward school, Josiah realized that he hadn't made any progress finding a girlfriend yet, but he had found a friend. That was more than he had managed during his previous ten-and-a-half years in school.
Well, just a little less than ten-and-a-half years, he corrected himself. The end of the second quarter was still a week away. He hadn't really forgotten. His parents reminded him of that fact almost every morning at breakfast. Which was still oatmeal. Plain oatmeal. Every day. So the reminders, in their intrusive and frequently annoying way, were often the most interesting part of that meal.
Sharing a lunch table with Ian and his friends — and then more and more friends as 'the cafeteria incident' started to fade into the student body's collective memory — was a different experience for Josiah. He had grown accustomed to eating alone, even if there were usually a few others at his table, and he found that the energy level surrounding eight or ten freshman boys could be a little draining for him at times. He tolerated it for Ian's sake, certain that Daniel, Russ and their crew might make another run at the kid if he wasn't around to deflect them. And really, most of the younger boys were interesting to talk to when they were in the mood for calm conversation.
Josiah found that sharing Chemistry class with Ian added a whole new dimension to his understanding of the subject. He had always been on track for a solid 'A' in the class. But Ian had already covered the material once. And the more time they spent together, the more Josiah realized how seriously intelligent Ian was. So while Ian enjoyed the social element of sharing the class with Josiah, he also fostered both cooperation and competition between them that helped Josiah understand the course material in even more depth than he might have managed on his own.
Study hall became almost as much an opportunity for social exploration for Josiah as it was time for him to do homework and review coursework. Getting to know Ian, although the kid had some parts of himself that he wasn't eager to share yet, and finding Ian just as interested in getting to know him, was a revelation for Josiah.
There had been adults in his life that made an effort to connect with Josiah. But his peers were usually intimidated by him. He had never understood that. He wasn't big and threatening. He wasn't aggressive, angry or critical of others. He understood that he wasn't the warmest or most enthusiastic person, but he was never unfriendly.
Whatever it was that kept most of his peers away from Josiah, it seemed to work the other way with Ian. He was constantly trying to find out more about his new friend. He knew that Josiah ran cross-country and was the top runner for Ball Mountain, even as a sophomore. He mentioned that he often saw Josiah running past his house and blushed when he admitted that he thought Josiah had very good form.
Josiah didn't understand why Ian was interested in his running, but he managed to realize that he probably shouldn't mention that he never actually saw Ian when he ran. It just seemed like something that Ian might not want him examining too closely. He couldn't imagine that Ian would have a little case of hero worship for him, but that's sure what it felt like.
Occasionally they talked about Ian's soccer. Josiah would have been embarrassed to admit that he didn't really pay much attention to any school teams except his own, so he just observed that Mr. Fisher seemed to think very highly of Ian's ability. Ian blushed deeply again, a hazard of being fair-skinned.
After dancing around the subject for a few days, Ian finally mentioned that he thought it would be good if he had something to do to keep himself in shape for soccer season. There might be a camp or two to attend over the spring and summer to hone his skills, possibly even a summer league to play in, but he really wished he had some way to keep himself in top physical condition.
Josiah took the hint. He suggested that it might help if Ian tried out for the track squad with him in the spring. A few more not-so-subtle hints from Ian, and Josiah finally twigged to the real point of the conversation and asked if Ian would like to join him on conditioning runs a few times each week. Ian pretended to consider the idea before agreeing that it might be just the thing that he needed.
Both Josiah and Ian loved their Psychology class. And they were both reminded in dozens of little ways every day — by Daniel, Russ and several of the older girls — that they really weren't welcome there. Ian's interference with their prank in Psychics hadn't been forgiven. Josiah's involvement in thwarting their revenge on Ian hadn't been forgotten. Fortunately, Ms. Porter helped keep them from becoming overwhelmed by the negativity from their classmates. She made it a point to get both boys involved in every class discussion and really seemed to appreciate their contributions.
The class had moved on to other topics, but most were eagerly waiting for the results of their MBTI assessment. Ms. Porter's classes on the topic had struck a chord with many of her students. Now they were eager to see where they fit into the scheme of that personality profile.
Ms. Porter announced that she would share the results of the MBTI with each student on the Wednesday before the second quarter ended. That would give the class a couple of days to consider and discuss the results, as well as time for a few class exercises for those who didn't mind sharing their result with the entire group.
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