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Fe Fakeness

T

ThatGirl

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I am probably posting off topic since there are already over three hundred posts, but....

In my experience Fe users tend to be the greatest advocates of sincerity. I always imagined this was because they feared being taken advantage of. They become adamant about not being "fake", or having to deal with the "fakeness" of others.
 

Kalach

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I think the reason Fi people often describe it as fake is because we feel like we can just trust Fi people more: that they're not just putting on a face.

I'll probably have to eat these words, but to some degree Fe face is less troublesome than Fi hype. What I get mostly from Fe is a sense of a person driving toward something. They seem driven. And they wish to drive me too, but I don't share the priorities so I "feel" no particular pressure to accommodate. It's different if they have actual authority over my position or they have opportunity to introduce their priorities into my organisation, but different in the sense that I expect they will make a large mess where I would otherwise have had something workable. Even then it's unlikely I'll attend to their priorities, even if I could. The priority at such times is the removal of their influence.

But when Fi people get going on their need to be heard or the pain and suffering that must be listened to... it can be a trial.
 

uumlau

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If the Fi preference rejects anything about the Fe preference, it is the idea that things can or should be valued based on their context. Instead, things do have universal value that does not waver, regardless of circumstance. The Te preference would, in regard to that which appeals to the Fe preference, reject the idea that relationships and subjective context represent what is fundamentally important about our existence, maintaining that instead, these are mere aspects of the fundamentally greater logic and coherency that exists all throughout the universe, both within our existence and absent from it.

You may, of course, disagree.
I don't disagree with your generalizations, but I do with your conclusions. In part, it's because the context/universal is an Ne/Si vs Ni/Se conflict, not an Fi/Fe conflict. You aptly describe the NFP problems with NFJs, but not Fe vs Fi in general.

The problem Fi has with Fe is that Fe violates the realm of the personal for Fi, just as Te violates the realm of the personal for Ti, that there is something deeply offensive about the Fe approach to matters, irrespective of the particular values. I see Ti types just as offended by my Te approach. Where Fi sees Fe as "fake", Ti sees Te as "condescending". Where Fi sees Fe as shallow or superficial, Ti sees Te as stupid or simplistic.

With respect to Te, the problem with Fe is not that it rejects relationships and subjective concepts, so much as it prioritizes logistical cooperation about objectively measurable things over the subjective concepts, which it regards as the realm of Fi. That is to say, no, you don't go needlessly stepping on others' feelings and values and rubbing their noses in their faults, but at the same time, you don't let those considerations stop you from enunciating the truth just because others place negative-value-connotations on the truth as you see it.

For Te, the priority is that an arrangement "works". For Fe, the priority is that an arrangement is "fair." To Fe, "fair" is equivalent to "what works", since developing a common definition of fairness is how one gets people to work together. To Te, it isn't enough that people work together or believe that a system is fair, but it also actually has to "work" in a practical sense. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, where there is both a requirement that a system work both in a practical sense and that the participants believe that it is a fair system. If it isn't fair in the eyes of the participants, it won't work because the participants won't let it work. If it can't work in a practical sense, it doesn't matter how fair everyone regards it, because it won't work (either it won't work at all from the get-go or it will necessarily fail in the long run as it depletes the resources necessary for its continuation).
 
G

Glycerine

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Hahaha no, not at all. Those are funny though. I don't take threads like that seriously (at least not anymore), and I've never had any complaints in real life. I just came into the thread to make the comment above to help Glycerine.



I wonder what you would have been like if you were free and not having to hold anything in.
I think it balanced me out for the better. :) I know another EXFJ (I really think ESFJ) who was adopted and a few other hardships who is an emotionally volatile mess and it's not pretty. I chose to contain it as a self-protective measure and I think I am socially better off than she is (people don't really like her).
 

Zarathustra

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The priority at such times is the removal of their influence.

:yim_rolling_on_the_

But when Fi people get going on their need to be heard or the pain and suffering that must be listened to... it can be a trial.

Oh, yeah, I feel you on that one.

But that's more of an enneagram 4 thing, isn't it?

*awaits comment about the "Banning, Boredom and Thuggery" thread from Jag*
 
G

Glycerine

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I am probably posting off topic since there are already over three hundred posts, but....

In my experience Fe users tend to be the greatest advocates of sincerity. I always imagined this was because they feared being taken advantage of. They become adamant about not being "fake", or having to deal with the "fakeness" of others.
In essence, is that fake?
 

Zarathustra

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When I see this, I often wonder to what extent they're projecting...

And to what extent the little rules and games that go on inside their heads are turning around and biting them in the ass...
 
G

Glycerine

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Life is a game. :D Even though I found him to be very irritating, Chris McCandless was one of the few people who didn't play into the "game".
 

sculpting

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You know there is some truth to this. It doesn't bother me like it does you Orobas but it still can and does. I can feel unappreciated, get annoyed, sometimes angry and yes defensive. It's criticizing me somehow as to who I am at my core. My reaction might be for example, "I'm happy to consider whatever views and opinions you have. Really I am. But NO. I really should NOT FEEL THAT WAY. Be free to feel whatever way you want though."

Of course Fi is not as high up the stack for me and so I might be more immune.

I have often chatted with U about this-I envy the INTJ ability to not be emotionally invaded by the Fe nudges to the same extent that NFPs can be. I dont wonder around in a Fe induced suicidal depression, LOL, but when young, I would definetely get this sense of sadness, a sense of faliure, but at something failing I could never precisely define. Since I do not have an underlying Ti framework, the Fe feeling just makes me feel bad with no way to resolve the issue.

The solution to that feeling was just to avoid the person who induced it in me, because I cant block that stuff very well.

It sounds as though Glycerine is describing a symmetric effect of unhappiness and subsequent withdraw from interactions that the Fe users feel when their attempts to build and maintain relationships are denied-perhaps by people like myself who just walk away.

It is an unfortuanate two way street of misunderstanding which results in the frustration seen in the thread Vasalisa linked to-which describes a desire to be allowed to just be.

However both sides are too busy feeling emo-offended and defensive to address the communication failing...such is the world.

********************************************************************************************

Now-I once recall an INTJ friend noting-"This hurts when this other person does this but Te wont allow me to feel the pain, and instead the external response is Te-ish frustration...".

Could this be an almost subconsious precursor to the frustration yourself and the other INTJs are describing? An unconscious Fi response?

I actually don't know what the fakeness criticism is, really. What I'm mostly aware of around "obvious" Fe types is competition for organisational control. They have priorities I just don't get but to my sense of things their priorities are genuinely theirs. My experience of SFJs range from the horrible to the merely exhausting. NFJs are easier to get along with even though agreement never happens. TPs, particularly ETPs, can come off as trying to screw with me on purpose, which is unsettling, but they need me to react first usually. But to me they all look quite clearly like they're attempting to manage the external world and they have some set of real priorities to that management. At least on my own level I understand that this kind of approach to the world is real and derives from real impulses.

Are you projecting your own Te onto their Fe? Then they just look like whiny, somehwat illogical TJs?

Yeah, this is much closer to how I feel.

I'm not at all like, Oro, really -- aside from being bothered by it.

My reaction is something like, "What the fuck are you talking about? Don't tell me how to feel. Fine, you feel that way. That's your prerogative. But there ain't nothing objective about it, and I sure as shit don't need to feel that way." Then, if they keep pressing the issue, I give kind of a, "Back the fuck off, cuz I already think you're being an idiot, and I'm holding this fact back in order to keep things civil, but if you keep pressing me on this, I may very well let you know how I feel."

Of course, I suppose there are other times where I just pretend like I agree in order to keep things running smoothly.

Te imitating Fe. Gotta choose your battles. Sometimes what they're saying even kinda makes sense. Who'da thunk? :p

But-as I asked highlander-is there something subconscious that preceeds the frustration? I dunno, just poking at the pattern.
 

CrystalViolet

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I identified very strongly with Orobas' post about the effect of strong Fe. Not so much now, but I was often confused by unspoken Fe "rules" and unspoken requests. Still am if I'm perfectly honest, but it has less emotional impact on me these days. I no longer scratch my head in social interactions when Fe-users expect some sort of signal. If they get upset, balls in their court, to either ask me, or open communication. It's very amusing at work, at times. I find that the Fi-users read me like a book down to the small nuances, and the Fe users get it wrong often. It's like I send the wrong signals out or some thing to Fe users. No matter how hard I try to send the right ones. Sigh.
 

highlander

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But-as I asked highlander-is there something subconscious that preceeds the frustration? I dunno, just poking at the pattern.

I wonder if it has something to do with wanting to be appreciated for who you are and rejecting the values or expectations to be different that someone else is imposing on you - regardless as to whether or not that imposition is subtle in its manifestation.
 

PeaceBaby

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You know there is some truth to this. It doesn't bother me like it does you Orobas but it still can and does. I can feel unappreciated, get annoyed, sometimes angry and yes defensive. It's criticizing me somehow as to who I am at my core. My reaction might be for example, "I'm happy to consider whatever views and opinions you have. Really I am. But NO. I really should NOT FEEL THAT WAY. Be free to feel whatever way you want though."

Of course Fi is not as high up the stack for me and so I might be more immune.

Yes, nice post that shows the Te armor-effect well. Te is a natural Fe inoculant - the elevation of it in the "stack" means you have already processed through the "This is / I am right" filter before you get to Fi. Without Te or Fe in the dom or aux position, one does not naturally possess the ability to readily fend off a Te or an Fe agenda.

What I'm mostly aware of around "obvious" Fe types is competition for organisational control.

Yes, that's well said.

As an INFP, I am always fascinated to watch the Te / Fe dynamic in doms & aux's. Both circle 'round, recognize each as power players, and even though each may not agree with or understand the motives of the other, both recognize the alpha-type positioning they are negotiating or navigating towards attaining. lol as an Fi dom, I have to use a raft of strategies if I want my agenda to become the executable.

Te imitating Fe. Gotta choose your battles. Sometimes what they're saying even kinda makes sense. Who'da thunk? :p

I think it kind of makes sense because you at least recognize the familiar aspects of the function. So even if the conclusions don't make sense to you, the process still does - that there's an equation that runs through some alternate variables to come up with a different answer, but you still recognize there's an equation. It enables you to give Fe berth until it violates an Fi core value you have awareness of or sensitivity towards.

...you always must be aware of how you are acting and how it will come off to others and you are always aware of how others are acting and how that changes things for you.

This is where sometimes I think there's a muddiness between typology and enneagram. For me, despite being Fi dom, I am also so dom, so I do feel aware of this stuff, even if I don't always "get" the Fe-ers POV. But I feel the ripple effect, I know what I say and do impacts others and I can watch it play through, watch others trying to play through too. One big difference I think though is that I use data to try to convince others, not emotion. Not like an Fe dom or aux esp does.

There is nothing like 4 or 5 EXXJs vying for power... just shoot me now... it's quite a spectacle. LOL

lol indeed! :hug:

Now, whether it's accurate to say that Fi people don't put on a face ever or at all: I wouldn't say that.

No, we do put on faces. It would be more about sins of omission perhaps? I don't tell everything, don't reveal everything.

Plus, I DO put on a sweet face when I feel sour and there are times I know what people are expecting to hear and so give it to them. Does that mean I am literally, fake? By my personal definitions, yes it does.

But there are times when the social grease makes life easier rather than harder; I just wish it didn't make me feel so scripted to employ it.

I'll probably have to eat these words, but to some degree Fe face is less troublesome than Fi hype.

Oh I agree it is. As an Fi dom, I certainly know how troublesome it can be to others. Fi must be organized in every way to be effective in the world.

For example, as an agent of change - if I decide to enter the fray, I will have all my data ready to convince the Te types, and all the social benefits / people logistical information ready for the Fe types - for other types, I will have already mentally designated areas needing detail oriented task work or imaginative creative brainstorming and will be ready to engage those people as well. In order to deploy an Fi agenda, it is not enough to say "This is wrong, change needs to happen." One must carefully navigate all the players to a successful conclusion. Lots of work. Took me time to learn this.

What I get mostly from Fe is a sense of a person driving toward something. They seem driven. And they wish to drive me too, but I don't share the priorities so I "feel" no particular pressure to accommodate.

As above, you have Te that seems to inoculate you against overt pressure from the Fe perspective. You can see they are driving towards something, but you don't share the goal, so it is easier to brush off, mostly because you know MOL where you stand already, even if not on a topic by topic basis, from a core fundamental aspect of your cognitive bias.

It's different if they have actual authority over my position or they have opportunity to introduce their priorities into my organisation, but different in the sense that I expect they will make a large mess where I would otherwise have had something workable. Even then it's unlikely I'll attend to their priorities, even if I could. The priority at such times is the removal of their influence.

Your Te recognizes and even respects their authority, and it's natural for you to defer to that, unless it makes no sense at all. I suspect if you, as an INTJ, were faced with an intelligent, strategic Fe dom or aux, you would have a battle on your hands to "remove their influence" though. Would call for a long term strategy. Dangerous too, unless you have authority and power in your own right. Fe folks are smarter with people, hands-down.

The problem Fi has with Fe is that Fe violates the realm of the personal for Fi, just as Te violates the realm of the personal for Ti, that there is something deeply offensive about the Fe approach to matters, irrespective of the particular values. I see Ti types just as offended by my Te approach. Where Fi sees Fe as "fake", Ti sees Te as "condescending". Where Fi sees Fe as shallow or superficial, Ti sees Te as stupid or simplistic.

Yes, I liked this post (shortened for brevity's sake.)

I have often chatted with U about this-I envy the INTJ ability to not be emotionally invaded by the Fe nudges to the same extent that NFPs can be.

Indeed. Yep.

However both sides are too busy feeling emo-offended and defensive to address the communication failing...such is the world.

I'm not sure I agree with this though ... I have been in the ring, I will stick with each round, but I feel as an Fi - Te user, if you're not careful, the Fe - Ti user will leave the ring and it's over. I may need time to re-group, but I will re-enter the ring. You hit too hard on the Fe - Ti person, and there's no way they will re-engage, work it through to win-win. I don't know exactly what to say about that, except that it just IS. But I feel pretty sad about that being the way it is.

Are you projecting your own Te onto their Fe? Then they just look like whiny, somehwat illogical TJs?

I think it's that recognition of the process - I feel it with INTP's, maybe you feel it with ENTP's - there's a familiarity to the way the processes work? A sense of simpatico?

Anecdotally, when my hubs (Te dom) talks about Fe doms, it's always with a mix of admiration and annoyance - admiration because he sees them work towards their goals and how they go after them with savvy, annoyance more to the fact they are playing the room rather than the ideas.
 

PeaceBaby

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I am going to cross-pollinate this thread with a quote from the current "INFJ From the Perspectives of Other Types" thread:

It's true for me that I'm nice even if I don't feel like it because I can't live with myself if I'm not. It's not being nice because I think other people expect me to be nice. It's being nice because I'll torture myself later if I'm not. I also fully expect that the other person will notice I'm forcing myself to be nice and at least give me credit for trying, rather than condemnation that I'm being fake.

@bold: extremely well-said as an alternative POV to this thread, and worthy of consideration here.
 

King sns

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I am going to cross-pollinate this thread with a quote from the "INFJ From the Perspectives of Other Types" thread:



@bold: extremely well-said as an alternative POV to this thread, and worthy of consideration here.

Oh my! Well said, yes. But what a very different point of view! In my perspective, the goal of an interaction is not niceness, especially if people can tell that it's not true. The goal of an interaction is honest communication, to show what you're trying to convey. Adding friendliness for the sake of friendliness is so foreign to me.
 

uumlau

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I identified very strongly with Orobas' post about the effect of strong Fe. Not so much now, but I was often confused by unspoken Fe "rules" and unspoken requests. Still am if I'm perfectly honest, but it has less emotional impact on me these days. I no longer scratch my head in social interactions when Fe-users expect some sort of signal. If they get upset, balls in their court, to either ask me, or open communication. It's very amusing at work, at times. I find that the Fi-users read me like a book down to the small nuances, and the Fe users get it wrong often. It's like I send the wrong signals out or some thing to Fe users. No matter how hard I try to send the right ones. Sigh.

Yes, it appears that NFPs hear the signals, but the Fe signals don't map to the Fi signals. Fi sees those hints and nudges, but the communication breaks down due to "emotional crosstalk". For NTJs, we generally don't hear the signals unless they're enunciated clearly (i.e., using words instead of hints or nudges), at which point we interpret them as Te-style directives. Those directives often end up sounding like, "We need to do this my way or I'll get upset." (I'm not intending this to be disparaging, this is a description of translation failure.) The intended message is more along the lines of, "Wait, you haven't accounted for these human factors that will mess you up if you ignore them." The compromise ends up being a Te-style following of general social rules, which if adept enough, becomes what others have called "faux Fe." We don't understand the underlying motivations for the social rules (since we don't read Fe well), but we do understand that it's easier to deal with people who aren't upset with us, and it's good to accommodate others in this regard (within reason, of course :dry:).


I wonder if it has something to do with wanting to be appreciated for who you are and rejecting the values or expectations to be different that someone else is imposing on you - regardless as to whether or not that imposition is subtle in its manifestation.

I think it's more that the full translation from Fe to Te is rarely ever made.

The most annoying complaint I get from real life FJs (SFJs, mostly) is, "I shouldn't have to tell you ..." See, there's this hugely different attitude, where (from my INTJ perspective) FJs are very much focused on others and their emotional states, kind of "all up in their business", which INTJs don't have, at all. So they project this "in your business" attitude onto INTJs, and so when an INTJ doesn't react to all of their hints and nudges and cues, they get all huffy and insulted. If the INTJ "really loved" (or liked, in the case of friendships) them, then of course the INTJ would automatically pick up on these cues and carry them out. I get the impression that FJs really dislike having to explain things in a declarative manner, and consider it to be a communication failure.

Thus the primary thing that bothers me is not just that it's merely different values or expectations, but that they believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with me because my worldview is so totally different (NiTe vs SiFe). This came up a lot in my marriage counseling (ESFJ ex-wife, ESFJ counselor). My ex and I had very very similar values and expectations. The problems arose from the finer points, that she expected me to read her Fe signals on the fly and that I was expected to respond (not that she or the counselor phrased it that way, but it is what they both advocated). My inability to meet that particular meta-expectation is what led her to believe that I "didn't really love" her.

With Oro, it is quite refreshingly different. There is no expectation that I know how she really feels about something unless she tells me, and she's quite happy to tell me - none of this "I shouldn't have to tell you ..."
 

Zarathustra

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Am I the only person who, when he reads these things, is like, "Yeah, I totally know what you mean about interacting with that type!", but, despite coming to a better understanding of the intertype relation, still gets extremely flustered and annoyed by it?

Sometimes it feels like, even though I gain new knowledge, it doesn't actually lessen the frustration (at least not that much).

I suppose, when the situation is important enough, I will still be able to use the understanding to make things better than I otherwise would. But, for the day to day shit, recognizing that other people (of my type, usually) share the same frustrations with dealing with other types doesn't necessarily make that frustration decrease. Hearing the same frustration recognized by others (once again, usually of my type) often seems to affirm what I'm feeling, and that affirmation is able to give me a concept to explain the phenomenon, cuz now I know it's not just an isolated incident with me and this type, but likely a more general phenomenon between this type and my type, or this type and certain other types, but, still, just having that conceptual understanding does not seem enough to necessarily mitigate my frustration, or give me an easy answer to fix the situation.

Those people are who they are, and I'm not gunna be able to explain typology and the typological reasons for our disconnect/misunderstanding to every single frickin person I interact with, let alone people who I interact with regularly but who are not well disposed to this kind of thinking.

Being as such, sometimes a new frustration forms whereby, now I'm not just frustrated because of the primary interaction itself, but now I'm frustrated cuz I see what's happening but explaining it to that person is really not a viable option.

I dunno, just needed to get that out there.

:)
 

PeaceBaby

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I get the impression that FJs really dislike having to explain things in a declarative manner, and consider it to be a communication failure.

I find that so ironic.

As a woman though, I can occasionally be guilty of the, "Do I really have to tell you this?" mentality ... haha, that reminds me of a story ~15 years ago my hubs went on a business trip to Switzerland for 3 weeks and the gift he brought me back was a little cowbell. I didn't want to be disappointed with the gift, but :laugh: - a cowbell? I had to really think about WHY he got it, it's a traditional Swiss milkmaid thing, and I grew up on a dairy farm - but, A COWBELL? He was away while I was working nights p/t and taking care of the kids and was recuperating from pneumonia and he GOT ME A COWBELL? Oh silly husband! But it was well-thought out why he chose it, I'll grant him that!

2712566-an-souvenir-cow-bell-from-the-swiss-alps.jpg



Regarding "faux Fe" - is there a corollary for Fe users having to engage or utilize "faux Te" ???
 

Zarathustra

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Dude, that seems like an awesome gift if you ask me...

It's hilarious, absurd, and has a connection to your childhood.

What more could you ask for?

Something inane and typical: like chocolate? or a collection of ornamental plates?
 

PeaceBaby

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Dude, that seems like an awesome gift if you ask me...

It's hilarious, absurd, and has a connection to your childhood.

What more could you ask for?

I know, it's really great, isn't it? Especially in hindsight.

But, at the time, I was thinking jewelry, man - jewelry! I can't wear a cowbell :/ :laugh:

From a further context POV, the last jewelry he'd bought for me was my engagement ring, so ... hey, I'm not trying to be pushy, but a little trinket seemed more in line with my thinking at the time.
 
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