[INFJ] Are INFJs naturally fascinated with ENTPs?

[the state i am in]

Hmm, I can see a vicious cycle between an immature ENTP and INFJ would emerge from that kind of situation. One would constantly try to connect through various medium, and the other would back off more and more due to the perceived "insecurity." I've seen that dynamic play out between many other types, but especially with preference combinations so diametrically opposed.

I can see why you'd say it would feel like infidelity. Maybe, it's not worth being in a relationship with someone you cannot open up to, or with. That's not a "relationship" then, as defined by your realistic needs.

i can open up with damn near anyone. the issue is more so that i need to make sure i get good, healthy, nutritious feeling to supply me with positivity. feeling creates inspiration, which is what makes me merge with the world. i find it in emotional expression, communication, context, drama, etc. watching it flow through the world, hearing it everywhere and in everything, etc.

i believe i am better when i am more open. it is a state of my own being more so than it is purely a contingent mode of relationship. but perhaps it must be a slow and gradual process, and i must be more aware of my own limitations and adjust my expectations in the moment more constructively.

i am not sure where this goes from here. i get pretty fucking excited whenever i hang out with entps and the ideas start flowing. it is a need that is equal to my need for feeling, but does something wholly different for me.

 

[the state i am in]

Your line of reasoning makes much more sense to me and has been borne out in what I've observed with other couples. I have learned to avoid getting close to people of the opposite sex who are not good potential partners or avoid getting close to people of the opposite sex when I am in a relationship (or when they are).

i agree with this very much. but i fucking hate it. it makes me feel as if i must put so much pressure on my relationship to satisfy my whole experience of femininity. i need to connect with new people and understand them deeply. it is my greatest source of inspiration. how is this a tenable conflict?

 

[Synarch]

i agree with this very much. but i fucking hate it. it makes me feel as if i must put so much pressure on my relationship to satisfy my whole experience of femininity. i need to connect with new people and understand them deeply. it is my greatest source of inspiration. how is this a tenable conflict?

Just be aware how people can respond to this attention and connection. Not everyone is able to connect with people just to get what they want. Often they connect and feel something they feel with very few. So, there is a bit of responsibility there. I think the INFJ's can underestimate the response from others. Others who might assume that they are special.

 

[the state i am in]

Just be aware how people can respond to this attention and connection. Not everyone is able to connect with people just to get what they want. Often they connect and feel something they feel with very few. So, there is a bit of responsibility there. I think the INFJ's can underestimate the response from others. Others who might assume that they are special.

you are saying that infjs can be just as guilty as enfps when it comes to getting in close and creating an impression of intense focus and then not living up to the expectations they have created for the relationship within the other person?

 

[Fidelia]

Right. At the end of the day we are designed to become close to people of the opposite sex. This is the powerful biological magic that perpetuates our species. To think we have total control over this fails to recognize the true power of attraction. You are setting yourself up to fail.

It has the potential to overwhelm all reason, propriety, and concern for anything else. This is the duality of Romance. It has the power to create and destroy. It is elemental. Why else do we compare romantic love to fire? Fire excites and warms but the same fire can maim and destroy.

As an example, everyone should see "Damage". I believe it's on Netflix streaming.

Do you think it works that way in all MF friendships? I would guess that in most of the MF friendships I've had that have worked, the guy was open/mildly interested in me, but had tacitly accepted that the feeling wasn't mutual and they were not actively trying to make anything happen. I have realized from busking that no amount of age difference, marital status, ugliness etc means that men will automatically assume they are out of the running. I have been friends with married couples and been careful to make sure the friendship is more geared towards the woman even when we socialize together. Even this can still be a problem though. I have chosen with most of my formerly closer male friends to only sporadically stay in touch and to make sure that I mention their wife/family and that I would be fine with her reading anything I wrote so that my intentions are clear. It seems to work alright. In the past though I have underestimated the power of mental attraction/male interest/physical proximity to overpower good reason regarding an unwise or incompatible choice of SO.

 

[Synarch]

you are saying that infjs can be just as guilty as enfps when it comes to getting in close and creating an impression of intense focus and then not living up to the expectations they have created for the relationship within the other person?

Not exactly. I think they sometimes fail to anticipate the messages they inadvertently send. They make assumptions based on their own point of view without being able to see how different this might be from someone else. They can often seem just a touch naive when it comes to the mundane realities of human interaction.

ENFP's are a bit less dangerous in a way because they telegraph their flakiness and inconstancy.

 

[Synarch]

Do you think it works that way in all MF friendships? I would guess that in most of the MF friendships I've had that have worked, the guy was open/mildly interested in me, but had tacitly accepted that the feeling wasn't mutual and they were not actively trying to make anything happen. I have realized from busking that no amount of age difference, marital status, ugliness etc means that men will automatically assume they are out of the running. I have been friends with married couples and been careful to make sure the friendship is more geared towards the woman even when we socialize together. Even this can still be a problem though. I have chosen with most of my formerly closer male friends to only sporadically stay in touch and to make sure that I mention their wife/family and that I would be fine with her reading anything I wrote so that my intentions are clear. It seems to work alright. In the past though I have underestimated the power of mental attraction/male interest/physical proximity to overpower good reason regarding an unwise or incompatible choice of SO.

There are different forms of closeness between a man and a woman. Certainly I could be friends with someone unattractive to me or to someone who I saw as a "sister".

But, if there is sexual attraction how can there really be friendship? Really consider that.

Do you see how difficult that is? Respecting the relationship while feeling a pull. I don't see how it could work if there is attraction. So, necessarily, as you see in couples who are friends. The male and female constituents tend to maintain a sort of distance.

Friendship is a particular type of relationship. It presumes nothing more than an equal footing and understanding. A mutualism. Sexual desire is covetous. Jealous. Consuming. Seductive.

This may be an area where women have an advantage as they may be able to separate. But for myself, I do not think I could be close friends with a woman I was attracted to. It would be very dishonest to pretend I could be. You know?

 

[Fidelia]

Yep. I think I've only run into trouble with the odd person I wasn't initially attracted to physically, but who pursued me (so there was an attraction on their part) and whom I spent time with regularly and found mentally stimulating. I just ended up developing a return attraction. With those that I did not find appealing mentally/personality wise in a potential romantic way, we remained friends. When I was interested in someone who wasn't interested in me, we drifted apart (they have no reason to stay in a friendship where they don't feel attraction and there wasn't time enough to develop a more familial kind of friendship).

 

[Synarch]

Yep. I think I've only run into trouble with the odd person I wasn't initially attracted to physically, but who pursued me (so there was an attraction on their part) and whom I spent time with regularly and found mentally stimulating. I just ended up developing a return attraction. With those that I did not find appealing mentally/personality wise in a potential romantic way, we remained friends. When I was interested in someone who wasn't interested in me, we drifted apart (they have no reason to stay in a friendship where they don't feel attraction and there wasn't time enough to develop a more familial kind of friendship).

Women seem more likely go around making friends with men than the reverse. I am not sure why this is. Perhaps the female need for emotional closeness is an analogue to male sexual desire? I find it very puzzling as it seems sometimes a bit emotionally promiscuous.

 

[the state i am in]

Not exactly. I think they sometimes fail to anticipate the messages they inadvertently send. They make assumptions based on their own point of view without being able to see how different this might be from someone else. They can often seem just a touch naive when it comes to the mundane realities of human interaction.

ENFP's are a bit less dangerous in a way because they telegraph their flakiness and inconstancy.

suggesting that infjs can lack an awareness of social cues and signals that define boundaries and outline intentions? and without spending serious effort and energy maintaining a healthy and accurate portrayal of the situation through these forms of communication, they can lead people on?

as far as a more far-reaching critique of values, this moves towards infjs needing to be more self-sufficient and less dangerously anais-nin like (assuming we did in fact type her as an infj?) or deriving too much of their identity in their ability to explore others without serious investment?

 

[Fidelia]

Just be aware how people can respond to this attention and connection. Not everyone is able to connect with people just to get what they want. Often they connect and feel something they feel with very few. So, there is a bit of responsibility there. I think the INFJ's can underestimate the response from others. Others who might assume that they are special.

Yep, took me awhile to realize this. Since better understanding that, the weird stalker-esque types seem to have thinned out too.

 

[Synarch]

suggesting that infjs can lack an awareness of social cues and signals that define boundaries and outline intentions? and without spending serious effort and energy maintaining a healthy and accurate portrayal of the situation through these forms of communication, they can lead people on?

It just seems that for all their ability to understand other people they sometimes have trouble actually seeing other people. They can lack a sort of wariness, taking people as they do essentially at their word and on trust. This can be an error of judgment as consistent as they generally are with respect to their own ethics. I have seen it many times.

as far as a more far-reaching critique of values, this moves towards infjs needing to be more self-sufficient and less dangerously anais-nin like (assuming we did in fact type her as an infj?) or deriving too much of their identity in their ability to explore others without serious investment?

I see Anais Nin as definitely INFJ. She possesses a rather potent sexuality that stems almost entirely from her promiscuous receptivity and worship of others.

 

[Synarch]

Yep, took me awhile to realize this. Since better understanding that, the weird stalker-esque types seem to have thinned out too.

Do you miss the stalkers?

 

[Fidelia]

Emotionally promiscuous? I think we just get different things out of interactions than men do. We need emotional exchange more, but in a sense each interaction then means a little less because it is not one of our only interactions of significance.

I think men compartmentalize sex in a way that women find much harder to do and which makes it harder to believe that in some cases it honestly doesn't mean anything much at all.

 

[Synarch]

Emotionally promiscuous? I think we just get different things out of interactions than men do. We need emotional exchange more, but in a sense each interaction then means a little less because it is not one of our only interactions of significance.

I think men associate emotional exchange with intimacy. And emotional intimacy is all bound up with sexual intimacy. I tend to share tender feelings with so few people that they are either family or my romantic partner. I don't really get being so tender just with a friend.

I think men compartmentalize sex in a way that women find much harder to do and which makes it harder to believe that in some cases it honestly doesn't mean anything much at all.

Sex never means anything. The emotions are what add meaning to it. Sex does not have intrinsic emotional resonance, I don't think.

 

[Fidelia]

I don't miss anything except the entertaining stories 10 years after the fact. Like the 400ish pound, ponytailed, twice a day coffee shop visitor, 20 years older than me guy that worked at the porn shop down the road from my friend's coffee shop where I liked to hang out and jam with others. Sometimes I'd clear tables or eat there just because I was around quite a bit. Grim and I rarely exchanged words other than maybe a nod or something, but when I left town, he arranged for me to receive several thoughtfully made pieces of artwork made to represent me and a 10 page letter on fancy stationary apologizing for having hurt me so badly by putting up such high walls, which I could see through anyway. He got all that from me saying, "Are you done with your coffee cup?"

Or a schitzophrenic man 10 years older than me who believed that my parents were keeping us apart and who wrote letters to my parents telling them in graphic detail that I was woman enough for him to be aware that I craved his body and had displayed my aching longing to him on numerous occasions (followed by letters with religious insults such as "you whited sepulchur" etc directed at my mother after they told him not to continue contacting me).

Yep...don't miss those days...

 

[Synarch]

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Sometimes niceness is the worst kind of cruelty there is. To create hope where there should be none.

 

[the state i am in]

It just seems that for all their ability to understand other people they sometimes have trouble actually seeing other people. They can lack a sort of wariness, taking people as they do essentially at their word and on trust. This can be an error of judgment as consistent as they generally are with respect to their own ethics. I have seen it many times.

I see Anais Nin as definitely INFJ. She possesses a rather potent sexuality that stems almost entirely from her promiscuous receptivity and worship of others.

i agree with what you say regarding seeing others. i do not know if infjs filter in a way that does this more than others, or if infjs are often more overly and mistakenly sure of their readings, or if it is just a case of infjs sensitivity in one area not being helpful at all in others and leading to blind spots relationally. i am also not sure if you are suggesting that infjs get hurt or do the hurting. or if they just have a tendency to introduce situations that are potentially damaging to many parties unnecessarily.

Emotionally promiscuous? I think we just get different things out of interactions than men do. We need emotional exchange more, but in a sense each interaction then means a little less because it is not one of our only interactions of significance.

I think men compartmentalize sex in a way that women find much harder to do and which makes it harder to believe that in some cases it honestly doesn't mean anything much at all.

it does mean something in that it seems like a pretty high priority for many men. but i'd say that the instinctual subtypes are more telling than focusing on gender or biological sex (tho that is different and plays a significant role as well in the construction of desire). (i think sx types just feel more unbalanced, compulsive/addictive, and more desirous of immediate and furious completion rather than waiting, patience, and balance)

males may be taught to expect less emotional exchange, but that doesn't mean that they like the effect of this absence of lack. nor does it mean that they need it any less.

 

[Fidelia]

Quote:

I think men associate emotional exchange with intimacy. And emotional intimacy is all bound up with sexual intimacy. I tend to share tender feelings with so few people that they are either family or my romantic partner. I don't really get being so tender just with a friend.

Sex never means anything. The emotions are what add meaning to it. Sex does not have intrinsic emotional resonance, I don't think.

Maybe just like it seems odd to you to share tender feelings with someone other than a friend or romantic partner, it would seem odd to me to share sex with someone you have no emotional bond with. Wouldn't feel right or be that satisfying to me. I can't say I open up to all my friends though. There are very few that I care about enough to have initiated conflict with and seen it through till things were okay again. I talk about things that maybe some people would deem personal, but I don't really share the things closest to my heart with many people at all.
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Aw crap - with my supermod powers, I just edited your post into mine, rather than starting a new one. Hang on and I'll see if I can get yours back to its original state. Sorry!

 

[Fidelia]

it does mean something in that it seems like a pretty high priority for many men. but i'd say that the instinctual subtypes are more telling than focusing on gender or biological sex (tho that is different and plays a significant role as well in the construction of desire). (i think sx types just feel more unbalanced, compulsive/addictive, and more desirous of immediate and furious completion rather than waiting, patience, and balance)

males may be taught to expect less emotional exchange, but that doesn't mean that they like the effect of this absence of lack. nor does it mean that they need it any less.

Big yes to both.