As you know, my life isn’t exactly in order.

 

This may be evidenced by the fact that yesterday I was eating hot chips from the chicken shop while sitting in the burrito store while I waited for my Mexican food (that’s the long story short – the short story long will be served hot and coated in chicken salt for you in the coming weeks).

 

So I’m taking a few online quizzes to get things back on track So know what exactly I’m dealing with here (underwhelming spoiler alert: it’s me). I’ve done the Type A or Type B, which I feel was far too black and white for me. It was either one category or the other. So I decided to go for the Allen’s Party Mix equivalent of indulgent online quizardry: the Jung and Briggs Meyers test. That baby has 16 different categories you could fall into. Sure, this particular free online test may not be exactly accurate, reliable or ethical (the career section of the answers had links to colleges which offered courses you should totally take) but I was willing to give it a crack.

 

It had 64 questions for me to answer, which sounds like an odd number (odd as in “unusual” or “weird” not “uneven” – I may have forgotten all about derivatives but dammit I still retained something from my Catholic school education that wasn’t about the big man; I didn’t wear those shitty bottle green culottes for nothing!) but it was manageable. It sounds like a fair few questions, but there was minimal work involved really. It was a simple matter of picking one of five options for how you felt about a statement. Too easy campeasy.

But the problem was that it was too easy. I mean I had to give one word answers to strong statements without getting a chance to clarify my answer, or give it any context. I like explaining things, you know? I like giving long, unnecessary backstories when a simple answer would suffice – it’s kinda my thang (and yes, I did mean to write “thang” because there is nothing more badarse than owning your infuriating characteristics).

I mean, how am I supposed to get a free accurate representation of myself if I can’t give full and in-depth reasons for my answers? In maths you would get a few points for showing your working out on the test even if you got the answer wrong. Why should this be any difference?!

So here are my responses:

Sure, this may make me sound like a party pooper but you want to know what is a real party pooper? Death. Because when you die you lose control of all organs and you shit yourself. And you want to know what can lead to death? Not following the safety rules. Sure, it might very well be a thrill to lean over the balcony, but you want to know what is even more of a thrill? Leading a full and long life because you didn’t nose dive over a balcony on to several pointy rocks.

I’m just going to say it: safety is the biggest thrill.

Ok, I get how this looks. But I had a distinct memory of my preschool teacher trying to get me to dance to the Wiggles’ masterpiece The Wiggly Woo in preschool and me not having a bar of it. She tried to get me to dance along with the other lobotomy patients that were my “classmates” at the time, but I didn’t want to participate in their juvenile display of pointless physical movement.

As you might have guessed, I was a chubby and sarcastic child. Think Daria but with more chins.

Try as she might, Ms Julie could not get my limbs to “wiggle” like they belonged to some kind of brain dead rag doll. I pinned my arms to my side with such defiance that she abandoned the cause. She could not force me to feel.

That was a pivotal time in my life, when I decided that I was the master of my own movements. I decide when I’m excited about something. Mostly all my excitement was linked to food in those days, and I’d have to say that I haven’t changed much.

Well clearly. Sure, this may make me sound non-committal. And maybe I am non-committal, but I don’t think so. I mean, I hated the thought of a lock-in phone contract, I’ve only ever dyed my hair with wash-out colouring and I’ve purposefully fizzled out my relationships without a confrontation or a concrete break-up in case I decide to go in for round two (or five), but I wouldn’t say that commitment is my problem. I’m just saying that it’s comforting to know that I can exchange my order within 30 days , alright?

 

This makes me sound like the kind of woman who wears a bluetooth speaker on her ear all day long and pears a high ponytail with banging pencil skirts, but I am not Angelica from The Rugrats‘ mum (although she seems fabulous and probably was getting a little action from that Jonathan fellow, let’s just say it – because a man named Drew could never satisfy a goddess like her). I just don’t like to waste time. Some people don’t think that scrolling through the last several years of Paris Hilton’s Instagram feed is a good use of time, but I beg to differ.

The more people you talk to, the more people who know what a whackjob you are. It’s best to keep the true workings of you mind to a select few who you have so much dirt on they would never dare betray you. I recommend keeping a box of incriminating photographs of them in a secret location.

Not true, but this was as close as I could get. EVERYTHING can be analysed. We humans are judgemental beings and with those five fabulous senses of ours (six if you consider the ability to wake up a minute before  your alarms goes off a sense) we can’t help but process stimuli. Everything a person does, intentional or not, tells us something about them if we’re only noisy enough to peel away the layers.

People say that everything happens for a reason, and it’s true. Except I’m not talking about your boyfriend cheating on you or your shattered shinbone; I’m talking a much less grander scheme of things. Sometimes there are many levels, other times there are few. Like sometimes when you leave the dirty dishes in the sink it’s because you had to leave them there because you had to rush out straight after breakfast because you woke up late because you went to bed late because you weren’t tired because you napped the day before because stayed up late the night before that because you had to hang out with your roommate because you felt they were sad because you’re a really intuitive, caring person who goes out of their way to understand and comfort people. Sometimes when your housemate leaves dirty dishes in the sink it’s because they’re an areshole because they have no soul.

I love putting things into order – highlighters, pens, leaflets in public tourism stands – except my own life.

I found this one tough to answer. Because I manage to stop myself from pelting a gym ball at full speed at the heads of people minding their own business when I get the urge, but I also ate four slices of bread today.

Nah, they’re both equally as worrying.

***

I think I’m going to leave this here for now, as I’m tired and dragging this test out over two posts will mean I’ll have to think up one less topic next week. And I really shouldn’t be wasting my brainpower right now – I used the word “motorbikling” instead of “motorcycling” the other day.