# Liking of clear directional instructions: Is this Se-seeking? or Te-seeking?



## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

In the workplace at least, I find myself getting along best with managers who are capable of giving "clear and directional" instructions. 

I just had some miscommunications with my manager earlier. He told me to pack a bunch of items into this cardboard box, but he didn't exactly tell me how he wanted me to pack it, he didn't give me any "clear and directional" instructions on how to pack it, so I ended up packing it in my own way. 

And then he started telling me that I've packed it the wrong way. 

Some examples of the "clear and directional" instructions I was looking for are these:

"I want you to pack this certain item into this certain plastic bag."
"I want you to dismantle this item using this certain tool."
"I want you to pack these two smaller cardboard box into this bigger cardboard box."


I need those type of detailed step-by-step "clear and directional" instructions, but he didn't give me any of these instructions.

Instead, he just gave me those items and the carton, and then he just told me to pack it.

His instructions wasn't clear enough for me, I didn't know what he wanted, hence, I ended up packing it the wrong way.

Does my strong liking of detailed step-by-step clear directional instructions point toward Se-seeking, or does this point more toward Te-seeking?


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## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

I wonder if that miscommunication happens because I was subconsciously expecting my manager to act like my dual, and I wanted him to give me clear directional instructions like the way my dual is able to.

But I have no idea who is my dual. I can see either IEI and ESI for my own type, so I don't know if my dual is SLE or LIE, but I just know that my dual is someone who is able to provide step-by-step detailed clear directional instructions for me. They are someone who will always tell me what to do, how to do it, and they will always provide lots of details and they won't leave me guessing on what or how I need to do something.

Which socionics type does my dual sound like though? SLE? Or LIE? Or some other type?


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## Wisteria (Apr 2, 2015)

> t I just know that my dual is someone who is able to provide step-by-step detailed clear directional instructions for me. They are someone who will always tell me what to do, how to do it, and they will always provide lots of details and they won't leave me guessing on what or how I need to do something.


Could be Ti seeking, which is about the sequence of events and very systematic.

It depends, did you not understand him because of having less common sense of how to do the packing efficiently, not understand what he was trying to tell you, or the order in which you do it? 

Communication is more related to ethics in socionics, but i'm not that is the problem here or not. It sounds like maybe you didn't get what he was wanting you to do and you didn't know how. Seems like Ti and Se/Ne seeking to need to a clear set of instructions with all the details. In other words someone to provide you with that sequential step by step instructions to perform a Te related task.

I don't think it's Te seeking, could be Te PoLR seeking the help of Ti to compensate for it.


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## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

Wisteria said:


> Could be Ti seeking, which is about the sequence of events and very systematic.
> 
> It depends, did you not understand him because of having less common sense of how to do the packing efficiently, not understand what he was trying to tell you, or the order in which you do it?
> 
> ...


It's mostly about me not having enough common sense of how to do the packing efficiently. I understood that he wanted me to pack those items, but he gave me a bunch of plastic bags, box, and also the items to pack, and without any further instructions, he just told me to pack those items. How on earth am I supposed to know which items go into which plastic bags and which box? And he didn't tell me that those two smaller box are supposed to fit into the bigger box either. I didn't even know that those three box are related to each other, since that larger box was being placed together with a bunch of other unwanted cardboard boxes, so I naturally thought that the larger box was one of those unwanted cardboard box. 

I tend to be a total klutz when it comes to anything that requires details or practical work, and I often need someone to guide me when it comes to these stuff. 

How do I tell if I'm Te PoLR though? I find myself hating household chores, I hate vacuuming the floor, I hate doing laundry, I hate washing dishes. Fuck those stuff. And I also tend to hate the grind of 9-5 rat race. 
I don't mind work if I'm working for myself, but I hate work if I'm working for others. Is this Te PoLR? 

I'm not sure if I'm Ti-seeking either, because I have another different manager whom I believed is my dual. And he doesn't really Ti a lot. Like there was one time when I did some stuff wrongly, and he didn't even say anything, just asked me if I needed any help, and then he demonstrated to me how to do that certain task. 
Anyway, that manager of mine is situated at a different branch most of the time, but occasionally, he will visit my branch. The first time I saw him, I actually find him quite attractive, and also approachable. I find him really attractive, to the extent that I dare not talk to him, but at the same time, I can't help but to notice his presence and I find myself feeling strongly drawn to him. I want to get to know him better, but somehow he just doesn't seem to notice me. From the way I reacted to him, I'm pretty certain he is my dual type in socionics. Not sure what's his type though, but he doesn't strike me as a Ti base type..?


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## Wisteria (Apr 2, 2015)

Schizoid said:


> It's mostly about me not having enough common sense of how to do the packing efficiently. I understood that he wanted me to pack those items, but he gave me a bunch of plastic bags, box, and also the items to pack, and without any further instructions, he just told me to pack those items. How on earth am I supposed to know which items go into which plastic bags and which box? And he didn't tell me that those two smaller box are supposed to fit into the bigger box either. I didn't even know that those three box are related to each other, since that larger box was being placed together with a bunch of other unwanted cardboard boxes, so I naturally thought that the larger box was one of those unwanted cardboard box.
> 
> I tend to be a total klutz when it comes to anything that requires details or practical work, and I often need someone to guide me when it comes to these stuff.


Sounds like bad Te-Si, and you want supervision on this.




> How do I tell if I'm Te PoLR though? I find myself hating household chores, I hate vacuuming the floor, I hate doing laundry, I hate washing dishes. Fuck those stuff. And I also tend to hate the grind of 9-5 rat race.
> I don't mind work if I'm working for myself, but I hate work if I'm working for others. Is this Te PoLR?


If you hate working for others that does sound like Te PoLR. Not liking housework also sounds like Te or Si PoLR.



> I'm not sure if I'm Ti-seeking either, because I have another different manager whom I believed is my dual. And he doesn't really Ti a lot. Like there was one time when I did some stuff wrongly, and he didn't even say anything, just asked me if I needed any help, and then he demonstrated to me how to do that certain task.
> Anyway, that manager of mine is situated at a different branch most of the time, but occasionally, he will visit my branch. The first time I saw him, I actually find him quite attractive, and also approachable. I find him really attractive, to the extent that I dare not talk to him, but at the same time, I can't help but to notice his presence and I find myself feeling strongly drawn to him. I want to get to know him better, but somehow he just doesn't seem to notice me. From the way I reacted to him, I'm pretty certain he is my dual type in socionics. Not sure what's his type though, but he doesn't strike me as a Ti base type..?


Workplace romance huh? It sounds like he could be Te ego, not 100% sure though because I don't know much about them. And just because you find them attractive, doesn't mean they have to be a dual. It could be a supervision relationship (which is also common as a romantic relationship according to socionics). Maybe you're like an SEI and he's LSE. But i'm assuming a lot here tbh.

The difference between PoLR and suggestive is with the vulnerable function you feel you have to do it but you hate it, whereas the dual seeking function is something you like doing and want to do yourself even if you're not good at doing it with others. Both of them you might be good at doing in your own time or independently, but not with other people.


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## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

Wisteria said:


> Workplace romance huh? It sounds like he could be Te ego, not 100% sure though because I don't know much about them. And just because you find them attractive, doesn't mean they have to be a dual. It could be a supervision relationship (which is also common as a romantic relationship according to socionics). Maybe you're like an SEI and he's LSE. But i'm assuming a lot here tbh.
> 
> The difference between PoLR and suggestive is with the vulnerable function you feel you have to do it but you hate it, whereas the dual seeking function is something you like doing and want to do yourself even if you're not good at doing it with others. Both of them you might be good at doing in your own time or independently, but not with other people.


I still get a dual vibe from him though. That strange magnetic pull in wanting to get to know him better. Not sure about him being my supervision type, as I don't really find myself walking on eggshells around him. 

My other manager whom I wrote about in my OP is more likely to be my supervision type in socionics. We get along well, and he feels a bit like a kindred spirit at times, someone who is on the same mental wavelength as me, but at the same time, we have some differences in the way we processed information, which results in our miscommunication. Supervision is such a weird relationship.
On one hand, I tend to feel much emotionally closer to my supervisor as compared to my conflictor. Yet on the other hand, if I get too close to my supervisor, I start finding myself getting burned by them.


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## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

I think I just saw Te PoLR in myself today. 

My manager recently gave me this key, and I'm supposed to help lock the door whenever I leave the workplace. But I couldn't even lock the door, somehow the key wasn't able to lock the door despite how I've already locked it, and my manager was standing beside me at that time and he got mad at me for taking too long to lock the door, and he ended up taking the key from me and locking the door himself instead. 

I feel so incompetent. I can't seem to do anything right. I can't even do basic tasks such as locking/unlocking the door. 
I feel so dumb and useless. 

At least now I'm 90% sure that I'm Te PoLR, given how I seemed to lack any form of practical skills and how I can't seem to do anything right at work and how I seemed to constantly annoy my manager and my coworkers with my incompetence. :/


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## Wisteria (Apr 2, 2015)

Schizoid said:


> I still get a dual vibe from him though. That strange magnetic pull in wanting to get to know him better. Not sure about him being my supervision type, as I don't really find myself walking on eggshells around him.
> 
> My other manager whom I wrote about in my OP is more likely to be my supervision type in socionics. We get along well, and he feels a bit like a kindred spirit at times, someone who is on the same mental wavelength as me, but at the same time, we have some differences in the way we processed information, which results in our miscommunication. Supervision is such a weird relationship.
> On one hand, I tend to feel much emotionally closer to my supervisor as compared to my conflictor. Yet on the other hand, if I get too close to my supervisor, I start finding myself getting burned by them.


Oh whoops thought I replied to this quote. I thought these two people were the same person. In that case I was thinking of the one you mentioned in your OP as being a supervisor. The second could be benefactor or acting as a dual. Or maybe the attraction is for a non socionics related reason.



Schizoid said:


> I think I just saw Te PoLR in myself today.
> 
> My manager recently gave me this key, and I'm supposed to help lock the door whenever I leave the workplace. But I couldn't even lock the door, somehow the key wasn't able to lock the door despite how I've already locked it, and my manager was standing beside me at that time and he got mad at me for taking too long to lock the door, and he ended up taking the key from me and locking the door himself instead.
> 
> ...


That sucks, can't be good at everything though and some of my colleagues are like that (their practical skills and using equipment isn't the best). This sounds like weak Te-Si. You're probably using some other socionics IE therefore you feel inferior compared to everyone who is in Te-Si mode. There is a lack of Si there (or sensing) because you don't mention watching other people to see how they do the task, like watching how he locks the door (Si) to figure out how to do it yourself (Te).


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## angelfish (Feb 17, 2011)

Schizoid said:


> His instructions wasn't clear enough for me, I didn't know what he wanted, hence, I ended up packing it the wrong way.


You can go digging into all the functional implications of the situation, but I'm a manager and personally I'd just chalk the whole thing up to poor/lazy management. The only way this issue is your "fault" or even neutral is if there was a pre-established method that had already been introduced to you for doing that task and you failed to learn or apply it sufficiently. 

Between this and the key situation it sounds like your manager is impatient and isn't doing a great job of training you. Are there any coworkers you can reach out to who can help you navigate your job better?


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## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

angelfish said:


> You can go digging into all the functional implications of the situation, but I'm a manager and personally I'd just chalk the whole thing up to poor/lazy management. The only way this issue is your "fault" or even neutral is if there was a pre-established method that had already been introduced to you for doing that task and you failed to learn or apply it sufficiently.
> 
> Between this and the key situation it sounds like your manager is impatient and isn't doing a great job of training you. Are there any coworkers you can reach out to who can help you navigate your job better?


He can be impatient at times yeah. But he really fits my supervisor type in socionics. 
We can drive each other up the wall at times, he frustrates me at times but I tend to bottle up those frustrated feelings, whereas he will show his frustration a bit more openly by criticizing me. He has high expectations of me and somehow I always seemed to fail his expectations and he will often tell me that I need to buck up and stop making him angry, lol. 
But despite how we drive each other crazy at times, I wouldn't exactly say he's a bad manager. Although he is quite strict and can even be critical at times and often has high expectations of me, but at the same time he has always been quite nice to me and rarely raised his voice at me and he also gives me lots of "downtime" at work and he allows me to play with my phone at work during those "downtime".. When there isn't any work to do, he will just let me do my own stuff, he's quite laidback as a manager, and I quite like this trait about him. 
He is unlike my main boss who will often raise his voice at employees and scold them every day and make them work like a bunch of bumble bees every hour of the day.. If I'm not under him, then I'll end up being under my main boss, and I don't know if I want to be managed by my main boss. 

And I don't know if I have other coworkers who can help nagivate my job better. I used to have a coworker who is quite patient in training me, but she has left here recently after working here for a year. So now I'm left with another coworker of mine, who seems like socionics SEE to me, she's very helpful to me and would help me out most of the time time, but I think there was once or twice when she got impatient with me too due to my crappy Te.


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## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

angelfish said:


> You can go digging into all the functional implications of the situation, but I'm a manager and personally I'd just chalk the whole thing up to poor/lazy management. The only way this issue is your "fault" or even neutral is if there was a pre-established method that had already been introduced to you for doing that task and you failed to learn or apply it sufficiently.
> 
> Between this and the key situation it sounds like your manager is impatient and isn't doing a great job of training you. Are there any coworkers you can reach out to who can help you navigate your job better?


You were right that my manager hadn't done a great job of training me. He wants his employees to know everything about the job but he's didn't have the patience to train them. He just let me go from the job because according to him I wasn't learning fast enough. Even the fastest and most efficient/productive worker in my workplace, when she first started learning this job, she took about 3 months to learn this job. And he didn't even give me 3 months to learn this job and he just assumed that I couldn't do this job. 

Ohh, I can definitely foresee his business closing down someday. Instead of giving more training to his slower employees, he will just let go of all of them and then his remaining employees would start to fear their job security too and all of them would start quitting on him one by one and he wouldn't have anybody who wants to work for him anymore. I find it funny how a coworker recently quit on him after working there for a year. Maybe she quit this job because she saw how bad of a manager he was? Also, I know that I didn't exactly have a good relationship with this manager, but I was recently thinking about how to improve our relationship, and then he just let me go like this. Fuck him. 

Now that he has gotten rid of me, good riddance, I wouldn't want to work for a bad manager like him anyway and I'm now free to start applying for other jobs. 

A good manager is one who focuses more on retaining employees instead of hiring new employees, but he's doing the opposite. He focuses more on hiring new employees than retaining his current employees. When his current employees isn't doing good enough, he fires them and starts hiring more new employees. Almost every week, he would hire someone new into the job. He's wasting his time training new employees instead of spending his time training his current employees how to be more productive. 
I remembered reading from somewhere that it takes about 2 years for a new hire to learn their job thoroughly and become fully productive at their job. So whenever he fires someone and then hires someone new, his new employees won't be able to be fully productive for at least two years. And then before they managed to become fully productive, he fired them again and hire some more new employees. Given his current mentality, his business is so gonna close down someday.


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## Handsome Dyke (Oct 4, 2012)

I don't know anything about Socionics, but since I see people here on PerC sort of translating between Myers-Briggs and Socionics, I will say the following and maybe someone can translate. 

I suspect that these kinds of situations happen because of Ne (in this case, the manager lacking or not using it at that moment and you having it or using it). The connection to Ne is my hypothesis that people give vague instructions because they don't see that their instructions can be interpreted or carried out in more than one way (i.e., lacking or not using Ne). And the people who find clear and ambiguous instructions particularly important are the people who are particularly aware of the different ways that instructions (and descriptions and other types of communication) can be interpreted (i.e., habitual Ne users). 

Of course people can give insufficient instructions for other reasons (i.e., fatigue, distraction, etc.) and crave very clear instructions for other reasons (i.e., anxiety), but since your question is about tying this into typology, that's what I've focused on.


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

@*Schizoid* I'm sorry to hear you lost your job - that's never something anyone wants to hear happen. That said, it sounds like it very well may have been for the better looking more long-term. Best of luck finding something else that's a better fit. 

I've been reading through some of your reactions to your previous boss, and think you might have been dealing with an LSE. At a minimum, this strongly looks like the type of reaction you see a lot with the _ST_ types, all of whom have an underlying tendency to be stubbornly bossy about the way you handle objects and the specific way you do tasks. There's something about your reactions that implies issues with Rationality as well, especially considering how the E__J types expect expedient responses to things and keep a steady pace. 

Over the years I've known a lot of LIE's, and they are too Ni-ish to care let alone pay repeated attention to how someone does something. They can be callous to peoples' feelings at times - BUT they also excel with Ne, so while they are critical they are also sometimes hesitant to completely nix people, concepts, or ideas; they can be kind of indecisive, although they are usually assertive. Also, although they are serious and sometimes critical (as Gammas) they are also usually at least somewhat forward-thinking. Your boss sounds pretty negative, which is *absolutely* characteristic of LSE's (and SLE's, though in a different way).

LSE's also suck at Ni, so they have no patience for not knowing when something will/will not happen and rely 100% on holding someone accountable to their word, or seeing concrete evidence before they can be sure of something.


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## tower (Nov 2, 2016)

Schizoid said:


> In the workplace at least, I find myself getting along best with managers who are capable of giving "clear and directional" instructions.
> 
> I just had some miscommunications with my manager earlier. He told me to pack a bunch of items into this cardboard box, but he didn't exactly tell me how he wanted me to pack it, he didn't give me any "clear and directional" instructions on how to pack it, so I ended up packing it in my own way.
> 
> ...


(I skimmed the rest of the thread too. Sorry to hear you lost the job.)

You want Te. Four-dimensional (4D) to the point bottomline Te. Whether Te lead or Te demonstrative. Accompanied by Se, yes. Overall, you want the action steps (Te and Se), not really detailed explanations (Ti). Whatever you may mean by clear and directional instructions, the examples you gave sound like it's just that. Also where you said you liked the steps being demonstrated to you... that is very different from receiving detailed instructions explained in Ti terms. Not saying you don't want the Ti terms though.

As for what IEI wants - I was told by a self-typed IEI that she likes detailed explanations on instructions and she said that she finds Te egos don't like to give those. There was another guideline from her that made sense: if she says a line out of the blue without context: "I did it", Te egos supposedly get at her "what are you talking about" and Ti egos will ask clarifying questions.

I recall another beta NF who noted to me that Te egos demonstrate the actions/steps of actions to him, while he wants it explained in Ti terms. Apparently Te egos expect him to just copy the actions or something.



Overall, "detailed step-by-step clear directional instructions" makes me think of LSx - LSI primarily or perhaps LSE if I'm to go by my own understanding of the Socionics stuff. They do it differently though. Explaining instructions in Ti terms would be very different from Te logical action steps.

Stratievskaya did allude to the same thing as this self-typed IEI in her article on LSI-IEI activity relations.

_"Analogous thing occurs on an aspect of "logic of actions" where IEI is in need of operational assistance from the LSI. Here he may receive only criticism of his actions, and even then, in retrospect. This is unpleasant for the IEI, because if he doesn't receive directives in time, he will have to act on his own, which sometimes leads to the most undesirable results. Without prior explicit and direct instructions the IEI has trouble carrying out his tasks. He always needs to be explained very clearly what he should do and what he shouldn't. If Esenin does not receive such instructions, this could lead to unwanted consequences which will require the help of his partner to correct (if they can still be corrected). Therefore, LSI in partnership with IEI, also won't remain a passive observer for long – he will either completely remove the IEI from participation in the affairs and take matters into his own hands, or he will scrupulously and strictly control Esenin, giving him exhaustively detailed instructions, that is, he will attempt to emulate IEI's dual the SLE."_

(From Activity Relations INFp and ISTj by Stratiyevskaya - Wikisocion)

I will say in my experiences, I've seen LSIs do more "exhaustively detailed instructions" than SLEs. The way SLEs put together instructions is somehow... more broad, LSI goes into more minute detail. SLEs will still be detailed in a way but it's just more broad and expediency-focused. SLI also will be detailed but throw facts around more freely than LSI. I'm not sure about the LSE approach to detailed explanations.


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## Schizoid (Jan 31, 2015)

tower said:


> (I skimmed the rest of the thread too. Sorry to hear you lost the job.)
> 
> You want Te. Four-dimensional (4D) to the point bottomline Te. Whether Te lead or Te demonstrative. Accompanied by Se, yes. Overall, you want the action steps (Te and Se), not really detailed explanations (Ti). Whatever you may mean by clear and directional instructions, the examples you gave sound like it's just that. Also where you said you liked the steps being demonstrated to you... that is very different from receiving detailed instructions explained in Ti terms. Not saying you don't want the Ti terms though.
> 
> ...


I do find LIE men quite attractive, the fictional ones anyway. And also SLE, and this is why I have a hard time deciding between SLE and LIE for my dual. 

But I don't know if LSEs are my semi-duals though, I seemed to hate LSEs. I think my ex-boss is an LSE. My interaction with him pretty much comes across as socionics conflictor, that feeling of dislike is mutual. He is such a stick-in-the-mud in the way he thinks and views situations. I didn't know he has an issue with me until he lets me go from the job. He couldn't even talk things out properly with me, he lacked assertiveness and he would rather choose the coward way out by letting me go instead of sitting down and discussing with me about my work performance so that I can improve on my work performance.

As for LSI, too much Ti gives me a headache too. I remembered there was once when I took this computer design class and I have this LSI classmate who stayed back in class to help me with an assignment. He is really detail-oriented, he spent hours explaining to me about the entire topic, and in the end nothing managed to get done because by the time he is done explaining the school is closing.

I was grateful to him for staying back in class and helping me out, but at the same time, I was frustrated that he was taking hours to explain to me about stuff that could actually be explained within minutes, and in the end nothing gets done and I still didn't know how to do assignment.

I'd rather he approach this entire thing differently. Like he could spend less time explaining to me, and spent more time demonstrating to me how to use the software and then letting me practice using that software and then correcting me if I did it wrong.
And he could also help me write me a step-by-step manual, so that I can read it when I'm at home.

But he didn't do any of this. Instead, he spent hours going into a long Ti rant about the assignment and in the end nothing managed to get done. T_T 
I didn't even end up submitting my assignment because I still didn't know how to do the assignment. 

I don't know why...I find LSIs a bit too long-winded. They seemed to focus a lot on details that I hardly care about. So this is my personal experiences with LSIs.


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## Pure_White (Feb 28, 2017)

I'm INTJ (MBTI). I have the same issue as you. I hate when someone want me to do something I dont have any experience without giving me any detail about it.

For someone else as Se user, I see they fit well with such situation. They just try whitout hesitate and fear.

I think both ITSJ and INTJ (MBTI) have the same issue. Both Ni and Si depend on the information and knowledge the've gain from the past to do something, especially ISTJ.


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## contradictionary (Apr 1, 2018)

It's Te seeking efficiency. Once you are the manager, you will give clear detailed instruction on how to do it correctly in the first place in a very efficient rate. You wouldn't want it the other way. 

_Sent sans PC_


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## tower (Nov 2, 2016)

@Schizoid oh you don't really come off as ESI tbh. Yeah sounds like you typed those long-winded detailed people correctly as LSI lol. Esp. Ti-LSI would be like that.


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