A very complex topic in my own life, and certainly I am thinking about if often enough. At school I seemed always to be in the same time very popular and very unpopular. (Most) people seemed fascinated because I was so unconventional in comparison to other people, however therefore no one has treated me like any other person either, and no one really wanted to stay around me like with other usual friends most of the time. At school, I was never the one who people wanted to do group works, sport teams or other things with together.
I had some friends, but we barely did something when not at school. I am only wondering if it is because it just never was supposed to be a real friendship which shall remain, or it has different reasons that they think I am not interested in maintaining them.
Then again there was also always some people who really, really seemed to dislike me actively, although I have never done anything to them. I think they considered me being very aloof and arrogant, or they did because I was treated different by everyone.
Of course there is also this stuff about how you fit into the male image of our society as an primary Fi man.
To come to your questions in special:
I don't mean that all INFPs are disliked by everyone, but what are some of the traits that INFPs share that can make some INFPs unpopular?
Hm. I think it is the impression that we, as I read very often from other INFPs here in the forum, seem very aloof and even arrogant to some people who don't know us better. We tend to be rather reserved, not very outgoing, very calm and always somewhere else (in the clouds) with our heads. I can actually understand that people don't feel welcome when it seems we don't care about them all and prefer to stay alone. Of course, we INFPs know that we actually do care a lot and not really want to be left alone totally, although we need some time alone too. As we don't share from own intention very much of our most intimate inner thoughts and feelings to people we don't really feel safe with, it is very hard to actually realize for other people how we really are thinking, and only people with much patience and some ability to understand people very well in general will get the chance to get to know us. That already reduces the amount of possible friendships very much, I believe.
Of course, it is also our interests which are different to the typical interests promoted by an mostly Sensing dominated society. I know people who would know what I do all the time alone would think I lead a very boring life. I usually avoid talking too much about my private interests (unless I really feel close to those person I talk to already, so that I know they won't judge me badly for it), which on the one hand seems to make me more mystical or fascinating to other people, but also leaves a very great distance to other people, which makes it hard to get other people to get to know you and build up some trust as well.
Is it going to be like a popularity contest in the business world, too? Are there going to be cliques in the workplace?
I am not in "business world" yet, I am studying currently. But I sometimes think about the same question, and come to not very promising conclusions.