I haven't been feeling all that interesting lately. On top of that, I've also been feeling a little "complainy", and while having a blog certainly gives one a platform to rant, I don't think that it is very interesting to others, or very productive for me, to use this as a place to rail against all that I see as unjust in the world (ie. why some people can eat whatever they want and never gain a pound, and some, like me can't look at ice cream without going up a pant size).
So, I haven't had many ideas for entries in the past week or two, but lately, I've been seeing a glut of quizzes on Facebook and that got me thinking about a quiz I took at the beginning of the school year. It was a stupid "Dr. Phil Personality Quiz" that had nothing to actually do with Dr. Phil, and likely had nothing to do with psychology or personality testing in general. I usually limit my quiz taking on Facebook to ones that will prove that I was actually supposed to be 5 foot 10, and live in France, but I was bored and looking for distraction. Forgive me if you've already read this note, as I wrote it and posted it on my FB under "notes" back in September, but reading all of these quizzes, I started to realize that I think we take these stupid things not only as a way to avoid folding laundry or go for a run (is that just me?), but also as a way to reassure ourselves just a tiny bit. Who doesn't want the two words to describe you to be "joyful and adventurous" or to know that if you were an animal you would be a dolphin, or that you were meant to be tall and beautiful and live in France?
Here you go...
Have you seen the Dr. Phil Quiz going around facebook? I was bored during a piano lesson today for one of the kids (keep the judge-y "you should enjoy every moment with your kids" BS to yourselves... I go to that piano lesson every week!) and took the quiz. I answered the seemingly benign questions as honestly as possible and tallied my score and read the results.
My initial score was 137 (more on the mathematical impossibility of this in a minute) and I read my results. This is what it said:
If you scored over 60:
Others see you as someone they should "handle with care." You're seen as vain, self-centred and one who is extremely domineering. Others may admire you, wishing they could be more like you, but don't always trust you, hesitating to become too deeply involved with you.
My first thought was "wow, what a horrible person" ... and my second thought was "I think that they hit the nail on the head ... that totally describes me."
And I sat listening to my child do her lesson and I became more and more upset with how the world saw me and how accurate this description of me was. I started looking at friends who had scored in the 40s and thought ... "yep... there's my problem ... I am the problem."
Staring at my paper with all of my answers on it, I just started to feel so sad, but looking at those numbers made me think that just maybe I should redo that math because that's a pretty high score for the numbers I had and I re-added my score. It seems that adding a small number of 4s and 6s together can't possibly equal 137 and I had inadvertently pressed the multiplication button instead of the addition button on my new iphone calculator. My new score was 44. I scrolled down to read the new results and this is what I found:
41-50 points
Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical and always interesting; someone who's constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding; someone who'll always cheer them up and help them out.
Hmmm... that's a very different person for me to wrap my head around. Funnily enough, I didn't jump for joy at this, or think "exactly! that's better!" It was easier to accept (although sadder) the first description that fed on every insecurity I have and the way I sometimes feel others see me. This second person should be problem free, conflict free. An "always interesting" person who is also charming and practical should be the person everyone wants to spend time with, and yet I often feel like I'm someone people don't always appreciate having around. Some of that description, as a helper and as considerate and kind, I can see that, but I can also see "domineering" as a great word others might use to describe my control freak nature! As always, the truth likely lies somewhere in between these two descriptions.
So this is why I say Dr. Phil sucks (and I don't know if it's really Dr. Phil's quiz) ... somewhere, someone truly scored over 60 and tonight they have been given a really ugly view of themselves to think about. It's just a stupid internet quiz, but if you're someone who feels vulnerable, or left out or just a little down it might really sting (it stung me and I'm not overly melancholy). Sadly, someone took questions about what position they sleep in and what colours they like and how they walk and have been slotted into a really undesirable position. I haven't even gone on to read the results for people at the low end of the scale, but I bet they are not all that nice either.
Everybody wants to be the person described in the 41-50 range. That's a really nice person who should just be able to go through life happy with tons of friends and no problems. But doing this quiz and seeing how quickly I was willing to believe that unflattering description of how people see me tells me that it's not that easy.
There are two lessons I've learned from this little exercise. The first is that those people in internet land, who feel I'm betraying my children by being on my iphone during their piano lessons have a point, and the second is that my grade 12 math tutor was right ... I should just listen to the piano lesson instead of going on Facebook, and stop using my calculator and really learn how to add.