INTPness
New member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2009
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- 2,157
- MBTI Type
- INTP
- Enneagram
- 5w4
Fi just seems like such a different world. You people tend to be much less needful of other people's validation of yourself or your feelings, whereas Fe uses other people to mirror back who they are so they can make adjustments (or decide things are fine as is). Because it's an extraverted function, we truly can't do that alone.
It's not that I expect someone to compliment me back when I compliment them. It's just that somehow the kind of conversation you describe is like putting yourself out there and declaring your love for someone and then them just saying, "Thanks" and turning away. It's not that you say I love you for an expression of their undying love, but rather that the response (to Fe) is the only way we get a good sense of the temperature. If we were to respond in the sort of manner you describe, we are refraining from saying something negative by saying nothing at all or very little or we feel terribly uncomfortable/distressed. Therefore, what sounds to you Saturn like your friend fishing for compliments, is just them looking for reassurance that it was okay with you for them to be that vulnerable. When you say very little back, it is perceived as us having messed up. By asking further, I would guess your friend is trying to figure out if that is truly the case or not and if so, where they went wrong by trying to get further response.
This was an issue of contention with an ESTJ and I. If I ever stated something that I appreciated about him, he'd make a big joke of it, or just say smugly, "I know". I finally told him (after two years!) that I felt stupid for even expressing anything to him. Because I don't compliment or appreciate someone insincerely and because it takes some vulnerability, it felt like a rejection of me every time he said "I know" or made it into a joke. Similarly, there was NEVER any spontaneous expression of "I really like this about you" or "I like it when you do this for me", leaving me feeling unsure if I was even a necessary part of the relationship or not. He just said he'd let me know if something was wrong. To me, it is already too late by then. I want to know BEFORE I've failed, not after.
I realize now that he just didn't know what to say back and that he also didn't have the need for mirroring back in that sense, as I did. Similarly, I missed that his Te statements of what he was going to do were actually requests for me to mirror back what I thought about it. Because I never voice anything until I'm pretty sure about what I think, I assumed he was the same. He thought it was obvious that he was looking for some feedback, while I thought he was just informing me of the course of action he had chosen.
I think I could have avoided a lot of problems if I had understood some of these basic differences in our personalities before. On the other hand, I don't know if I could deal with not getting that kind of feedback on a regular basis, nor being allowed to give it.
Fidelia, you summed up my thoughts quite well here. Even though my Fe is puny compared to yours, it still rings true. In a past relationship, I would compliment my Fi-ex and she would just say "thanks". I guess it would be similar if an ENTP started telling a really cool Ne story and the other person was just like, "Whatever. That's cool." I don't know - I got to a point where it was like I just wasn't getting anything back and so it's like why even say anything anymore? Why even compliment them at all? I mean, my compliments were never fake - they were always real - I just loved the girl and I wanted to let her know. I can see how one person's "not enough" is another person's "too much", but I mean, if I can't get anything back from you - I start feeling like maybe I should just leave you to yourself and see you next week. It's like you said - you start thinking, "Hmmmm...did I mess up? Did I say something wrong? Maybe she's not feeling good and just doesn't want to talk? What is it?"
So, yeah, when Fi doesn't say much, the Fe user sometimes might feel like, "Oh well, I guess I just won't use Fe with this person anymore. We just won't let each other know how we feel - we won't communicate on that level - we'll just stay to ourselves." If she's going to stay quiet, then so will I. Cuz, in the long run, I can't keep expressing affection and compliments and love and all those things if I just get "Thanks" in return. Instead, I'll just shut down Fe and we just won't talk about those things. It's gotta be a 2-way street, mutual communication.
Edit: And I don't say "I'll shut down my Fe" as a way to punish the Fi user. It's just that nothing is being reciprocated so I feel like I'm a broken record - always expressing myself, while nothing is said back. So, it's like "why bother?"