[ENTP] Social insecurity and how to deal with it? (Recent problem included)

[Mondo]

First thoughts: to appreciate your world, you have to be honest with yourself, that's the first step. If you don't think you're a "very likable person", self-confidence in any area is only a facade you're putting up for yourself. You have to deconstruct those barriers to be able to reconstruct your foundation of self-appreciation before anything else. Just admit that you're not confident and try processing those negative feeligns without sinking into depression. Why do you clinge to past grievance? What is it that you can't handle? What attributes are you missing, and how can you be better in them? After this, you can start rethinking your inner world, which may temporarily screw up your outer facade. If you don't feel like it, don't try to be the center of the party until you've resolved these conflicts in yourself, try to handle them in a mature and responsible way instead, that is very attractive in itself, I find.
Try to find the situations where you hurt someone or where you're annoyed and break them down in all honesty, they might tell you a lot more about yourself than about the people you're criticizing. Nosce te ipsum. Why didn't the relationship work? What do you have to change? Don't be afraid to ask for help from an outsider, your friends or a counselor or whatever. Appreciate the lessons you've learned instead of pointing out her behavior before parting ways. You might have many "friends", but are they there for you in times of trouble? Start building up meaningful relationships by being honestly curious, imagine everybody as a single microcosm to be explored, struggling with their pasts, just like you.

Don't ask the girl about her reasons, try to find a way to contact her again, and if she declines, let it go. There are tons of reasons for her behavior. She's the guest in your world and you're the gift she has to obtain, not vice versa.



It is, if you're an introvert. You might want to reconsider your type.

Interesting advice. I'll take that into consideration.
As for the "introvert" thing, the thing is that I'm not saying I'm going to isolate myself from the world but that I'm willing to sacrifice emotional intimacy, if it will likely cause my well-being to be worse. There's more to socializing than finding a partner. I don't think I'd be happy being alone for the rest of my life but I think I could be happy not having a partner but having people in my life who don't make me alone...I've been hurt enough times that I really don't see the advantages at the moment. I'm on a career path which will make me relatively well-off financially and I'm good at making connections/friends. I guess I'm also thinking that I could settle for a "trophy wife".

 

[Mondo]

Society is an enormous pain. Have you read a book titled "Ishmael", by Daniel Quinn? It's about society/culture and things along that line. I loved it. I woke up one morning and read through the 250 page book in a couple of hours. I love it.

I'll have to read "Ishmael", I'll see if I can find it at the library or Borders.

 

[Fidelia]

I thought I merged these two threads, but now I can't find the old one in here. If something pops up in a weird place on the forum, please let me know!

 

[Mondo]

I thought I merged these two threads, but now I can't find the old one in here. If something pops up in a weird place on the forum, please let me know!

My OP is now Post #1 & Post #2 on this thread.

 

[Oddly Refined]

First thoughts: to appreciate your world, you have to be honest with yourself, that's the first step. If you don't think you're a "very likable person", self-confidence in any area is only a facade you're putting up for yourself. You have to deconstruct those barriers to be able to reconstruct your foundation of self-appreciation before anything else. Just admit that you're not confident and try processing those negative feeligns without sinking into depression. Why do you clinge to past grievance? What is it that you can't handle? What attributes are you missing, and how can you be better in them? After this, you can start rethinking your inner world, which may temporarily screw up your outer facade. If you don't feel like it, don't try to be the center of the party until you've resolved these conflicts in yourself, try to handle them in a mature and responsible way instead, that is very attractive in itself, I find.
Try to find the situations where you hurt someone or where you're annoyed and break them down in all honesty, they might tell you a lot more about yourself than about the people you're criticizing. Nosce te ipsum. Why didn't the relationship work? What do you have to change? Don't be afraid to ask for help from an outsider, your friends or a counselor or whatever. Appreciate the lessons you've learned instead of pointing out her behavior before parting ways. You might have many "friends", but are they there for you in times of trouble? Start building up meaningful relationships by being honestly curious, imagine everybody as a single microcosm to be explored, struggling with their pasts, just like you.

Don't ask the girl about her reasons, try to find a way to contact her again, and if she declines, let it go. There are tons of reasons for her behavior. She's the guest in your world and you're the gift she has to obtain, not vice versa.
It is, if you're an introvert. You might want to reconsider your type.

This is solid advice. Additionally, I was looking for information on self-acceptance versus self-esteem and I found this information helpful.

There's more to socializing than finding a partner.

Definitely.

I don't think I'd be happy being alone for the rest of my life but I think I could be happy not having a partner but having people in my life who don't make me alone

Developing a solid support system and network of friends is a good idea...

I've been hurt enough times that I really don't see the advantages at the moment.

It's possible you'll change your mind later, but that's obvious since many people often do.

I guess I'm also thinking that I could settle for a "trophy wife".

Is that really what you want?

 

[onemoretime]

No offense, but therapy might be helpful. It's likely that if you're feeling this way, there are things underneath the surface that are the real culprit of these emotions. Source: personal experience. You sound like me about eight months ago.

 

[Cypocalypse]

This is a very interesting dilemma. Compared to the other types that's stereotypically hated, ENTPs are like midway between hated and liked, and they usually wanted to be liked.
Ne is a function that triggers a certain degree of confidence, but a tertiary Fe always put the person in a state of doubt. It has always been a battle of skills versus desire, and often times, the result has always been make or break, at least in my experience. Unlike other types that are contented with compatible archetypes, ENTPs have that sort of ENFJ drive to be liked by a bigger demographics.

 

[guesswho]

Social insecurity is handled by therapy.

 

[proximo]

This problem is kind of hard to explain in words.
I have this fear that most people really don't like me and are just hanging out with me for other reasons.
No matter how self-confident I feel in other matters, I just don't think I'm a very likable person. I have strong social skills and people usually laugh at my jokes. I can bring life and fun to a social situation but I still fear that people still don't like me because I'm missing some important attributes..I don't entirely know what those are.
I can be a little obnoxious at times and sometimes insult others without the intention of hurting their feelings.

With you all the way so far...

A lot of it stems from being in a relationship which lasted much longer than it should have- it turned out she wanted to breakup for a while but didn't want to hurt my feelings...

I haven't had that particular exact experience, but I recognise in it the footprints of the same behaviour patterns in others that I believe fuel my personal feelings that you put into words above.

The more I learn that people keep their real feelings about you to themselves, the more I see examples of people smiling and being nice and civil to someone that they actually dislike, and people who argue that they actually BELIEVE in NOT telling someone if they dislike them or have a problem with them... the more that fuels my feeling of "well... so... how many of the people I believe like me, or think are my friends, actually...?"

I've very, very often enountered experiences where a person has pretended to like me and be okay with me, only to find out much, much later from someone else that they'd been putting on a front the whole time and actually had big issues with me. I've struggled to think of anything I might have said or done that could justifiably be pointed to as a reason why somebody didn't feel comfortable or able to confront me with any issues they had. I've asked others for feedback because I couldn't think of anything, but then those others just act all "diplomatic" too and just say it must be "their problem" cos I'm perfectly approachable and stuff. Are they lying to me as well now?

This fucks with my head more than words can possibly say.

Each one of these encounters makes me less and less sure of my actual "appeal" as a person, and less able to really believe in the friends I have... it's like I'm always holding back from properly attaching or investing in them cos I feel like just around the corner is the part where I find out they were just humouring me, that they have loads of problems with me and find me really difficult to deal with, and don't really like me but keep humouring me out of... what? Pity? Habit? Cos I can be useful? Fear of confrontation?

That's why, if somebody actually does confront me and stands their ground, I go away feeling like they're totally awesome. I mean even if I hate what they said or whatever, the fact they said it makes me feel like I can trust them, and I can recklessly start to adore them quite quickly, because the fact that I know that if they have a problem, they WILL tell me, means I can trust that what I see really is what I'm getting.

Another scary thing I've realized is that I feel I can live a life of being single for the rest of my life- but I feel that it's not normal to think this way and I have to keep in mind that one of my main reasons for thinking this is because I've been hurt in the past.

Is it though? Did you ever think like that before you were hurt, or did it just not occur to you? I've been single for 8 years for various philosophical reasons, and have only recently made the decision to begin being open to relationships again. But I don't feel at all desperate, I feel no sense of urgency about it, and really most of the time I don't even think about it.

This is quite common in ENxP's, as I gather... all that energy directed externally, it's hardly any surprise really, that many of us find it difficult to swallow the idea of investing so much of it in one person, one relationship, when we feel a strong pull to involve ourselves deeply and diversely in the world outside.

 

[Mondo]

I've very, very often enountered experiences where a person has pretended to like me and be okay with me, only to find out much, much later from someone else that they'd been putting on a front the whole time and actually had big issues with me. I've struggled to think of anything I might have said or done that could justifiably be pointed to as a reason why somebody didn't feel comfortable or able to confront me with any issues they had. I've asked others for feedback because I couldn't think of anything, but then those others just act all "diplomatic" too and just say it must be "their problem" cos I'm perfectly approachable and stuff. Are they lying to me as well now?

Wow, I had this problem very recently-mostly with that chick I was talking about in the OP. She just turned out to be disgustingly self-absorbed. A lot of times, it really is the case that "it's the other person, not you"- especially if you have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to harm the other person.. even after much thought about what you could have done. If things can't be resolved with the other person in the case that there is a misunderstanding, it's likely that person is just insane and someone you don't want to hang out with anyway.


Not everyone in the world is nice and will do things they think will benefit themselves even if it hurts others in the process.