6. At social events you rarely try to introduce yourself to new people and mostly talk to the ones you already know 

I’m the opposite of this. I actually go out of my way to find the people I don’t know and introduce myself. This happened recently at a ‘margarita hour’ at our office. We had sent out some invitations to the other businesses on our floor. When people started showing up, I wanted to make sure and greet them and welcome them in. I made a point of asking their names and then trying to remember them. If I saw someone standing off by themselves, I would go up and talk to them. I did this a lot at the church I go to. Not as much anymore, since I’m not part of the leadership, but I will still introduce myself to people regularly if I don’t recognize them, and ask them who they are, if this is their first time, etc.  

I know I already mentioned some of this earlier in another response.  

Related to this, but not quite the same, I love being in a group and having us all participate in the discussion. I know it’s common for people to split off into subgroups, I do this too. But I really try to bring everyone in to the discussion. I’ll note during the conversation if someone is not participating, and try to ask them their thoughts. But part of the deal is recognizing when people are more comfortable NOT being integral to the conversation, but just partaking by watching. Then I need to leave them alone. Thankfully, we have a very social office environment, precisely because many of us are fairly outgoing. There are a few that tend to hang back and observe, but most of us participate freely in the conversations. 

7. You prefer to completely finish one project before starting another 

Classic creative personality, in my opinion, is to lurch from one thing to the next. I have this tendency. 

Now, if we’re talking about a work project, then I would prefer to finish it up, then move on to the next thing. But unfortunately, inasmuch as my projects sometimes require input from others, I’m not in control of this. I have to turn a project over to someone else until they give their input, and often that means I have to wait. Until then, I can’t just sit, so I have to switch gears and do something else. 

Overall, I’m pretty good at time management, and I am totally a self-starter. This is partly because I worked for myself for 22 years, partly because it’s my personality. 

When it comes to my work projects, I would prefer to finish one, then move to the next. It just doesn’t usually work that way.  

When I’m reading, I tend to do one book at a time. The only time I vary from this is when I’m just not very interested in one, then I might start a second one and work through it at the same time. But I generally prefer to do one at a time. 

In much of my other interests, I will move from one thing to the next. I’ve often said I’ll never be an expert in anything, because my interests are too scattered. I learn a little about the thing that catches my interest, then move on once I’m satisfied that I’ve gotten enough knowledge about the thing. With some things, I return consistently and get better over time. With other things, I learn a little, then leave off and it’s all good. I tend therefore to have a little knowledge about a lot of different things, but no particular expertise in anything, because I lack the particular character trait that causes people to focus on that one thing.  

In the summary of this, I do find myself wanting to finish a project before I start another, at least in some areas, particularly work and reading. In many other areas, I don’t care.  

8. You are very sentimental 

My first question was, what exactly does this mean? The definition of sentimental is: prompted by feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia. 

Wikipedia has this to say: originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, but in current usage the term commonly connotes a reliance on shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason. 

If I’m relying on the first definition, I don’t know if I rise to the level of ‘very’ sentimental, but I’ll try to offer some examples of where I am on this. I remember specific dates of things that happened. I have marked them on my calendar. I remember moments and little things that mean something to me. Maybe everyone does this, I don’t know. So it’s hard to say if I’m in the normal range, or towards ‘more sentimental’, but can certainly be prompted by tenderness, sadness or nostalgia. 

I’m also pretty bad at hiding my emotions . I try, and have actually done pretty well at it in some instances, but people are often able to read my impatience, for example, on my face. Again, I’m not sure where this would fall in consideration of the statement, but it feels like it is part of the equation. 

If I’m relying on wikipedia, I mean, it sounds bad, but maybe I’m guilty of it. Even my choice of words- guilty… like it’s a crime or something to rely on emotions, would speak that it’s not good to be sentimental. But of course they word it not just ’emotions’ but “shallow, uncomplicated emotions”, “at the expense of reason”. Who would want to admit to being driven by “shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason”? That doesn’t sound like a stable person.  

The question though isn’t whether I like the way it sounds, it’s whether I’m like that or not. I hope I’m more driven by reason, and in many areas I probably am, but there are other areas where I clearly am not. Just like overeating when I know I’m supposed to be on a diet, I know there are things that I should give up, that would be the reasonable thing, but which I just can’t seem to let go of.  

That, as a matter of fact, does lead to some instability.  

There are some areas where people might consider me rather dead to sentiment. For example, with my father’s passing. There are people who really seem to have a hard time with death, with the loss. I don’t. I just accept that the deceased had their time, I am thankful for it, and now it’s over. Where my aunt, for example, has built a mini-shrine to her deceased husband in the room where he was, I just think it’s kind of weird.  Now granting, I’ve not lost a spouse. That is the closest relationship we’ll have in this life, and my aunt and uncle didn’t have any kids so he was her everything. But even so. I just can’t relate to people who want to hang on so much. I’m sure lots of people would consider me heartless because of this. I don’t think I am, I just view it more rationally, in my opinion. 

We are watching a show right now where the guy loses his wife. For the first year he was so distraught he could hardly move, and even five years later, he is still stuck in a sort of paralysis in some areas. It just drives me nuts. I can’t understand this. I’m sure my attitude could be both a strength and a weakness, but I’m just as sure that lots of people would still consider me heartless because of it. 

So in an attempt at analyzing where I fit on this spectrum, it would depend perhaps on the definition, but I think while in general I’m probably in the middle, there are areas where I’d probably lean towards the more sentimental.  

9. You like to use organizing tools like schedules and lists 

I use schedules and lists for work, but not for much else. I suppose that’s because by nature I’m a little more disorganized than is good for me. But having worked for myself for many years, I learned to do what I had to in order to make sure I accomplished my work on time.  

Outside of work, I don’t really organize as much. I used to manage projects when I was involved in leadership at church, and for that, I would have to sit down and figure out what had to happen, when each step along the way should be happening, and then set up milestones and progress reports to make sure it was all moving along as it was supposed to. But I don’t do that job anymore.  

I occasionally have to manage a project for the HOA where I live, but nothing that really requires so much planning. And without needing to plan stuff, I don’t need organizing tools. 

I suppose there are other areas of life that require organization. I try to be relatively organized in general with my stuff. I didn’t grow up that way. My mom was constantly “looking for” some thing or other that was needed. When I was well into adulthood, a friend mentioned that she always had a place for everything, and put it there. So she never had to go looking for a thing. She only had to go to the place where it should be. I had never heard that before but I immediately loved the entire concept. To be honest, I was already well on my way to being more organized, probably as a reaction against the way I grew up, but this time I decided that it was going to be the way to live my life.  

I can’t say I manage it perfectly. There are things that I have to get so rarely that I don’t always remember exactly where the place is…but in general, I do try to stay organized with household or workplace items. 

Same holds true for my computer files and folders. I try to put things in logical places. 

But as a kid, I was always a forgetful. I used to regularly come home from school without my jacket, at which point my mom would say: David, where’s your jacket? I would sheepishly look down and notice I didn’t have it, and then mutter I must have forgot it. To which my mom would reply: I swear David, if you didn’t have your head screwed on, you’d forget that too! I heard that about a thousand times growing up. But I was always had a thing for keeping my room as uncluttered as possible. I would at times, haul in one of the big trash cans from outside and then just pitch a bunch of stuff I didn’t want anymore. Mom would see this and go out and root through it and pull stuff out that she didn’t think I ought to be throwing away. I know the statement didn’t list ‘organizing tools like trash cans’, but I would think trash cans can be organizing tools, right? 

The last two points then are related to organizing in the sense that, as a kid, I was really forgetful, which would be evidence that I’m not naturally super organized, and yet, I don’t like clutter, which would be evidence that I at least want to be organized. That’s the way I’m seeing it anyway.