thanks for replying but i meant ISTJ in MBTI, meaning Si first, Te second. Socionics calls this "Mirror relationships". Anyway, we really tried, but we both made the other person feel wrong and miserable all the time. I really think it's a terrible match. I also don't agree that we should develop functions (and in general in life, qualities) that we are not good at. In contrast, I think we should develop what we are good at. I say this because I spent a lot of time trying to develop my lower functions (and in general, also faults I had in my life) and my only conclusion after years trying is it's important to develop our qualities and main functions. You know, my Te might be pretty good now, but in contrast my Fi is underdeveloped and this is not good for me. So my relationship with the ISTJ was like that: we were both perennially frustrated because we kept on trying to speak the other one's language, but it was so exhausting for us.
I agree about not forcing ourselves to develop the functions we're not good at. In socionics, your duals (and activators too) help you with the weak functions, while at the same time, they don't criticize you for being weak in them. However, it also takes practice. Other factors can interfere with the relationship. I'm still skeptical that this ISTJ was really your dual. They might have been, they might not have been. I could ask a lot of questions, like 'Was this person really a PERCEIVER?' Did the person prefer to just kind of watch things and understand them, did they describe things rather than judging them? The perceiving ISTP is your actual dual if you are an ENFP. I'm still skeptical even though you said their functions were 'SiTe.' I just totally don't trust any typings that were done using the j/p switch. J is judging, P is perceiving (and I'm sorry for ranting, I seriously will have to get around to writing a whole separate thread about this rant). That's not even your fault, everyone is doing that everywhere. Perceiving is really, really, really, really different from judging, and you need to be sure you are with a perceiver, not a judger, and you would have to just ignore the letters that a lot of people call themselves because of the j/p switch giving everyone the wrong letters.
So if you were with a REAL ISTJ, they would have been constantly talking about measuring things with numbers. Like, 'We scored 52! We won!' They would have a group orientation (we, the group, 'won' something). They would instantly judge a situation as good or bad because the numbers were better. That's only one tiny aspect of what they do - I haven't gotten a chance to work on describing the ISTJ/LSI yet. I'm working on some other stuff as of right now (describing the sensing functions in thorough detail). So I can't really tell you everything a real ISTJudger would do. Sorry for being skeptical when you say that you're sure they were using SiTe. I've seen so much crap and garbage going on in the entire typing system that I just totally distrust all typings that anybody else does (I don't trust my own typings either, and I'm hoping to someday buy an EEG brain-reading cap thingy like Dario Nardi has).
Strange that you say your Te is well developed and your Fi is underdeveloped. I actually went through a phase when I was younger, where all I did was study psychology, and I learned how to do things like 'reflective listening.' I actually developed my Fi pretty well back then, and I de-emphasized my own Te. Dario Nardi (the EEG brain-reading guy) says that as we get older, we start to sort of resemble our socionic activators. He doesn't use the term 'socionic activators' because he's officially not doing socionics (and, don't get me started, he DOES use the j/p switch typing method). But, for you, that would be like if you practiced trying to learn to be like an ESTJ, your socionic activator relation. You would learn practical skills with tools, things you could do with your hands, maybe woodworking or fixing and repairing things (I know a male ENFP who learned woodworking from someone, it was an example), the 'do it yourself' kind of Te.
By the way, because of all the confusion with the j/p switch, and me not being sure exactly what type the ISTJ really was, you and I might not be talking about the same thing when we say 'Te.' And a real ISTJudger would use a different kind of Te than an ISTPerceiver. (Sorry for adding the word 'judger/perceiver' on the end, I just passionately hate the j/p switch and want to destroy it from all existence, and I sometimes have to nag about it.) An ISTJ would use a kind of Te where they might tend to boss other people around and tell them to do something - you go here and do this, that other person will go over there and do that, you guys will make a system and we'll get this done really efficiently. That's minus Te. A real ISTJ uses +Ti/-Te 'bundled together.' They're going to do a lot of number-counting and measuring. It'll be like, 'Our group performed well, we got our numbers down, we improved our efficiency and today we made $64 in an hour.'
So after ranting about the j/p switch and about how skeptical I am that this person was a *perceiver* and skeptical that you two were actually socionic duals, I still have to admit that sometimes dual relationships don't work for other reasons. My own IEE/ENFP boyfriend went through a phase where he was totally ignoring me, refusing to answer text messages and phone calls, and we just never got to see each other or spend any time together. But it was because his grandmother was dying of cancer, and he was constantly miserable and did not want to socialize and didn't want to express his feelings to me. So, if something really awful is going on in someone's life, it can ruin a relationship even if they are duals. (He did eventually start speaking to me again, but it was after his grandmother finally died, like after months had gone by, and we got back together.)
I know you haven't learned the socionic system completely yet and so I might be confusing you when I keep ranting angrily about 'the j/p switch for introverts,' it's just that I want to emphasize: socionics *totally fails* whenever people are mistyped, but it really works if they are typed correctly - and HUGE, HUGE numbers of people are mistyped.
Mistyping people doesn't matter as much if all you're doing is just describing yourself. If I had been mistyped as an ISTJ, I could probably sit there analyzing it and figuring out ways that, maybe, kinda, it really did describe me. But all of a sudden, if you try to find 1. other people who have the same type as you, but were typed using a different typing method, such as taking the Myers-Briggs test (which will correctly give people the *right* perceiving/judging function) instead of analyzing the functions (which will give the *wrong* J/P letter to all introverts), or 2. if you look for people compatible in socionics, it suddenly matters a whole lot more when huge numbers of people are mistyped. People will have the same type and say, 'Hey! I'm an ISTP too!' but they're actually an ISTJ and they're the opposite of you and you won't get along, and you'll always be like, 'Why is this person annoying me?' It causes total chaos in the system, and makes everybody say, 'Socionics doesn't work,' when actually socionics works great when people are correctly typed.
Omg, I'm a blogger and I zone out while writing huge walls of text, this isn't directed at you personally pinkgraffiti, you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time while I went off on a huge rant.