skylights
i love
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2010
- Messages
- 7,756
- MBTI Type
- INFP
- Enneagram
- 6w7
- Instinctual Variant
- so/sx
So I have a situation with my close ENFJ friend that is confusing me, and I would appreciate any opinions on what might be going on.
I met my friend, probably an ENFJ 3w4 so/sp, at the beginning of college, when we lived near one another, and bonded over whining about campus life. We were best friends throughout college after that, and now it's been a few years, but we still keep in fairly close contact. She lives in another part of the state. She tends to be somewhat distant unless pressured, but we've been close for long enough that she tends to share her deeper feelings with me, including her recent new dating situation (an ex-boyfriend is "courting" her, but she hasn't agreed to a relationship with him yet).
Recently, we attended a mutual event. She gave me a present upon meeting up with me, then we travelled together, during which told me about her school and love life. My longterm boyfriend came and met us later, which had been planned from the beginning - he loves the place we were going, and my friend and boyfriend had both expressed the desire for them to meet. I offered to include the guy she's seeing, too, but she declined to invite him. We all stayed at the same place, my boyfriend in I in one room and my friend in another. I paid for her expenses the first night, since I was the hostess, and I tried my hardest throughout the trip to not make her feel like a 3rd wheel, nor to make my boyfriend feel excluded in a place where he hardly knew anyone. We had another close friend hanging out with us 90% of the time, so I didn't feel like my ENFJ friend was in an awkward position. However, she was very aloof with my boyfriend. He was his usual polite but open, friendly self, asking her amiable, neutral questions which she would answer with barely a handful of words. I know that she can turn on the social charm, so I was disappointed, but thought maybe she was genuinely shy at first. However, as the trip continued, she continued acting aloof with him, and was a bit passive-aggressive with me.
Honestly, I'm very discouraged and even somewhat embarrassed that she barely made any effort to engage with my boyfriend, and during the trip, I was frustrated by her apparent lack of desire to really engage in the activities that were the goal of us going. At least, she was odd about it - she was very enthusiastic about a handful of core things, but really didn't seem to want to interact with anyone outside a very few chosen people. She's usually a bit like that, but not to quite that extent. It ended up preventing us from catching up with as many people as I would have liked to, and it made it a struggle to foster organic interaction. She also played some bizarre game at one point of saying she didn't care where we went, but then shooting down ideas for where to go, and complaining when I made a choice (which turned out to be good). Mostly she kept saying she didn't care and didn't want a say. I was very torn between trying to cater to her, since we have always been close and we planned the trip together, and just doing my own thing, because she was being distant and uncooperative. Unfortunately there was little time in our schedule to stop and try to break it down emotionally with her.
Regardless, I did my best to keep everything positive and keep everyone together. I kept thinking, she's just on the brink of being welcoming, just a little push more. It's been about two weeks since then, and she's barely messaged me at all, a huge drop in amount of contact since prior to the college event. I've messaged her a few times, and she's given normal replies, but without any further conversational engagement. She hasn't initiated with me at all. I messaged her tonight pointing out that she was aloof at the event and quiet for the last couple weeks, and that I was wondering if anything was upsetting her. She replied no - she was just busy.
I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I'm not really interested in blowing it up, but I'm upset that she acted that way towards my boyfriend, who was nothing but friendly and generous to her (he even paid for her at one point), and I'm upset that she acted that way towards me when I was with him. I thought mentioning her distance might encourage her to reveal some unspoken feelings, but she said there were none. I don't know which is worse - her genuinely not thinking there was a problem with her behavior, or lying to me about why she behaved as she did. She has historically been somewhat cold (which fascinated me at the beginning and was part of why I became interested in becoming friends with her), but that guard is generally lowered with me. My mom suggested that perhaps she's jealous of my boyfriend and I, which I suppose is a possibility, but even then, she could share those feelings, and it still doesn't really excuse her from treating him like a ficus.
Does anyone have any advice in terms of what may have happened, or what I'm missing here, or how to proceed?
I met my friend, probably an ENFJ 3w4 so/sp, at the beginning of college, when we lived near one another, and bonded over whining about campus life. We were best friends throughout college after that, and now it's been a few years, but we still keep in fairly close contact. She lives in another part of the state. She tends to be somewhat distant unless pressured, but we've been close for long enough that she tends to share her deeper feelings with me, including her recent new dating situation (an ex-boyfriend is "courting" her, but she hasn't agreed to a relationship with him yet).
Recently, we attended a mutual event. She gave me a present upon meeting up with me, then we travelled together, during which told me about her school and love life. My longterm boyfriend came and met us later, which had been planned from the beginning - he loves the place we were going, and my friend and boyfriend had both expressed the desire for them to meet. I offered to include the guy she's seeing, too, but she declined to invite him. We all stayed at the same place, my boyfriend in I in one room and my friend in another. I paid for her expenses the first night, since I was the hostess, and I tried my hardest throughout the trip to not make her feel like a 3rd wheel, nor to make my boyfriend feel excluded in a place where he hardly knew anyone. We had another close friend hanging out with us 90% of the time, so I didn't feel like my ENFJ friend was in an awkward position. However, she was very aloof with my boyfriend. He was his usual polite but open, friendly self, asking her amiable, neutral questions which she would answer with barely a handful of words. I know that she can turn on the social charm, so I was disappointed, but thought maybe she was genuinely shy at first. However, as the trip continued, she continued acting aloof with him, and was a bit passive-aggressive with me.
Honestly, I'm very discouraged and even somewhat embarrassed that she barely made any effort to engage with my boyfriend, and during the trip, I was frustrated by her apparent lack of desire to really engage in the activities that were the goal of us going. At least, she was odd about it - she was very enthusiastic about a handful of core things, but really didn't seem to want to interact with anyone outside a very few chosen people. She's usually a bit like that, but not to quite that extent. It ended up preventing us from catching up with as many people as I would have liked to, and it made it a struggle to foster organic interaction. She also played some bizarre game at one point of saying she didn't care where we went, but then shooting down ideas for where to go, and complaining when I made a choice (which turned out to be good). Mostly she kept saying she didn't care and didn't want a say. I was very torn between trying to cater to her, since we have always been close and we planned the trip together, and just doing my own thing, because she was being distant and uncooperative. Unfortunately there was little time in our schedule to stop and try to break it down emotionally with her.
Regardless, I did my best to keep everything positive and keep everyone together. I kept thinking, she's just on the brink of being welcoming, just a little push more. It's been about two weeks since then, and she's barely messaged me at all, a huge drop in amount of contact since prior to the college event. I've messaged her a few times, and she's given normal replies, but without any further conversational engagement. She hasn't initiated with me at all. I messaged her tonight pointing out that she was aloof at the event and quiet for the last couple weeks, and that I was wondering if anything was upsetting her. She replied no - she was just busy.
I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I'm not really interested in blowing it up, but I'm upset that she acted that way towards my boyfriend, who was nothing but friendly and generous to her (he even paid for her at one point), and I'm upset that she acted that way towards me when I was with him. I thought mentioning her distance might encourage her to reveal some unspoken feelings, but she said there were none. I don't know which is worse - her genuinely not thinking there was a problem with her behavior, or lying to me about why she behaved as she did. She has historically been somewhat cold (which fascinated me at the beginning and was part of why I became interested in becoming friends with her), but that guard is generally lowered with me. My mom suggested that perhaps she's jealous of my boyfriend and I, which I suppose is a possibility, but even then, she could share those feelings, and it still doesn't really excuse her from treating him like a ficus.
Does anyone have any advice in terms of what may have happened, or what I'm missing here, or how to proceed?
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