Originally Posted By: mrs.cac4
Well, maybe CAC will pop in here with his thoughts. \:\)
I think what was happening with us was that I was overly critical and he was trying to avoid that. I think he believed that if I explained things to the nth detail that he would have a chance of "getting it right." I have only recently begun to understand this dynamic between us.

my thoughts:
This is because as a control freak, its not the end result that is important; it is the entire process, up to and including the nth degree. To someone else, for whom neither the task at large, nor the actual process is of particular importance, you must explain in great detail.
OTOH, stuff you do "for" me comes with much less detail, because I am not a control freak, and really don't care how you do it. "mowing the lawn" is pretty black and white. the mower must pass over every square inch of turf area; how you accomplish that is of no concern to me. If you want to make a bunch of swirlies and figure-eights, like Corri mentioned in another thread...go right ahead. But when you tell me to "clean the kitchen"...(and I'm just making this up as an example), well, crap. that could mean almost anything. picked up? washed? sanitized?? sterilized????
Originally Posted By: mrscac4

I picked up a bad habit from my mother -- assuming that people could read my mind.

lots of people do this. In fact, I might even say "most" people do this. and thats the problem. we assume...way too much. I got a question thismorning from someone that included 3 assumptions AND a conclusion...all of which were wrong. This is typically followed from me with a session of "20 questions"...and people HATE that. but its the only way I can accurately asses the situation, identify the problem, and apply a solution. a complete understanding of the situation is required.
You'd be amazed how often I solve problems that are presented as "I can't print", by crawling under a user's desk, and plugging the power cord to their computer back into the wall, and turning the thing on. (yeah, they actually pay me money to do that). The situation is very often presented 180 degrees from reality, because of this propensity to assume.

Originally Posted By: fearless
Which of us was right? Neither we just needed what we needed.

Nah. you were right.
seriously, the key word here, (which you used): *context* Our non-5/intj friends like to poke fun of us with all our logic and "linear" thinking and such...but a bunch of facts is meaningless without context. that joke about the glass being half full/empty...the engineer says "its twice as big as it needs to be"....ha ha, but wrong. no good engineer would draw that conclusion with the information presented. you need the big picture. With simple directions, you have no real "understanding", and one small mistake will find you lost. (unless you're a pilot; then you would be "temporarily disoriented. pilots don't get "lost" ;\) ... because they have maps).