I'm not even going to pretend to read the copious responses in this thread, although I've skimmed and picked up the gist of the back & forth. I do have a few thoughts to share, so if they have been shared already, forgive the repetition.
For the record: I don't find your post disturbing, nor does it offend me, but I do think you use language a bit carelessly and are prone to generalization.
Initially when I first saw the thread I wanted to post a definition of the word "pretentious". I'm not sure that was the best choice for what you were trying to communicate. Perhaps "assumptive" or "presumptive" would have been better and less loaded with ostentatiousness on your part (meaning it seems you were trying to attract attention to your post with a word intended to provoke an emotional reaction from a group that reads the world via emotional means). In thread you claim objectivity in this initial posting, but many of the words and phrases you choose are not neutral (bolded emphasis mine):
"
really pretentious"
"but are wrong
many times"
"
flaws in their emotional analyses"
"
obnoxiously arrogant"
"NFJs are
so much better than NFPs [at interpreting feelings]"
"NFPs simply
think they
absolutely rock the world of emotional analysis"
Language is sophisticated for a reason; you need to be careful how you use it in order to communicate without being misunderstood. It is hard to believe you are being objective when you add even extra weight to your (perhaps unwisely chosen) words with the enhancements I have bolded above. Again, it just looks like you are trying to sensationalize for the sake of getting a reaction.
And get a reaction you certainly did! Lots of great information for you to chew on and digest.
---------------------------------
To answer your OP:
As I have gotten older I have come to trust the accuracy of emotions I sense from others but I try to refrain from drawing conclusions without testing to see if I am indeed reading correctly. But I only rarely share this "reading" with anyone; my experience is that most people don't want to be emotionally probed in their everyday lives. It creeps them out.
That being said, I have told relative strangers what I sense from them (only if they want me to) and they are shocked to think I can know this about them without really knowing them, and have verified my senses correct. People in general though can be unaware of their emotional states or are even actively trying to suppress them. So this information is generally for my eyes only - Fi is, after all, an introverted function. But you can't know that what you feel is accurate without some scientific validation. Hence why occasionally I will be complete in what I sense from and thus what I share with another person to check the accuracy meter! It is not easy to do this either - it feels like I am exposing a part of myself I keep quite private.
In my close relationships, I do share more. Sometimes I sense an emotional state and check in with my SO to see if it is correct. Mostly he says yes; occasionally no. But I would never presume to try to convince him he is feeling one way or another; I basically let it rest or probe deeper. Everyone is unique in how you can successfully uncover their feelings, and some people put up real boundaries to keep you from a hurting core. It's hard when what you sense from someone doesn't match what they are telling you. Time can often help.
I do agree that Fi users can extrapolate how something would make them feel personally and thus come to an incorrect assumption of how it would make another feel. This is where a bit of probing and fact-finding is useful. And really tuning in to what you are sensing from another, trying to tune into it in purity, the pure essence of the feeling. I would say this improves as one matures, when one can better separate what they are feeling inside vs what they feel outside and gain greater confidence discerning between the two.
Hope this is a bit of useful info for you teslashock!
