Are You a Highly Rational (NT) Human?
Within the MBTI system, the NTs, also known as the ‘Rationals’, include four types — INTJ, INTP, ENTJ, and ENTP. Rationals is amongst the rarest type.
NT types or the Rationals are naturally pragmatic, and are good at finding one’s way in a complex system. They thrive on analyzing systems and improving things.
As a highly rational person, whilst you are great at finding solutions for real-life problems, you also enjoy studying philosophical ideas and abstract concepts. You love learning, and from a young age, you have an insatiable curiosity about life. You also love solving complex puzzles that would be challenging to most other people. You thrive on complexity and are not so interested in the obvious.
You are a fiercely independent thinker. You dispise bureaucracy and rules without reasons. It takes a lot for you to compromise your principles and integrity, and most of the time you would not. You also do not blindly follow any doctrine; when something is fake, false, hypocritical or does not make sense, you can’t help but see it. Therefore you are skeptical about the most commonly held beliefs and will always try to find your own answers.
When you are engaged, you can become hyper-focused and absorbed in a project, especially when seeking answers to a question or solving a particular problem.
You hold yourself to a high standard, and you cannot help but see it when others have sloppiness in their thinking; you may or may not point it out but witnessing un-intelligent and illogical behaviors annoy you.
You may not be blatantly expressive, but you always look at the big picture and care deeply about the world. Consciously or not, you are always working towards elevating the level at which everyone operates.
Essentially, you are an intensely analytical, curious human. You have a highly complex inner world that not many people get.
Because of this, you may struggle with loneliness, relationship frustrations, and feeling misunderstood. The following 5 points are some of the life challenges faced by highly rational people or the NT types.
― E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful
Highly Rational Challenge 1: You Don’t Fit in
As a minority in the personality system, you may feel you don’t fit in with most groups or communities. Through repeated negative experience in life, you might have received the message that your true self is not acceptable. For example, when you say what is really on your mind, even what you say is purely logical and well-intentioned, some people may perceive it as hurtful or offensive. And when you try to act as your true self — not diluting your messages, not faking smiles, not initiating meaningless small talks, not entertaining faulty logic — you end up being seen as cold, aloof, or arrogant.
In your younger years, you might have tried to mimic those around you, only to feel like you have betrayed yourself. On some level, you may feel resentful for the feeling that you are the one who has to adapt to the wider world, rather than vice versa.
Because of your ongoing frustration of being misunderstood, you may have resorted to being an observer of life, where you take a ‘helicopter-view’ of social situations. You have figured out the unspoken rules or etiquette of how people work and use these ‘maps’ to travel in the social world. You may ‘pass’ for being socially appropriate, but still you do not feel your true self is seen, accepted, or loved.
Highly Rational Challenge 2: Your Help is Rejected
Deep down, you are a caring person. When people you care about come to you, you feel compelled to help. But your rational approach may not work for everyone. For instance, when someone comes to you, they may only be seeking consolation or empathy, not a practical solution, but you may not catch this nuance in their request.
As an NT Rational, your first approach to problem is to analyse the situation with logic and explore possibilities from various angles . It is actually your strength to help people gain clarity in their thinking and change their perspective for the better; this is your ‘love language’ . However, for those who are not really looking for a solution to problems and just want to be empathized on a feeling level, your approach may displease them and they would reject your help. You also naturally see the big picture and may suggest the person to see other people’s perspectives, but if they are not ready to hear this, they may accuse you of not taking their side.
You enjoy helping others and serving the world, but in your own way. Your intention to help is always sincere, so it can be disheartening when others repeatedly reject your help. Being misunderstood and un-appreciated is particularly hard for INTPs, as they have a genuine desire to feel like they are an ally to their close friends or loved ones.
Highly Rational People Struggle 3: They May Assume You Don’t Care, Even When You Do
As an NT Type, or a highly rational person, when you are pondering a question or solving a problem, you can become hyper-focused. You need time to think, and mostly in solitude. During these times, you may choose to isolate yourself, but that does not mean you have stopped caring for others. The irony is the while you are trying to solve the world’s or the community’s problems, people think of you as uncaring.
In conversations, you try to not waste words on the obvious or trivial. You don’t want to be competing for credits or stating the obvious, but your silence could be misinterpreted as arrogance. But behind your level-headedness, you have a complex inner world and incredible depth to your emotions.
You are direct in expressing your opinions; sometimes, you don’t sugarcoat things. When others are not used to it, they may accuse you of being hurtful and insensitive, but that is not true.
Highly Rational People Struggle 4: The ‘Too Much’ Criticism
As a highly rational person or an NT type, you are likely intellectually excitable. It is a trait of many highly intelligent or intellectually gifted people. When you have a question on your mind you don’t stop until you find the answer. You love learning and have immense curiosity about the world. Your intellect may not be reflected in your academic achievement, but your mind is almost always busy. This means that even as a child, you ask deep and probing questions — about philosophies of life, the meaning of events, existential questions, wider issues in the world. You may become preoccupied with particular subjects or moral issues. Unfortunately, this means your parents and teachers might have accused you of asking too many questions, speaking too much, and not just accept what was taught.
Even as an adult, your intellectual excitability may be seen as ‘too much’ for those who do not keep up with you. At work, your intensity and cause you difficulties. Because of your natural competence and high level of integrity, your colleagues may feel intimidated. Those junior to you feel pressured to keep up with you, or they feel exposed when you expose their laziness lack of effort. Those senior to you may dislike being challenged, even when they can benefit and learn from what you have to say.
Highly Rational Challenge 5: Dating Can Be Difficult
As an NT type, you are likely highly autonomous and independent in your way of being. You do not subscribe to the normative notion of what relationships need to look like. For example, you do not find that you need a 24/7 company. You probably prefer to only have exciting intellectual or romantic exchange when you occasionally get together with your loved ones, but leave enough solo thinking time in your life. You may feel suffocated by a demanding, engulfing partnership. Many conventionally accepted ways of coupling, such as frequent texting or daily phone calls, do not work for you.
Ultimately, you want to have an authentic relationship, not one made from society’s cookie-cutter format. It can be challenging for you to find someone who is compatible physically, sexually, and intellectually. For instance, you might be initially attracted to someone on a physical level, but if you later find that the person cannot hold stimulating conversations, lack common sense or worldly vision, you may be put off.
What If You Are a Highly Rational Woman?
According to statistics, most females are the Sensing Feeling (SF) type, after that are Sensing Thinking (ST) females, followed by Intuitive Feelings (NF) females and finally Intuitive Thinking (NT) females. Altogether, NTs only make up about 6 percent of the female population. However, because their personality tends to counter stereotypical cultural expectations, highly rational NT females face various struggles in the world.
Despite waves of feminist movements and rising awareness about diversities, our culture, by and large, have particular stereotypical ideas about how a woman should think, feel, and behave. The ‘feminine ideal’ includes friendliness, warmth, the desire to nurture, and a high degree of emotional expressiveness. On the other hand, rationality, assertiveness in thinking, confidence in composure, drivenness are not what one expects to see in a woman. Women are socialized to develop their feeling function from an early age; whereas men are encouraged to have their thinking function as the dominant one. This makes you an outlier as an NT female.
As a highly rational NT woman, your natural way of being does not fit into the gender stereotype. You don’t play games, bubble wrap things, speak in a roundabout manner, or act compliantly just because it is socially expected to do so. Those who enjoy being with you love the fact that when they are with you, ‘what you see is what you get.’
Many highly rational people or NT females have expressed the feeling that things would be easier if they had been male. It is not that they do not like being women; it is just that it is challenging to be constantly, put into a feminine ‘mold, be limited by the glass ceiling, and be constantly facing micro-aggressions.
Sadly, sometimes society would advise competent and independent women to ‘dumb it down’. Well-meaning people around you may encourage you to pretend to be what you are not, just to not appear threatening or intimidating.
If you are a highly rational NT woman, please know that the problem is not in the way you are, but in society’s dogmatic idea of femininity. Just because you don’t fit into the common notion of femininity does not mean you are not feminine. You enjoy being desired, be understood, and being appreciated by others.
The Next Step
Dear highly rational people, NT souls, please know that even the world misunderstands you sometimes, your unique qualities — your intelligence, kindness, and passion for the truth — remain untethered. Your intellect, ability to think profoundly and debate persuasively are natural gifts. And so are your sensitivity and kindness. You deserve to be seen for who you are, be loved for what you offer and how you offer them. With some time and self-awareness, you can surround yourself with people who get you and love you and would not demand you to be anything but who you are.
more about being an intense, sensitive and unconventional human: www.eggshelltherapy.com
