[ENFP] Vindictive ENFP's

[sculpting]

I can be pissy-vindictive but usually after my feelings are hurt. I tend to withdraw and then even poke a bit to make sure the other person realizes I withdrew. If they hurt me badly I just cut them off entirely, so I would suggest he does still like you if he is still engaging. It is our Te misbehaving.

Typically it is short lived as I forget stuff quickly and then realize my response was defensive and emotional. reactive is a good description. It is also a sign of learning to cope with hurt-ie being a bit young. Over the years I have realized the pattern and then tend to withdraw quietly for a few days to sort out the emotional response logically before engaging, or self correct before letting irritation take over.

I would suggest not calling it immature or pointing out it is overreactive. Instead take the Ni grounding approach and be a solid point of stability, let him get pissy, then forgive him as you understand he is kinda like that. INTJs are funny as I will emo dump at them and they just go "really?, silly enfp come sit down and chill out"

When interacting with enfps be certain not to mistake this short lived pissy Te response with a Te logical argument that has Fi passion. This is where my worst fights with my ENTP friend have arisen.

 

[sculpting]

Not really. He didnt speak to me for 2 whole days when I made him read a humurous and not-so-nice description of ENFP and said it was him to a T. He behaved like a petulant child. I felt like telling him to grow a friggin backbone! But i didnt. I minded my own business and didnt react to his little tantrum and he eventually came around.

He's super sensitive. You shoulda seen his face the first time I called him an asshole.

I'll remind you INTJ's are not the most tactful people. And this ENFP is always needing reassurance from me. Which I dont give very often...unless he's being extra nice that day.

Tell him that Te plays rough and when you insult him it is actually a sign of locker room style affection. I tend to do this with all of the engineers I work with. They have a very Texas tough man engineer persona to maintain so I insult them horrifically and then smile happy sweet Fi smiles. They collapse in laughter. But really-picking on them Te style is a lot of fun, even though rough.

My ENTP guys utterly freak out when you do this though.

 

[BerberElla]

How was any of that vindictive?

Sounds to me like he is under the impression that you are avoiding him at the swimming pool so he didn't go the time after you didn't go, not to be spiteful or vindictive.

He's probably picking up that you are annoyed with him due to his past behaviour, and thinks you don't want to be around him whilst you move past that.

 

[thescientist]

I definitely semi-punished her by not being my normal laughable, fun self and she commented on it several times. "Are you feeling okay? Are you really tired?" But in my mind I thought: no, you don't get out of this easily and get happy normal me. You have to sit here and YOU have to work for our conversation to be fun. I'm done!

Again, not my best moment, but maybe it answers your question or sheds a little insight?

Your story rings so true to this ENFP. He does this these things AAAAALL the time!! Thanks for being honest about it! The word PUNISH is key here. He definitely does those things to punish me. I can sense it very easily. So in my case, his way of "punishing" me for not showing up at the pool was to not show up as well.

Also, I just want to say: even though we ENFPs feel things deeply, we do not necessarily always want to. Him getting defensive shows that he cares, but he could be struggling with not WANTING to care. He does not want those little things to bother him and yet they do. It becomes a kind of battle with one's self.

Perhaps it bothers him because it's coming from me?

I cant believe how much I've put up with this ENFP. I must really love you goddamn ENFP's.

 

[Amargith]

And we you

 

[BerberElla]

I don't know, the things I do aren't motivated by vengeance, or to be vindictive. Even when I'm being stubborn, like sunshine enfp gave an example of:

But in my mind I thought: no, you don't get out of this easily and get happy normal me. You have to sit here and YOU have to work for our conversation to be fun. I'm done!

That's not driven by a need to punish for me. That's me upset, and distant.

If it had been me in the scenario, my absence at the pool would have been not to punish, but because I hate bad vibes and bad feelings, and if I was under the impression (for my own paranoid reasons) that you avoided the pool to avoid me that other time, I would avoid causing us more grief.

 

[thescientist]

And we you

LOL I know...I've driven you crazy too. But you have no idea how thankful I am for your sage advice I may not express it..but you know I feel it somewhere deep inside my gooey center.

 

[alexx]

"this was my way of proving to him that I was OVER HIM (yeah right ) and that my life did not revolve around him"


Playing games will get you played with back.



Now I'm bothered. You asked for feedback and when ENFP's tried to tell you that he knows you are game playing and being vindictive yourself you blow it off and say you aren't - that he is. You should look at it objectively instead of arguing with it. You asked for it and you got it, and I agree with them.

If you think for one minute he doesn't know you are playing games, you are mistaken. You seem to think he is too stupid to realize what you are doing.


*Edited for sudden surge of "Wait just a damn minute here!"

 

[Kalach]

Scientist, they're making it up. The stuff about knowing you're playing games too. They don't know. They do know when connection fails, and they do know they're handling everything in the moment, but being able to pinpoint what's up isn't part of it. Not until later.

Just a hunch. Because people with Te in their system who know what's going on tend to say it directly, yeah?


Anyway, what they do do, is move at their own pace. It looks high speed and hyper, but really it isn't. It's actually agonisingly slow. That may be the ENFP key.




Sorry, ENFPs. That's what things have looked like to me, and while I may present it as a global, wholistic truth, it's really just a perspective.

 

[nomadic]

Scientist, they're making it up. The stuff about knowing you're playing games too. They don't know. They do know when connection fails, and they do know they're handling everything in the moment, but being able to pinpoint what's up isn't part of it. Not until later.

This is actually an arrogance of mine. To try to deal in real time situations and psychological games it took the other party a long time to set up and plan.

Part of me is almost saying "Im good enough where i don't have to plan it and still probably win". The other part of me is saying " Oh gosh, silly games, so bothersome."

Then another part of me just says "Ok, its getting to be too much, I am starting to shut off to this person now..." and just go wherever that takes me.

 

[Kalach]

Certainly, Ne is going to be a lot faster spotting stuff in realtime than Ni. A lot faster.

It also seems to me that this stuff works much better on types that aren't duals. Seems to me ENFPs and INTJs stalemate each other way before either knows what they've done. That's, like, the peril and the depth of dual relationships at the same time.



Also, I'm aware here that I'm speaking from my prejudices. Like, I know handling stuff in realtime is important, but my Ni perspective says realtime will eventually fail and ya needed to know before hand what was the better choice.

Dunno if that actually does apply to ENFPs or not.

 

[the state i am in]

yeah but the balance comes from strong Fi not Ni, and it's ultimately unfair to privilege Ni as being more accurate in the end (it is more conservative, generally speaking, especially in learning where learning is ruled by intense interpolation of information from very specific and somewhat narrow information). i find enfps dangerous largely due to the uncertain nature of Ne being a real-time function and it not taking time to weigh options and make sure it makes the best choice (but this ultimately says more about my fears than about my actual interpretation of the functions themselves).

bc if i really think about it, my Ni postponements don't exactly help me make perfect decisions either. sometimes you know... and sometimes you don't. such is decision-making, period.

the enfp who has more developed inner structure will be more aware of lasting values, the relevancy of past decisions/judgments, etc. just like we're better when we use our auxilary Je functions to open ourselves up, get feedback from what is going on around us, see where our ideas and preconceptions and premonitions lead us and what they create in the world, testing ourselves in the process.

we spend more time testing our ideas internally and they spend more time testing what they can do externally. the balancing happens eventually for some, but just as important is the way your ego complexes potentially clash.

i agree that neither type really *knows* at all beyond the vaguaries of intuition and successful habits. Ti is the best function at making the implicit explicit anyway. but then it's too easy to believe your own lie.

 

[Kalach]

^pretty sure I agree. And my take would be:

There's something in here about introverts being subject to extroverts. It's an enduring--myth? With some basis, too, it would seem. But there's some kind of myth-making hubris in there too, on the E side. Or need?

But then, what do we Ni-doms have to lay claim to except... what? "We're just as ridiculously, non-judgmentally perceptive as you guys... it's just we do it when no-one's looking. "?


Maybe I have INTJ worldly success issues.

 

[the state i am in]

i think a lot of that is the 5w4 aspect that we both share. the e5 fear of having to adjust to something in the moment that leaves you with a helpless feeling.

as far as the worth of Ni vs the worth of Ne, something's got to collect and re-absorb the mistakes of the past. our imaginations are slower (read: they spend more time remembering) but more eternal, timeless, mystical. we have more continuity, and demand more continuity. we tie the loose threads together, if only to discover where they have frayed.

Ne is more naturally spontaneous, more generative, blah blah. but only in the sense that it operates closer to the production phase of the process. it's more splattering and less concentrated, less tied to a single vision. Ni attempts singularity, that's the joy of a memory active introverted process. anchor can be good or bad depending on what you do with it, and what the situation calls for.

 

[alexx]

Certainly, Ne is going to be a lot faster spotting stuff in realtime than Ni. A lot faster.

It also seems to me that this stuff works much better on types that aren't duals. Seems to me ENFPs and INTJs stalemate each other way before either knows what they've done. That's, like, the peril and the depth of dual relationships at the same time.



Also, I'm aware here that I'm speaking from my prejudices. Like, I know handling stuff in realtime is important, but my Ni perspective says realtime will eventually fail and ya needed to know before hand what was the better choice.

Dunno if that actually does apply to ENFPs or not.

Its not exactly real time. If he went back and thought about it and realized what was going on he was probably was hurt - so he decided to play back.

The thing is not to get upset about it, and not to label a certain type as Vindictive.

 

[Kalach]

What else would you label it? Just because it's fleeting doesn't make its essence free from being staked into the ground.


Y'know, even to me, Fi ends up seeming selfish and blind sometimes. Like, lists of who got hurt first and who hurts more or who hurts now. To quote R.E.M., we've been on this shift too long.*




* Ha! Driver 8 is a more ironic quote than Everybody Hurts.

 

[alexx]

What else would you label it? Just because it's fleeting doesn't make its essence free from being staked into the ground.


Y'know, even to me, Fi ends up seeming selfish and blind sometimes. Like, lists of who got hurt first and who hurts more or who hurts now. To quote R.E.M., we've been on this shift too long.*




* Ha! Driver 8 is a more ironic quote than Everybody Hurts.

I guess that goes back again to packaging people in a little box.

 

[Nonsensical]

Oh my god, does that make sense.

I am SOO vindictive..and it's not to be cruel.

It seems I'm most vindictive when I'm trying to get back at people I really care about. I have no idea why I do it, I guess I'm secretly craving their attention and trying to make them feel guilty..actually, I'm sure that's what it is

 

[the state i am in]

i find w8 more vindictive than w6, but that's just a label for a particular type of vindictiveness. it is more openly hostile. as a e5, i have a bit of this element as well.

overall, from the write up, there's no reason to privilege either side over the other. both involve getting at the other side, trying to assert control, subtle manipulation, and anger from hurt.

 

[Nonsensical]

I think it may have something to do with an immature Fi.