As an NT male, I've also found the NT-NF connection to be one of a shared intuition. I also find the NF preference refreshing. Maybe that's because I seek that which is different from me in an attempt to balance more. Also, I've always been fairly balanced on the T-F spectrum.NTs are still different enough, but the shared intuition smooths over some of the rough patches. Most of the NTs I've met have had an avoidant kind of attachment style. I'm not sure if that is just a small sample selection or a general trend. Whatever it is, I don't like how that makes me feel longer term in a closer relationship, even though I'm generally a pretty secure, independent person. However, the intellectual connection is usually very stimulating and expansive, and their capacity for not reacting fairly rationally to conflict has allowed me to experiment with being more honest and straightforward than I'd otherwise be.
I usually seem to form the best connections and friendships with NF's. I think fidelia has presented some incredible insights which match my thoughts and experiences.
As an NT male, I've also found the NT-NF connection to be one of a shared intuition. I also find the NF preference refreshing. Maybe that's because I seek that which is different from me in an attempt to balance more. Also, I've always been fairly balanced on the T-F spectrum.
In the past, after the initial enthusiasm of a new friendship or relationship starts to wear off, I've found myself slipping into an avoidant style. I've lost a few good friends over the years because of this, and it's entirely my fault. This made me sad, and it doesn't make sense either. As a result, I made changes in my perspective and decided that I need to put some more work into things. For example, I found that there's always something new to learn about a person I like. There's also always new ways of both understanding them better and connecting with them.
Okay - this is the first feedback I've had on this. Do you think it has to do with NT efficiency or need for novelty, or why do you think this happens. I assume it's something about the dynamic together, as I don't necessarily have that happen with other f types, but I also have found that often my connections with other infjs anywayarent novel enough to sustain long term interest for me. I expect probably NFS seek a higher degree of emotional interchange that initially is novel to NTs but eventually can feel stifling.
I think there are a number of factors involved, although this analysis is based on my own personal perceptions and preferences only:
1. The classic gender relationship of a male T and a female F. There's no (society-induced?) tension like there might be with a female T and a male F. Things just fall into place.
2. The tremendous power of simple shared intuition. The mental connection tends to happen quickly, and powerfully.
3. I've felt intense sexual energy and attraction resulting from this intuitive mental connection alone.
4. The human drive to grow as a person and to expand our knowledge and library of perceptions causes us to seek out those who can help us satiate this drive. Through the shared intuitive understanding, we can learn what thinking and feeling really mean--beyond what is written in a definition. It's a dynamic definition which is being lived. I often smile when reading NF or even sometimes SF blogs because I pick up on thoughts and perceptions which help me to understand and experience feeling. (Incidentally, I think this is also why I have a strong preference for intense feeling-oriented music. example here and here)
5. This is closely related to 4. Humans want to experience the entire human experience. Even without incorporating feeling aspects I learn into my personality (as described in point 4), I can simply feel by spending time and interacting with and NF or SF (or even some type of feeling-oriented art).
Can confirm.There are dismissive avoidant or fearful avoidant varieties of avoidant attachment styles. Psychology Today has several good articles on attachment styles.It boils down to whether or not there was a reliable supply of emotional support available to a child growing up. Too intrusive and needy or too neglectful signals the defensive part of the brain that it is not safe to rely on anyone else, allow them to get too close, or to be vulnerable, which makes it very hard to create an intimate friendship or romantic relationship where both parties can be honest about their needs.
In some contexts, an avoidant person may seek closeness and then find it stifling, avoid it entirely except in a very superficial way, be able to provide but not receive support, or run away when the other person has needs. Often, avoidant people get together with very anxious clingy people, but even someone who is securely attached can become anxious if the supply of reliable emotional exchange is overly scarce or it's feast or famine.
I've found that initially, T types are drawn to the intellectual connection we have and also find themselves telling me things or feeling things they never have with anyone else. This new sense of intimacy is unfamiliar and intoxicating at first. I am generally slow to be attracted to someone and need a strong base of friendship and connection first, so if anything, I'm the one that needs convincing and am happy to take a lot of time for a relationship to turn romantic. Even then, although I'm a pretty open and warm person, I don't open up immediately, which I think creates a sense of safety and leaves them pursuing connection rather than fending it off.
In several cases, I've been talked into rushing over concerns about the fundamental foundation of the relationship and how it not being firm or being out of sync on major issues will affect the future. As a result, I don't want to lose the person, but I also don't feel good about announcing it to the people closest to me until that's been figured out, even as the relationship is getting closer and closer.
This of course erodes trust and is felt as rejection. However, once i'm deeply invested, but that dynamic is in place, people revert to old patterns, or they start viewing the connection more realistically and draw back emotionally, which then makes me feel like I'm always the needy one, even though what I need is not at all over the top.
I've concluded that 1) putting the brakes on at the beginning, no matter how sure the other person is that this is a once in a lifetime kind of connection 2) observing if they have been emotionally intimate or vulnerable in any of their other relationships with people 3) looking at their relationship to their parents, especially their mothers 4) not mistaking intellectual attraction or intimacy for emotional intimacy would probably save everyone a lot of pain and be a good indicator of how successful something romantic is likely to be.
I'm not claiming this to be true of every Thinker, nor are my experiences representative of everyone else's, but I've observed the pattern in my own relationships frequently enough to think it worthy of comment. Clearly, I also am equally responsible for that negative dynamic being allowed to develop, just in case it sounds like I'm placing blame on thinker types generally or even the ones I've dated.
IME, Ni tends to be more closed off and quiet than Ne, building up on an entirely different page without revealing so, making trust and shared emotional intimacy difficult/impossible , unconsciously - or not.Re intellectual intimacy - I'd define it as getting closer over discussing thoughts and ideas together. That's something that I feel is essential in a relationship, and is hugely attractive to me, but without the capacity for sustained emotional intimacy, it is not enough.
I find avoidant people manifest the need for distance in a variety of ways:. They may hold back include things like sharing basic information about their schedule without the other person having to ask or be in limbo, may not be willing to tell the other person where they are at in the relationship, offer a showroom version of vulnerability to satisfy others, while actually living their real life in other emotional rooms of their mind's house, don't share their real plans or opinions, offer their skills but having nothing to learn from the other person, avoid the other person when they are in need, subtly devalue traits of or skills of the other person, insist things are fine but do things that would suggest otherwise which keeps the other person perpetually unsure, seek closeness and then distance in a cyclical way, only allow one sort of intimacy to develop (particularly sexual or intellectual), avoid bids for touch initiated by the other person, intensely court with great urgency and uncharacteristic openness and then gradually become distant, only show interest in their own projects or interests without reciprocating or only enough to be polite, pursue success at the expense of relationship, stay in the driver's seat at all times, affecting people's perceptions of reality in subtle ways, become passive but disengaged (maybe even secretly despising the person they are with), always are the one to turn down offers of time together with other people in their lives or end relationships, use humour to distance people... I don't think most of it is really planned out, nor is the intent bad, but it is destructive all the same.
No one has to remain stuck in one attachment style, but often with no active and compelling catalyst, they may not even see the pattern in themselves. It takes active work to allow the brains defenses to relax a bit at a time and to also seek out a secure partner or friends who don't exacerbate the dynamic.
I feel like maybe NTs have a unique set of needs as kids too that are sometimes not well understood by a parent that may perhaps make them more susceptible to an avoidant style of attaching. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's a theory of mine.
For me, intellectual intimacy must happen first. Without it, there is no basis for emotional intimacy. Both are necessary precursors to physical intimacy. Prospective partners who want to jump immediately to the physical are therefore a huge turnoff. As you described, developing all of this takes time and thoughtful attention, but it is well worth it.Re intellectual intimacy - I'd define it as getting closer over discussing thoughts and ideas together. That's something that I feel is essential in a relationship, and is hugely attractive to me, but without the capacity for sustained emotional intimacy, it is not enough.
What sort of work? How is this done?No one has to remain stuck in one attachment style, but often with no active and compelling catalyst, they may not even see the pattern in themselves. It takes active work to allow the brains defenses to relax a bit at a time and to also seek out a secure partner or friends who don't exacerbate the dynamic.
This would not surprise me at all. I doubt my parents really understood me, but they did the best they could, which often meant leaving me to my own devices as long as I wasn't running into trouble.I feel like maybe NTs have a unique set of needs as kids too that are sometimes not well understood by a parent that may perhaps make them more susceptible to an avoidant style of attaching. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's a theory of mine.
Re intellectual intimacy - I'd define it as getting closer over discussing thoughts and ideas together. That's something that I feel is essential in a relationship, and is hugely attractive to me, but without the capacity for sustained emotional intimacy, it is not enough.
I find avoidant people manifest the need for distance in a variety of ways:. They may hold back include things like sharing basic information about their schedule without the other person having to ask or be in limbo, may not be willing to tell the other person where they are at in the relationship, offer a showroom version of vulnerability to satisfy others, while actually living their real life in other emotional rooms of their mind's house, don't share their real plans or opinions, offer their skills but having nothing to learn from the other person, avoid the other person when they are in need, subtly devalue traits of or skills of the other person, insist things are fine but do things that would suggest otherwise which keeps the other person perpetually unsure, seek closeness and then distance in a cyclical way, only allow one sort of intimacy to develop (particularly sexual or intellectual), avoid bids for touch initiated by the other person, intensely court with great urgency and uncharacteristic openness and then gradually become distant, only show interest in their own projects or interests without reciprocating or only enough to be polite, pursue success at the expense of relationship, stay in the driver's seat at all times, affecting people's perceptions of reality in subtle ways, become passive but disengaged (maybe even secretly despising the person they are with), always are the one to turn down offers of time together with other people in their lives or end relationships, use humour to distance people... I don't think most of it is really planned out, nor is the intent bad, but it is destructive all the same.
No one has to remain stuck in one attachment style, but often with no active and compelling catalyst, they may not even see the pattern in themselves. It takes active work to allow the brains defenses to relax a bit at a time and to also seek out a secure partner or friends who don't exacerbate the dynamic.
I feel like maybe NTs have a unique set of needs as kids too that are sometimes not well understood by a parent that may perhaps make them more susceptible to an avoidant style of attaching. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's a theory of mine.