Online personality quizzes

The dear doctor, I suppose, meant well when he formulated his hypothesis for determining personality traits, but did Carl Jung really foresee the brave new world his systematic synopsis of characteristics would create? His methodology was designed to help a person sort through disorders and profit from the knowledge. Now, however, the results of this algorithm merely go into an information bank for the profit of marketers.

Knowing this, and seeing the spam feed generated by my answers in my email, hasn’t stopped me from filling these tests out, though. Oh, no. I have to know; what theologian would I be? (Martin Luther, swear to God). I’m Ross on the TV series Friends, Linus in Peanuts, Esther of The Waltons, and should have lived in the Wild West. The latter will explain my penchant for a Silverado, I guess, and my need for a security iPhone in public, but it really doesn’t tell me anything I couldn't already figure out. Now, if I take a test and find out I’m Don Draper on Mad Men, then I'll know I need help.

But what are the chances you’d take one of these quizzes and discover you are Hitler or Pol Pot? Probably none because what would be the point in taking a test to find out which Nazi you are or what political villain haunts your psyche? What could an advertiser try to sell you? Jackboots and machetes?

Yon don

Still, I can fantasize: Buzzfeed should test me on “ Which Mafia boss are you?" (Personally, I always preferred Lucky Luciano). Which serial murderer are you? What’s your poison? What sex toy are you? You don’t see these requests on any focus group website just yet, but if you did, I'm sure plenty of people would be anxious to discover all their dark, carnal secrets — and then proclaim the results to the rest of the world.

Because though it’s important to find out what pantry item you really are, the true thrill is in spreading the knowledge that you're a can of beans to total strangers. “I’m a piping plover,” chirped a Facebook acquaintance, who finds the need to plaster my News Feed with her results.

I have adopted a "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy after a flurry of unfriendings, but if you must know — really know — everything about me, here it goes:

I like guzzling tequila from a Waterford long stem crystal glass as I ride away on my Roman chariot and bed down on a hammock. Before you snicker, you should know I’m Lady Macbeth, who should be vacationing in my native land of Switzerland reading from a book in Arabic with my trusty bow and arrow by my side.

Now, go off with this knowledge and try to sell me a palomino.