tortoise
New member
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2010
- Messages
- 161
- MBTI Type
- ENFP
It's an awesome description of being ENFP
"As an INTP, I've encountered only a few ENFP's. That would generally make me wary of coming to any general conclusions about the personality type; however, the ENFP's that I have interacted with are so well inline with the type descriptions I have read, I decided I would share anyway.
ENFP's do, on the whole, radiate an insane amount of fun, warmth, caring, and spontanaeity. I sometimes wonder where all the energy for these traits come from, but thats a story for later. They are definitely into people, because they get visually depressed when they are put alone for a long period of time. It seems, though, that when put along, they are often not willing to go out and surround themselves with the people they so clearly need; they just sit there and wither into themselves, reflecting on their intuition fueled feelings. If people do not come around them (the ENFPs) and rid them of their feeling of loneliness, then they seem to start thinking the worst. They may think they have been used, or that they have wasted their time, because they put all that effort into maintaining their interpersonal relationships, but no one is willing to turn around and do the same for them. Eventually, the ENFP begin sending out subtle hints that they want some attention, or some company. If no one picks up on these hints, then the ENFP feels even more used, or wasted. This is unlike the ESFP, who, at a moments notice, would go out and actively seek the company of others. Its kinda strange to me, would any of you be able to explain this to me?
Also, it seems as though ENFPs have a two-faced personality: one being the upbeat, fun face mentioned above, and the second being a very sad, confused, speculative face. This second face, I suppose, is a major source of conflict within the ENFP. It induces alot of interestings beliefs from the ENFP: "I feel so fake", "No one really knows who I am", "I don't even know who I am anymore", etc. The second face also seems to give the ENFP some shyness in the presence of new people. They want to make a good impression, they want to be liked, but it seems they are afraid that their second face will be seen and brought to the surface, and that they will be accused of being fake (which would be a serious and believable insult to the ENFP and their set of values). But the shyness fades as they become comfortable with the people they have just met. Am I on target here? Better yet, why does this shyness happen?
Now.. whats with the ENFP-INTP attraction? It seems to me that it is often times mutual, but in any event why does the ENFP see it as something of an ideal? Why would an ENFP project the ideal view of a person with mounds of depth (that second face) and mounds of external love and caring (first face) onto the INTP? I mean, the INTP matches up in the depth department, but doesn't even come close in the continuous extraverted caring department? This is obvious from the get-go. Is the ENFP subconsciously deciding to try and change the INTP to match up to the second ideal? To take the unspoken love and caring and make it verbal? Or has the ENFP just decided to fall back into a misconception, because having someone who connects with them on some non-superficial level is something so hard to come by, so hard to emulate, that they do not want to let it slip by?
It just seems to me that whenever I encounter an ENFP, the result is always the same: they are drawn to me like a moth to a flame, and they seem to silently want something and I have no idea what it is. And I don't mean drawn into a relationship, or into a friendship, I mean just drawn to me."
To answer all the questions together, the reason for my shyness is because I'm trapped in my own world of intuition. That's why there's an ENFP thread on loneliness - we ENFPs can see who is getting on with whom, who's not getting on, who's flirting with whom, who's happy, who's sad.. we see EVERYTHING in a social situation, and we can't escape it. And that's lonely, because we can't share our perceptions with people unless we know them well. You can't just meet someone and go "oh, you're not getting on with your wife, what you actually should say to her is this and this, you see?" And so you have to put on a mask, and it's oh-so-easy, because you can intuitively tell what this person would like to hear in order for them to like you, so you try it and you say it. But every single time that it works, every single time you make a new friend, even if you already have 100 good friends, you're grateful, because you can never quite believe that it works - that you actually have this ability. It's lonely, because you can see more than other people in terms of relationships, it's difficult, because you have to pretend that you can't in order to be liked, and you have to be liked, because you're an extroverted feeler and if you don't feel like you sink into gloom and depression. Being able to see everyting, and yet desperately needing to be liked, is a difficult situation to be in. Because you have to conceal a part of you - the part that surfaces when you're alone, and you have to reveal a part of you that isn't your "deep" you, it's just a version of you that you "turn on" in order to charm. Because you have so much inside of you that you can't share with your friends, because if you shared it they wouldn't be your friends anymore. Or, if they would, they wouldn't really understand it, so you'd end up with some clingy person staying by you, despite not having a clue who you really are. That's why I'm drawn to introverted intuitive thinkers.. because a) finally someone can see what I can see!, b) finally someone can see what I can see, and yet they don't care because they don't need to be liked!, so c) I can let them know how much I can see, and they won't freak out, because they won't even care. And so, I can let my guard down and just be.. just "breath" and be myself, whilst at the same time having a friend.
This is kind of an extreme description, 90% of the time I don't think about things like this, but this description just fitted with my feelings inside and why people think ENFPs can be fake.. we're really not fake, we're acting a very very genuine deeply caring part.
