[INFJ] INFJs and odd people

[Fidelia]

I have noticed that many INFJs seem to draw odd people to them. This doesn't seem to just be an sexual attraction thing, because they can be male or female. However, if the odd person on the bus is going to talk to someone, you can bet it'll be the INFJ who is minding their own business and not even making eye contact.

This has happened to me while reading a magazine in Costco (by the end of the conversation the very unconventionally dressed older lady who approached me to compliment my purse had drawn me a map of her house and invited me, told me her thoughts on love, and discussed her three husbands without pause. This used to happen all the time during university and also while busking, which are more understandable venues. In later years it has happened less.

I know that INFJs tend to be less immediate judgemental, are painfully aware of being rude to others (even when justified), and have something about them that seems sympathetic. I have had several people have "love affairs" with me that I wasn't aware of at all, until they decided to introduce themselves and console me for putting up walls between us and give me presents!

On the other hand, I have very clear lines and no problem saying if I think something is inappropriate, I am not naive, nor do I make eye contact and smile indiscriminately. I'm not sure if those factors have gotten stronger as I've gotten older, or if I am just out of the venues where they are likeliest to happen.

Do you experience this? If so, why do you think it is?

 

[lillyofthevalley]

I experience the same thing. Random people in random places, all need to 'share'. I love it when they're children, and I don't mind it most times when they're adults. I've learned the act of listening when this happens, and it is an act, I really don't want to hear their stories but this has happened so many times through the years that I know how to do it. I also get odd people, unfortunately for me, they zero in on me at parties. Once in a while I'm actually creeped out by some of them because I don't know what's wrong with them. Odd men are attracted to me...ugh.

 

[amelie]

Yes - this definitely happens to me. People tell me their life stories in the check out line, approach me at the library, and etc. I've talked to some of my friends about it and they say that I look very approachable and friendly, so maybe that's why? And then I think that when someone starts talking to me, I don't feel comfortable being rude, so I tolerate it for longer than some other people would, even if it's making me feel uncomfortable.

 

[r.a]

my whole life has been a magnet for absolute wierdness, but at least its been interesting!

 

[Fidelia]

One day when I was busking a lady just walked up and started telling me about how she had moved from the Bronx to Wisconsin, woke up pregnant in Aruba, is trying to be a good mother, and how bad her relationship was with her mother who has now died, but that she got her back by refusing to dust the urn that her mother's ashes were in! In cases like that I do allow those people to continue just because I can't imagine what will come out next. Maybe it is my own fault sometimes...

 

[Skyward]

I've never had this happen to me, but I guess that's just because I don't get out much...

Maybe the internal 'weight' of an INFJ and the aura of patience/understanding they tend to have makes them attractive to people who have something to get off their chest? They are monikered the 'confidant' on some MBTI sites.

 

[statuesquechica]

This is such an interesting topic to me (just posted in a similar forum on INFP and attracting unusual people), and I am somewhere in the spectrum of J/Pness so I will add my thoughts here as well.

I have also experienced this phenomena on a regular basis. I always attributed it to the fact that I am above average height and it can elicit some pretty off-the-wall comments and conversations from strangers. One man mistook me for a Russian prostitute. Older men in particular have told me some of their rather graphic fantasies involving me dominating them (this was while I was sitting in the reception area of my work place and he left a meeting to tell me this). On the other hand a man yelled at me while waiting for the bus that he would NEVER marry anyone as tall as me. I am pretty nonchalant when such things happen because they happen so often.

I always dismissed it as some projected sexual fetish/intimidation about tall women but looking back I have experienced strange interactions while sitting down (and my height wasn't apparent), with women as well as men, and in other countries (a man in Bolivia fixated on my nose and told me more than I wanted to know). It has certainly provided some very amusing moments in my life and I still can't believe what people will say or how they will attempt to connect with me.

I do believe a great deal of it is related to my openness and that I am truly sending out some sort of "signal" and some people are receptive to it, and others are in their own world. I am aware that boundaries (mental and physical) are necessary for my own mental health so sometimes I will consciously close that part down of myself, or minimize it, especially with the work that I do. It does seem likely that NF plays a part in this phenomena and I look forward to reading more posts about it (former science teacher still at heart who loves the scientific process).

 

[Usehername]

There are a lot of crazies out there... I'm pretty sure this kind of thing happens to everyone.

I had a guy on the bus say to me that "after those guys beat me up really badly, I went back and murdered one of them with a gun I stole from my cousin," and then he immediately reached over across me, dinged the cord, and walked off the bus.

I also had to contact the police and fill out a whole report when a schizophrenic was explaining to me his plans to blow up my university.

 

[Skyward]

I guess where I live must be taken into account too. Since my Minnesotan community is heavily religious the closest thing to crazy is irrational zealot christians, which number few anyway.

 

[INTJ123]

I've actually seen this happen while I was hanging out with my infj friend LOL! Some really old couple was walking by and started talking to him out of nowhere, I remember she complimented his mohawk like hairstyle (which was odd to me because they were reallly really old). And then afterwards I was like, what was that? and he said I dunno but it happens to me alot.

 

[Lightyear]

Actually that doesn't happen to me at all. (Perhaps because I live in London where people naturally mind their own business and distrust strangers?) The only time I can bet that a stranger will talk to me is when I sit in a park and some guy comes up to me and starts hitting on me. That's one of the reasons I don't sit in parks to read a book, I really don't want to have to deal with people invading my private space like this.

 

[felt up]

I think oddballs and eccentrics are attracted to me because they view me as such. It makes sense that those people will feel comfortable around others who seem 'out of of the ordinary.' I have a million similar stories, OP. Only I don't tell them anymore because so many of them seem so unbelievable, only the few people who know me well understand I attract these people, effortlessly.

 

[Tiltyred]

Count me in.

 

[Fidelia]

So now that we've agreed that there are a number of us who odd people pick: do you think you encourage it in some way? And if you don't, what is it about you that makes you approachable? Why do you think people pick you? Have any of you gone from being frequently approached to not approached? What is responsible for that?

 

[tess2008]

yes!!! this happens to me constantly.
if i am alone in a public place for more than 5 minutes, 9/10 an oddball will come up to me and start pouring his/ her soul out.
it is so, so weird. i don't mind that much i guess, it's sort of interesting, but i do get really freaked out sometimes.

in the last two weeks i've had two conversations with verry.. interesting people.
i was sitting on a bench in the city, waiting for a friend, when an asian man came and sat next to me, and literally just started telling me about his childhood in asia, and his abusive father, and how his brother suffered from depression and his sister went to america and now he never sees her etcetc. and then it started raining and i was like 'listen, i really have to go.' and he held a book over my head and kept talking to me for about 20 minutes.

another time i was just waiting at a bus stop, and a man walked up to me and said 'excuse me, i'm sorry, but you have a nice vibe.. i had to come and talk to you.' he was clearly very drunk/ stoned or something, but he just went on and on about his life, and how he was going to be late for an appointment, and kept turning to leave, then deciding against it and kept talking. then he shook my hand and wouldn't let go, and finally my bus came and i got on, and he just stood there and waved.

lol.. no wonder i'm scared of going out alone.

 

[entropie]

Ya you got a talent there that's prolly why they call you the psych type.

You should tho try to develop that instead to brag about it.

 

[felt up]

I have a history of having long converstations with homeless people with varying untreated psychological disorders. I've had schizophrenics follow me. I've had INTPs stalk me. It's just a fact of life. Honestly, I enjoy talking to them, because I frequently find them brilliant and feel they deserve a moment to have a connection with someone other than the rambling going on in their heads. In those brief moments I've allowed the weirdoes, freaks, and eccentrics to come into my life, I've felt more connected and less alone.

 

[A Schnitzel]

I have noticed that many INFJs seem to draw odd people to them.

Yeah. I've seen two INFJs hang out together.

 

[statuesquechica]

So now that we've agreed that there are a number of us who odd people pick: do you think you encourage it in some way? And if you don't, what is it about you that makes you approachable? Why do you think people pick you? Have any of you gone from being frequently approached to not approached? What is responsible for that?

When I am out in public I don't encourage it in any way other than looking people in the face and being aware of their presence. I am always aware of other people's "space" so simply saying "excuse me" or "no problem" seems to signal some people. I think we live in a society where a large majority of people feel unseen, invisible. There are so many people existing with so much pain (from the conversations I have had with some strangers and what they share) that they are wanting to ease that burden in some small way. I don't mind sharing that moment with them; I can be with them, as long as I maintain a healthy boundary and don't absorb too much. I have definitely had to work on that skill for my own sanity.

I think being in the general public will always provide these opportunities/inconveniences depending on how it is viewed. I agree that sometimes it can be a gift and sometimes a burden.

 

[ReadingRainbows]

INFJs are odd people.