In life, there’s a kind of person who likes to urge others to make plans. As long as something is still up in the air, they feel uneasy.

These people aren’t necessarily company bosses, nor are they necessarily dominant in personality. They just enjoy asking “When can we decide this?” or “What’s the plan for the weekend—where are we going, really?"—seeking certainty from the outside world in that kind of way.

Let’s tentatively call these people the “Externalized J-Type” or “Ex-J.” A J-Type in MBTI is someone with a Judging personality, who likes to predict the future and loves making plans. The opposite is the P-Type, who is free-spirited and easygoing.

An Ex-J is someone who externalizes this J-trait onto others—a J-Type who assimilates other people into becoming J-Types themselves.

The Ex-J keeps certainty for themselves and passes anxiety out to the world.

From my observation, these people usually have a strong need for control. A need for control can grow inward—for example, keeping work and life neatly organized, full of a sense of order. It can also grow outward—for example, trying to manipulate others and demanding they stay in tight alignment with you.

Ex-Js are the outward-spilling type, but most of the time their need for control grows inward. Once their internal need for control gets too much, it inadvertently spills onto others. When their J-desires fall through and life and work can’t be neatly organized, they offload the negative emotions onto the person they see as the source of the uncertainty, and a sense of pressure radiates out.

Recently, in both my work and personal life, I’ve run into two such people. After reflecting, I also discovered through my own self-audit mechanism (the I-Type’s inner search engine) that I’ve inadvertently become an Ex-J myself from time to time.

How do you avoid becoming an Ex-J?

I think the first principle is: don’t keep asking the same question. Working at a foreign company, when I communicate with European colleagues, I notice a big difference from Chinese colleagues: beyond “yes” and “no,” they have a third response—“no response.”

If they haven’t figured it out, they have the right not to respond. Not responding is itself a response. It means “I haven’t decided, let me think about it and get back to you.” But in our language culture, not responding comes across as impolite, lacking confidence…

You can see it from our exam-oriented education system too—we mass-produce J-Types, and some of them gradually degenerate into more extreme Ex-Js, drifting toward the dark side of harming society (just kidding, it’s not actually that serious).

So, when someone doesn’t respond, treat it as another form of response. Then you won’t be an Ex-J.

How do you communicate with an Ex-J?

I don’t know the answer either, so I humbly went to Chat for advice and asked GPT. The answer is: it takes two steps. First, soothe the other person’s emotions and express understanding. Then use vague steps in place of precise conclusions—for example, if you can’t make a plan, just say you can’t decide right now, but if X happens, here’s how we can respond. Let them see your thought process.

This way, by using rough steps or fuzzy time points instead of exact answers, you ease their need for control without letting them pull you into their pace.

Sigh, being a person is exhausting. Finally, I hope you become a P-Type. And if you really can’t, please promise me—at least be a good J-Type, okay?