[ENFP] Who has thicker skin ENFP or ENFJ ?

[Thalassa]

But using Te walls I can solve problems every effectively and never get hurt. I quell any emotions and just resolve issues. It is very logical and detached and effective.

For an enfp I think growing these Te walls is the way we develop a thick skin-although I'd love to hear alternative suggestions as well because maybe there are other ways??

Yes, I think Te walls can give ENFPs the illusion of having thicker skin. I think we can even seen meaner than ENFJs because they lead with Fe. Believe it or not, there are people in this world who mistakenly think I'm some hard-ass, untouchable bitch. I've even fooled my own sister once or twice.

But the truth is I think ENFPs have much thinner skin, and that's why we sometimes overcompensate. All of my hard-assery is to protect my little kitty heart. To me, ENFPs seem much more reactive, and take things much more personally.

 

[William K]

Maybe growing Fi rulesets allows us to emotionally protect ourselves more effectively? We learn it is okay not to forgive, it is okay to hurt others sometimes? I dunno...so confused on this issue. It defies logic.

I think it's more like refining your values and building boundaries so that you are sensitive to less things. The smaller the number of things that make up your Fi core, the easier it is to ignore the perceived slights/offense that others do to you and that you do to others.

 

[Giggly]

Rather than acid reflux, ENFPs may suffer from emo-reflux. Bluuurgghhhhhhhh! (can I take prilosec for this?)

:yim_rolling_on_the_ Best unicorn picture ever!

 

[sculpting]

Offense will come in life, that's a guarantee along with death and taxes.

I don't think being thicker-skinned has to mean being impervious, hardened, or insensitive. For me it's about knowing which battles to fight and what hills I'm willing to die on.

I more or less view being thick-skinned as analogous to building your immune system. You want to be protected enough so that dangerous viruses and pathogens don't kill you, but good bacteria and probiotic thingys are permeable and welcome.

Also, a lot of it is contextual as has been mentioned several times in the thread...what fairly and reasonably sets you off (unjust and incorrect character assaults), what you just brush off as hateration (unfounded gossip that has no bearing on anything), and constructive criticism that should be heeded (weaknesses and areas of improvement).

I guess..I dont think of think skin protecting me from "offensive" things. I think of it as protecting me from "hurtful" things. When you see the enfps all get in a tizzy at the entps-the entps have pushed a "hurt" button not an "offense" button. It hurts Fi, and we lash back with Te funneled emotion if we get poked hard enough. (Not Te mind you, but Te used to structure the painful emotions into a shield to protect ourselves. Why does it hurt? They directly challenge the authenticity of the emotional responses I think. So much of our emo "reactivity" and infantality borders on subconscious, innate responses I am thinking.)

Maybe that's kinda been said in the thread already? It's kinda hard to "offend" an enfp. But we are sensitive to hurt.

What do you feel if you find something offensive/hurtful, but recognize it isnt a battle worth fighting? How do you redirect the emotions internally?

 

[sculpting]

I think it's more like refining your values and building boundaries so that you are sensitive to less things. The smaller the number of things that make up your Fi core, the easier it is to ignore the perceived slights/offense that others do to you and that you do to others.

William can you give an example of this? I would think your Fi core would be huge?

 

[Thalassa]

I guess..I dont think of think skin protecting me from "offensive" things. I think of it as protecting me from "hurtful" things. When you see the enfps all get in a tizzy at the entps-the entps have pushed a "hurt" button not an "offense" button. It hurts Fi, and we lash back with Te funneled emotion if we get poked hard enough. (Not Te mind you, but Te used to structure the painful emotions into a shield to protect ourselves. Why does it hurt? They directly challenge the authenticity of the emotional responses I think. So much of our emo "reactivity" and infantality borders on subconscious, innate responses I am thinking.)

Maybe that's kinda been said in the thread already? It's kinda hard to "offend" an enfp. But we are sensitive to hurt.

THIS

 

[William K]

William can you give an example of this? I would think your Fi core would be huge?

As I have gotten older, it has gotten more tiring to get worked up over some things The ruleset/heuristics might get bigger but I think I'm less sensitive to things now than I was and I let a lot of things slide, especially in on-line interactions. The challenge is finding out what is really important to you to defend and what is not. As proteanmix said, it's figuring out which battle to fight.

It's like when someone does something that bugs or hurts you, you try to figure out what exactly is the 'value' button that he is pushing and how high of a priority that value is. And can that person actually harm you and your value in any way by his actions/words?

I used to be hate speaking in public because I was afraid of the criticisms from the audience. I still feel uncomfortable and get flustered if someone speaks up against whatever I am presenting, but I know that most of the time it is my idea and not me personally that he is attacking. And even if he is really heckling me because he thinks I'm an idiot? If you are confident in what you presented and it's important to you, then stand your ground. Else, learn from the experience and forget about the hurt. It's not the end of the world to look foolish once in a while

 

[proteanmix]

I guess..I dont think of think skin protecting me from "offensive" things. I think of it as protecting me from "hurtful" things. When you see the enfps all get in a tizzy at the entps-the entps have pushed a "hurt" button not an "offense" button. It hurts Fi, and we lash back with Te funneled emotion if we get poked hard enough. (Not Te mind you, but Te used to structure the painful emotions into a shield to protect ourselves. Why does it hurt? They directly challenge the authenticity of the emotional responses I think. So much of our emo "reactivity" and infantality borders on subconscious, innate responses I am thinking.)

Maybe that's kinda been said in the thread already? It's kinda hard to "offend" an enfp. But we are sensitive to hurt.

I consider 'offend' and 'hurt' to be synonyms, both literally and emotionally. At the very least, offense is the fist step towards hurt. Offense is the perception, hurt is the reaction. I'm not quite sure how you can be hurt without being offended in some way, although I can understand being offended without being hurt. For example, if someone makes a disparaging racial comment I can be offended, but I'm not personally hurt because the comment doesn't necessarily apply to me. If someone does or says something personally hurtful to me, I can be both offended and hurt, but I'm rarely hurt without being offended. That particular combination is intertwined.

RE the ENTP thing: How hurtful can what some stranger on the internet says about you possibly be? They know nothing about your personally or individually so how do you allow yourself to be hurt in that way? Or maybe you did put yourself out there personally or individually, whereas I would not chum the water with my emotions like that so there's less of a chance for offense or hurt or whatever it is. Or there was an attack on an image, which some felt it was necessary to defend.

And once again, I'm still baffled by the fixation on hurt and pain. What if you want to connect to a person who for the most part has a clean bill of psychological and emotional health? What if they're not bleeding pain and anguish all over the place? Certainly if you can be physically healthy, you can be emotionally healthy. What do you do with people like that?

What do you feel if you find something offensive/hurtful, but recognize it isnt a battle worth fighting? How do you redirect the emotions internally?

These are questions and responses that go through my mind...things that I'm still learning.

• Control: Am I going to let this manhandle and maul me like this? Don't give up my personal agency towards, don't be at the mercy of the emotions of others or my inner Ms. Hyde.
• Significance: Why is this important? What's my stake and agenda?
• Scale: Does this go beyond me? Is it even about me?
• Focus: What can I realistically do to make it better?
• Cleanse: What rejuvenates and revives me?
• Rebuild: What other areas can I strengthen and how do I mitigate against any future damage? (this is my Jay talking!)

Easier said than done of course, but even slowing down enough to think all that can create enough distance between me and the cause. This process helps me and the more I do it, the more I find a certain level of peace internally. Some situations I can do it in 10 minutes, others may take months or years to work through this. I can tell you right now, focusing on anger, hurt, offense, frustration, and pain only makes things worse. That shit feeds upon itself, kinda like an Ouroboros.

 

[Thalassa]

I consider 'offend' and 'hurt' to be synonyms, both literally and emotionally. At the very least, offense is the fist step towards hurt. Offense is the perception, hurt is the reaction. I'm not quite sure how you can be hurt without being offended in some way, although I can understand being offended without being hurt.

I think people with dom/aux Fe can be offended much more easily in terms of subject matter. Being "offended" usually has something to do with decency and standards...I can honestly tell you as an ENFP there really is very little which offends me in terms of being "politically incorrect" and irreverent. I think we're less likely to be "offended" by what is strange, unusual, risque, or dark.

On the other hand, we're more easily "hurt" because we take certain things personally and to heart.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

.

Then I think about what opportunities do I have to observe enough people AND ALSO know their MBTI type so that I can start connecting behaviors and tendencies with types. .

Unless you were able to observe thousands of people from different social backgrounds of whose type you were certain, you didn't observe enough people.

.

It's not perfect of course and you just gave a very viable reason why it isn't. .

Nevermind that its not perfect, the sample is too small and vaguely defined to the point of being preposterous. The subject-matter of speculative socio-typology that is commonly discussed here hardly merits contemplation of a moment's worth. This will change for the better only if we conduct carefully controlled studies in sociology.

 

[Thalassa]

.


Nevermind that its not perfect, the sample is too small and vaguely defined to the point of being preposterous. The subject-matter of speculative socio-typology that is commonly discussed here hardly merits contemplation of a moment's worth.

Then go away.

 

[jenocyde]

.

Unless you were able to observe thousands of people from different social backgrounds of whose type you were certain, you didn't observe enough people.

What amount of people is the proper amount?

 

[jenocyde]

Yes, I think Te walls can give ENFPs the illusion of having thicker skin. I think we can even seen meaner than ENFJs because they lead with Fe. Believe it or not, there are people in this world who mistakenly think I'm some hard-ass, untouchable bitch. I've even fooled my own sister once or twice.

But the truth is I think ENFPs have much thinner skin, and that's why we sometimes overcompensate. All of my hard-assery is to protect my little kitty heart. To me, ENFPs seem much more reactive, and take things much more personally.

Then go away.

Was that comment in defense of your little kitty heart?

 

[Virtual ghost]

Was that comment in defense of your little kitty heart?

Says INFP.

 

[proteanmix]

I think people with dom/aux Fe can be offended much more easily in terms of subject matter. Being "offended" usually has something to do with decency and standards...I can honestly tell you as an ENFP there really is very little which offends me in terms of being "politically incorrect" and irreverent. I think we're less likely to be "offended" by what is strange, unusual, risque, or dark.

On the other hand, we're more easily "hurt" because we take certain things personally and to heart.

Can you give me some examples of what you consider "strange, unusual, risque, or dark" because I'd like to know if I'd start clutching my proverbial pearls at the same things.

Most definitely about the decency and standards part. I hate seeing inequalities and people treating each other like trash. For example, at my job there's a deep cleavage between those with professional and post-bacc degrees and a lot of intellectual egos running around. The reason why these attitudes and behaviors concern me is because how the culture of superiority/inferiority affects professional development and opportunities for professional growth and also their views of people subordinate to them.

Another example of when I got offended (I wrote about this somewhere) is about two years ago when I was at a house party one of the other partygoers put the lid of a wicker laundry basket on his head and then got up in the face of one of my Asian friends saying "Ching, chong, chang ching ching!" That's one bit of political incorrectness I DO NOT stand for and me and several other people reamed him his ass and he sat in the corner for the rest of the night nursing his beer and some buffalo wings.

This happens on both the macro and micro scales, and I do my part where I can. I do feel compelled to speak up and do something when these types of offenses occur.

 

[Unkindloving]

I'm not sure if it only pertains to me (other ENFJs, feel free to chime in), but i am not at all for political correctness, do not get insulted easily (or much at all), and can be extremely abrasive.

It may be a 4w5 contribution or a situational thing.

I'm a thin-skinned little bitch if there's a problem between myself and someone i genuinely care about, but apart from that i'm quite solid.
Where do the other ENFs feel their subjective weak spots are?

 

[SolitaryWalker]

What amount of people is the proper amount?

I would have to say at least several thousands per type. Five thousand at least. We'd also have to make sure that all of our subjects are from a wide of range of different cultural or socio-economical backgrounds, otherwise we can't generalize our findings for the entire temperament.

 

[sculpting]

I would have to say at least several thousands per type. Five thousand at least. We'd also have to make sure that all of our subjects are from a wide of range of different cultural or socio-economical backgrounds, otherwise we can't generalize our findings for the entire temperament.

Ti Ti Ti Ti Ti

(hehehehe, I am sooooo bad....I promise I'll read the booookkkk)

SW you should actually start a whole thread about this-it is a worthwhile topic. ENFs have such an intuitive grasp on human behavior that we can-well-as bad as this sounds-skip the extraordinary data collection step. But we arent building Ti rules either, just building massively messy Fi/Fe models of behavior-even then mostly not consciously. We mold our findings to the collective group we see and interact with most often and it actually works really well-doesnt mean it is Ti pretty in anyway at all-but highly functional.

I do question-can you ever really simplify the way Fe/Fi work into Ti terms? I dunno...Just a question.

brooklyn!!!

 

[Glycerine]

I'm not sure if it only pertains to me (other ENFJs, feel free to chime in), but i am not at all for political correctness, do not get insulted easily (or much at all), and can be extremely abrasive.

It may be a 4w5 contribution or a situational thing.

I'm a thin-skinned little bitch if there's a problem between myself and someone i genuinely care about, but apart from that i'm quite solid.
Where do the other ENFs feel their subjective weak spots are?

I can really relate to your whole post!

If you give me an unfair judgement....that really PISSES me off. The people that try to CHANGE me and correct my behavior and ways with "you should..."s, get under my skin. Ironically, this seems to come a lot from my fellow Fe brethren, the ESFJs.

 

[sculpting]

I consider 'offend' and 'hurt' to be synonyms, both literally and emotionally. At the very least, offense is the fist step towards hurt. Offense is the perception, hurt is the reaction. I'm not quite sure how you can be hurt without being offended in some way, although I can understand being offended without being hurt. For example, if someone makes a disparaging racial comment I can be offended, but I'm not personally hurt because the comment doesn't necessarily apply to me. If someone does or says something personally hurtful to me, I can be both offended and hurt, but I'm rarely hurt without being offended. That particular combination is intertwined.

This is weird for me Pro. For anything offensive I dont feel hurt-at all. But I feel Te kick in very strongly to right the wrong. It doesnt hurt my feelings or engage Fi at all. Offense is the perception, slight anger and/or direct action is the reaction.


Check this out.

http://www.typologycentral.com/foru...006-intj-intelligent-myth-70.html#post1109759

Yeah I might have had PMS a bit yesterday... (Sorry SW...) SW’s comment prompted an immediate WTF did you just say response? It personally offended me, silly though it seems. But no hurt at all. I plopped down my comment, internally rolled my eyes, and then went meh, whatever and promptly forgot the whole thing. The comment was representative of a very interesting INTJ-ENTP dynamic, was noted as such mentally and then dismissed in annoyance.

In a larger scale? In defense of others, no pain, no hurt, only a winding of the Te dynamo to focus the emo energy (anger?) into a defense solution to correct the situation. No emo needs to be present, once the gears click into place, after an offense. It’s more like my internal dragon sits up, takes notice, and then constructs a concerted, crystalline, response.

RE the ENTP thing: How hurtful can what some stranger on the internet says about you possibly be? They know nothing about your personally or individually so how do you allow yourself to be hurt in that way? Or maybe you did put yourself out there personally or individually, whereas I would not chum the water with my emotions like that so there's less of a chance for offense or hurt or whatever it is. Or there was an attack on an image, which some felt it was necessary to defend. ?

So hurt-
Remember I am a total nutcase and am a weird enfp. I am growing backwards from the direction of the other enfps-so it’s an insightful if warped perspective. If you manage to emotionally hurt me, I appear to have a complete emotional breakdown. Go team Ne!

Hurt can only happen a few ways. Given the Te walls of steel, I have to have made an emotional overture, a sincere offer to carry you emotionally as part of myself for you to hurt me. (Maybe other enfps do this much more readily so are more easily hurt?) I would go far as to suggest there may be some weird internalization of the other person-making “them” part of our internal self definition-Fi ruleset? (Fucking crazy I know).

Ways to profoundly hurt me:
1. Reject that emotional offering-ie my Fi attempt to connect with you. It is like losing a limb. This is where my IRL entps will hurt me, as they will Fe-withdraw if I get emo-thus it feels like rejection of my Fi. I offered my emotions-you rejected them. (ENFPs seem to sometimes carry a sense they are internally flawed-I think it has to do with the risk of these emotions/connections not being acceptable to others.)

2. Attack the authenticity of the emotional offering. I HAVE NO IDEA why this hurts so much. To have me show you emotions openly, and then have the truth of those emotions questioned-is agony. I don’t know why. To ever imply the emotional offering is manipulative. Agony. To imply I would use it as a tool. Agony. I don’t understand where this response comes from at all. It is so visceral, so guttural. So ingrained. Why is it okay for an ENFJ or INFJ to say they use others emotions to manipulate but if an ENFP says anything like that it seems so WRONG. There is some deep shit wrapped up in the *authenticity* of Fi. This is what the ENTPs set off in the threads-they question the sincerity, authenticity, manipulative goals. When they call Fi selfish0they are indirectly saying it is insincere and is not actually authentic in its emotional offering? You will see hurt-Te funneled bitchslap anger response almost instinctually.

I have had a few pokes of this sort form the ENTPs, but since I mostly live in Te, I quell the innate emotional response, step back and try and gather more data about why they are perceiving what they perceive. But the other enfps-they were already interacting openly via Fi, they lack my Te walls-thus I don’t think they have that same option. Instead you see instinctual defense reactions.

In the same light-using NeTe together allows me to dissect people and see patterns most people dont. I can use this information strategically. Yet if I try and do so I am left feeling *dirty*. It feels very wrong to even understand these patterns, let alone use them. I am still thinking through this.

Lot of stuff to figure out here though, so this is all very fuzzy still. Very, very weird.

And once again, I'm still baffled by the fixation on hurt and pain. What if you want to connect to a person who for the most part has a clean bill of psychological and emotional health? What if they're not bleeding pain and anguish all over the place? Certainly if you can be physically healthy, you can be emotionally healthy. What do you do with people like that?

I personally feel the happiness of others very strongly-not just pain. I will almost always sacrifice for myself in order to make others happier. Another perspective-check out the enfp responses on the jeolousy thread. We all kinda say the same thing. Let that shit go and be happy for the other person. Genuinely happy. Our only other option is to carry anger and pain, thus activating the Te call to action, which will result in cycles of anger-hurting others-guilt-pain. We seem to know in advance, somewhat instinctually, how unproductive that is. So instead I choose to feel the happiness of the other and be content in that peace and beauty. But it has to be real, honest, authentic happiness which totally wipes out the negativity, hurt and anger. I really have to be happy for them to feel happy myself. Then it is real.

(Can I get an emoticon for crazy?)