It is very useful to hear people describe themselves. When they say things like, “My most important quality is. . .” or “I’m the kind of person who. . .”, in 49 cases out of 50 you can rest assured that the exact opposite is true.
When people name their central characteristic they usually talk about the quality they perceive as important and desirable precisely because they lack it.
My most important quality is…….buttock.
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I have a tendency — which is that if someone takes me to be saying the opposite to what I really mean, I conclude that they do not understand language, and I have to resort to actions to show them what I’m getting at. 🙂
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I don’t think I’ve ever actually said “my greatest quality is…” outside of job interviews. And of course, for those, I tell them what I think they’re looking for in the ideal candidate.
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Of late, I’ve been thinking my best quality is that I succeed at whatever I do, but you’re right — secretly I believe that every success is a fraud or a matter of luck instead of based on my merit. I’m also incredibly tenacious, but that quality usually only holds up as long as things are going well and I’m getting something out of it. So maybe I’m not really tenacious at all. It’s good to acknowledge these things. To really know yourself, you have to be honest with yourself.
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I’m the kind of person who tunes out of dating profiles that consist of “I am [list of qualities]”, mostly because they are all the same.
:p
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I’m the kind of person who’s the opposite of what he says he is.
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I really am a very silly person, though. 🙂
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“My most important quality is…”
I am puzzled by this. It is not a phrase I would ever use, in general. However, I could choose to do so, accurately, by saying that my strongest capability is finger dexterity, according to an aptitude test I took as a teenager. My second strongest capability is mathematical creativity.
I cannot imagine how anyone could take these to mean the opposite of what I said.
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These are not personal qualities, though. The general rule is that the person who says “I’m a very generous person” is the stingiest miser in the world and the “I like to be honest” person is the most duplicitous bastard in the universe, etc.
I, for instance, consider myself shy and sensitive. But when I say that to people, they roar with laughter.
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I find self created lists of personal qualities to be suspect. They are either some kind of special pleading or some personal lullaby that people like to tell themselves or others.
“Dear Hiring Managers,
I cannot be described as a ‘people person’. I am more like an unctuous fishwife. I am unctuous towards customers and vendors and coworkers; I am like a fishwife towards people who get in the way of both. Don’t worry, I sound like a fishwife played by Ned Flanders. I am so sweet that people feel like they’ve been buried in honey right by an ant hill.
Kisses,
Your aspiring drone”
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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