Member-only story
HUMANS 101
The Junk Drawer Personality Test
The way we’re wired can show up in the strangest places
A few years ago, when I was dating the woman who’s now my wife, I cooked dinner in her home and was looking for a knife to chop vegetables. She said to try the top drawer near the stove. When I opened it, I found a knife all right—along with a hammer, screwdrivers, a tape measure, a chunk of string, a small tube of glue, and lots of other stuff.
Her house was tidy; everything arranged just so — the plants, the artwork, all the little touches. Every day, she made the bed, pillows arranged symmetrically. But when I opened the cabinets looking for a can of tomatoes — same thing. Everything all over the place, as if she had just dumped the bag of groceries on the shelf.
Her outer environment was immaculate. Her inner environment was random and very different from mine.
These fundamental differences between people can often create stupefying arguments about the most ridiculous things, leaving us scratching our heads…
