I just get very wary of the whole 'I just want to keep things rational' argument because personally I think that's bullshit. If you are a human being and NOT a robot then you are an emotional person and not capable of 'perfect rational computation'. By definition of being human, everything you think is subjective. You may be emotional and subjective in your own wonderfully singular way, but you are still emotional and subjective. I personally live in a world of grays and chalk up some interpersonal conflict as inevitable (we can't all see eye to eye and we to leave peaceably while still honoring our differences) and have no hard feelings. I invest a lot of time and energy in relationships and dispute resolution but I'm also one that's just as likely to walk away when necessary.
Uh, well, you just called my personal, subjective point of view "bullshit." You're asserting that an "I want" statement is dishonest, which implies that you feel you have a better grasp of a person's motivations than they do. You're saying that emotional statements are legitimate but statements of logic (or a preference for logic) are disingenuous attempts to mask emotional repsonses. This is dismissive and it bothers me. Yes, NT's do have emotions, just as everyone else does. But your implication that "subjective and personal" equates to "not worthy of rational consideration" privileges your own perspective over ours.
Or perhaps I should say that where you're correct is in pointing out that everyone is a combination of subjective, emotional thought processes with rational/logical thought processes that aim to understand objective reality. No one is a computational machine devoid of emotions, but equally so no one is a pure solipsist who can survive without interacting with the world outside themselves. I do very much want to keep things rational--because my dominant thought process is rational, rational discussion most effectively leads me to understanding and allows me to be at peace with the world. This is especially true for an INTP, whose emotional processes are the least developed and thus the least helpful in achieving any kind of resolution. Effusive displays of negative emotion make me uncomfortable; that's my subjective, emotional point of view. I understand that NF's don't process things the same way, which is why I make an effort to temper my logic (or at least my presentation of it) with consideration for their feelings. If the person I'm talking to truly understands that it's a "two way street," they'll be willing to make the appropriate adjustments from their end.
But I hear this undercurrent of labelling emotionally expressive people as 'irrational' and 'selfish'. I know ostensibly this is not what you are trying to say, but that's what I'm getting. It is VERY possible to be incredibly emotional and loud and still have an effective conversation and reach a peacable resolution. I do it quite often with friends and family. So being emotional in itself is not 'wrong' or a hindrance to effective communication.
OK, it's not "wrong," but what I'm looking for is an understanding that loud, emotional conversations are the least helpful for me (and, I'm supposing, other NT's, at least INT's) in reaching a peaceable conclusion. A dominant Feeler is most comfortable laying out their emotions for others to consider, and probably feels a bit limited if they're told that their emotions are not worthy of consideration. Conversely, a dominant Thinker is most comfortable laying out their logic for others to consider, and feels limited if the other person refuses to acknowledge how the objective reality of the situation appears to them. Personally, I tend to back out of a conversation as soon as it becomes clear that everyone's going to keep raising their voices until somebody proves by sheer volume that they've suffered the most grievous emotional wound and are therefore entitled to demand concessions from everyone else. It's not that I don't care that someone
feels they've been wronged; it's just that that kind of input is the most difficult for me to process because tuning in my inferior Fe is very stressful. I have to de-emphasize emotion to counterbalance the pressure I'm feeling and relieve the stress enough to think clearly. Usually, the outward appearance of what I'm doing is me sitting (I tend to pointedly sit when everyone's on their feet gesticulating wildly) and slowly, quietly, and methodically pointing out the facts as I see them. If my counterpart(s) shows some consideration by lowering the volume a little bit and ackowledging what I've just said, I can open up and consider their emotions. If they instead choose to take my detachment as a further insult and redouble their efforts to demonstrate how much I'm hurting them, (the "heart grenade" phenomenon) I'm likely to accuse them of being irrational and selfish.
The point being that however much my behavior may influence your emotions, I'm not
responsible for your emotional state; you are. An NF (or anyone) who can't grasp this concept is a person I'm going to have difficulty getting along with in all but the most casual and superficial of interactions.
[This was a problem in my teenage years when dealing with my strongly NF mother. We didn't bring MBTI jargon into it, being as I'd never heard of this stuff, but it makes sense now that that was a lot of what was going on. She actually had the much more irritating habit of bringing feminist politics into personal disagreements with her male children. She'd announce some edict about how we had to change our behavior to avoid upsetting her, one of us would challenge her on the facts of the situation, and she'd accuse us of being not only insensitive, but 'sexist' for wanting a rational explanation. If I responded that accusing me of oppressing her was ridiculous, given the obvious objective reality that I was on the subordinate end of the power dynamic in the parent-child relationship, she'd sob and scream at me about how hard it was living in a male-dominated society where chauvinists like me wouldn't even listen to her. Then my INTP father, who'd been quietly observing the whole time, would chime in to tell me that I should be ashamed of myself for being so callous. The end result was to make me reluctant to ever bring up any personal problem with my mother, which made us emotionally distant, a fact which naturally elicited frequent complaints of "you never talk to me; why won't you let me know what's going on in your life?" Of course, by then I knew not to tell her the real reason was my sheer terror of inadvertently saying something that she'd take issue with.]
If I've inadvertently caused offense with any of this, my apologies, but as you said, it's a two way street.