Why? What do you like about them? Why do you hang out with them?
Why what? Why do I not have a lot of friends?? I don't know, I'm just not good at connecting with people. The only reason I have the friends I have now is because they pestered me long enough that I finally began to warm up to them. During the transition from high school to college, I lost contact with a lot of people. I deleted everyone on facebook except a few people that I like and family members, so I'm down to ~30 friends, and I only even regularly talk to 3. I only consider ~4 people to actually be my friends. I'm shy, don't want to do what you "have" to do to befriend people (ex. approach them, get contact info, converse and/or hang out in person regularly), and honestly I get annoyed when I'm in public somewhere (like at school) and someone just randomly starts talking to me. I'd rather them just leave me alone to whatever I was thinking about.
I love the friends that I do have. Family? Don't really care about that. I've never been very attached to any of my family members. My friends are what come first in my life. Well... second. I am first. I am easy to get along with, but hard to get to know. It's not like I'm completely awkward in conversation and don't know how to talk to people. It's that I hate it. I had to have a one-on-one meeting with a professor just this past week (she wanted to meet with everyone one on one and "get to know" them) and she praised me for being the most relaxed, easygoing student she had talked to so far. But I get drained by social interaction really fast. I don't know
why I hang out with my friends. We have common interests, but they're uncommon to the general population. We've known each other for years and years. I can't consider someone a friend if I haven't known them for a very long time.
Just go to various groups and get the feel of people.
Then simply be.
I was in the grip of Ti too long, myself. I thought I needed to "think" about things before I did them or said them. But Fe is action oriented and amazing enough, I don't need to think about things to actually use it.
I have if I just start writing or talking, focused on others, I will have the right words to say and just naturally know what to do.
For example, I was just at the store. The woman in front of me was taking some time and trying to get a discount of the product. I just started talking why her and soon was providing her comfort and advice as if we were old friends. We laughed, we commiserated, we just lived. When she was finally done, she thanked me. She had had a long day and was worn out and needed the emotional lift. The woman behind me, seeing I was a friendly person, asked me where I had found my purchase in the store, and we chatted. And the cashier had an easier go because spending longer time with the other customer didn't result in a bunch of angry people afterwards.
Fe is in our actions, our words, our attitude. Now, I didn't one actually think about a single thing I said before I said it, where I used to think I had process every word before it left my mouth. But what I realized was that when I am at my best, I am never thinking about what is flowing out.....I am just doing.
Now, ISFJs are different, since you lead with Si. You reference past experiences first. But what ïf you don't usage past experiences, or not many? Well, go get some. Get more data for your Si to process, get more experiences for your Fe is to use for understanding.
I have a friend with a ISFJ wife. She is pretty quiet, thoughtful, gets worn out in large groups, etc. She, like me, can sense the changes in a group (her children predominantly, for her), feeling exactly when things go from fun to problems, even when she isn't in the room with them.
I am uncomfortable with simply "joining" groups. I'd be able to survive, and people would find me likable--I am very much a jokester and an entertainer around others. I can make people laugh and I can brighten the atmosphere, when I feel comfortable. But I don't like doing so. I've made small talk with people in lines before, and it's been pleasant, but I rarely leave my house and don't really have many opportunities to do so--nor do I particularly find reason to.
I don't relate to descriptions of Fe at all, but I've been agonizing over my type for years now. I don't think there's any way that I'm not an ISFJ, but I'm a fucked up, broken ISFJ. I can survive in social interactions and look good while doing it. I hate presenting for school, but I am really charismatic when doing it. Anyone I've ever had to give a presentation in front of refuses to believe I am an introvert, but there is
no way I am extroverted. Especially with Fe as messed up as mine.
No. no. I think it's a good question. I only have a very small group of real friends, too. I also get overwhelming anxiety about things that include prolonged interaction with people I don't know or hardly know. I constantly doubt my abilities, but when I lighten up things tend to go great. I'm not exactly the most stable person all the time, either. Honestly, just be yourself. Not all Fe users need to be "caretakers." Just the same, I knew an Fi user that very much took a caretaker like role with me. I'm a college student too, by the way. Maybe you could get one of your friends to go to a club meeting on campus with you? I'm not sure how great my feeling function is to offer much help, but I do hope my advice is beneficial in some way.
It's the whole "caretaker" nature of Fe that I can't relate to, but that's all the descriptions are. "ISFJs are caretakers, homemakers, nurturers," blah blah blah. I don't relate to that at all. I don't live to serve others. I'd rather not have to deal with other people at all. I just want to be left alone and in turn leave other people alone. I don't "blind accept the norms of society" and all this other objective value stuff Fe is about or whatever.
The reason I'm whining and crying for attention over Fe is because I'm not happy. No one in my family is happy. Maybe if I just develop my Fe I'll learn to be happy. Maybe I should just find some rich old person and become their live-in free-labor slave and nurse them until they die. Chew and regurgitate their food for them, clean their marble floor with a toothbrush on my hands and knees. Obviously this is an angsty exaggeration, and I'm never going to do anything like this, nor do I think any Fe user wants this. But I just hate it.
I've never been the type to participate in school clubs. There is nothing I'm passionate about, and I only have one friend who even lives in the same city as me, and his classes are all morning, mine are all afternoon and evening for the most part. He's taking 20 credit hours and working 40+ hours a week, and honestly, I'd rather sit in my room and cry than go to a club meeting and have to force small talk and meet a bunch of new people whose names and faces I'll forget within 5 minutes.
I have similar issues. I actually became a care worker just for the purpose of developing my Fe. It has helped a bit, but I still don't feel "balanced out", and I don't think tbh that ISFJ is necessarily suited to the work I do all that well. (Although I guess that's kind of the point). At this point I think what would help me out a lot would be to find a mentor or role model, to show me "how to do it", maybe a better-developed ISFJ or an ESFJ or ENFJ. That hasn't materialised yet though...
All the advice in the world I've been able to find is about learning to serve others and put their needs before your own and volunteer and all this stuff I'd rather
not do because it's not something I would like to do or even
want to do. Finding a healthy Fe-user would be great if I wasn't a pos who refuses to go out and meet people.
Don't grow the Fe. Please don't grow the Fe.
If I don't, I will continue to be a broken type.
I'm sorry, everyone, I know I'm being impossible. I'm whining for attention, complaining, asking for help, and then shooting down every idea that comes me way. I'm aware of this. This is why I said this thread was a bad idea and I regret it. For so long now I've been able to keep my episodes off the forum and keep them contained but it's spilled over a bit. But I just don't know what to do. Okay, let me rephrase that. I
know what to do, and I'm unwilling to do it. I want the easy solution. I want the effortless answer. But everything I can think of equates to me as submitting myself to being an unhappy, selfless slave who has no sense of self and only lives to serve others and that sounds fucking awful to me. Maybe if I was able to have normal Fe like a normal ISFJ I wouldn't be so screwed up and unhappy and so tightly wound all the time. There is no purpose to this thread other than me kicking and screaming until someone gives me attention and then making them regret that they ever did.
