[MBTI General] ENFP-INFP: How much emotion and vulnerability do you show others?

[sleuthiness]

None at all. I ignore.

 

[woolgatherer]

I definitely try to hide my feelings and vulnerability to some degree, but I'm not sure how good I am at it. I would guess not great, but I'm really pretty out of touch with my public image and what kind of person people think I am. I always would strongly prefer to be alone if I have to cry, for one thing...

If I have strong feelings about another person I try to hide them because I think that it will put them off. I tend to be attracted to men with a thinking preference, so they're not like me... I think I would push them away or freak them out so I'm often trying to tone it down and act casual.

I think my truest self is not something that most people can relate to, so no I don't express it all of the time. I have social phobia and I talk very little in group settings. I feel uncomfortable talking about myself. One on one is much easier and the conversation could get to a much more personal place that way... even though I still feel uncomfortable going on about myself.

I love relating with people on deeply personal issues, but I have to feel like it's the right environment for that and that the other person is willing to open up at least close to as much as I am. If you ask me a personal question I might squirm and sort of avoid it... but then I might answer it 5 minutes later when it feels more natural and like there's less pressure on me I guess. I could potentially meet a stranger and get into a deep conversation within an hour of knowing them if circumstances were right. They might have to show extreme vulnerability or sadness first though. In that case I of course would want to help them, and I guess my way of attempting to help would be listening and talking about any similar experiences or feelings that I had.

Now I feel like I'm talking too much. I'm not even sure if I'm answering the question anymore.

 

[sculpting]

I feel like i'm being sincere all the time, but I do keep the emotional feelings in a box in the corner a lot. Sometimes I will let them leak out a little bit, and if people seem to think it's weird or are not able to take it or I feel like it would make me a little vulnerable, then I'll quickly turn it into a joke or whatever to erase them and make people forget about it.

With someone I am romantically involved with, there's always a period where I have to figure out if I can trust them with it, because it's a sort of all-or-nothing kind of uncontrollable thing. Easy to keep in the box, but once it's let out, it's too much for some people to handle. If that makes sense.

ah, the wisdom of the infps. I recall Satine said this as well.

 

[BRMC117]

None at all. I ignore.

yea, I try not to show much. If I show you emotion then I really trust you and it take A LOT to gain my trust.

 

[CzeCze]

It takes a strong person to show vulnerability. Either that or a person who lives 100% in the moment and doesn't get cerebral or overthink their emotions (i.e. highly emotionally expressive people).

I think I am pretty expressive but I am very conscious of appearances, context, and what is appropriate. I'm relatively formal and careful to be context appropriate.

In my intimate relationships (i.e. dating) I show vulnerability, it happens naturally when I feel comfortable with people and I like them a lot Intimacy requires a level of vulnerability so once the 'getting to know you' stage gets there, I will naturally open up. If I don't, it means we haven't gotten to that deeper stage of dating yet (and perhaps never will, I've been dumped because I couldn't go there with some people).

Otherwise, I'm guarded..I'm probably not as smooth about it as I think. But I don't think I'm terribly obviously guarded compared to 'most people'. Mostly, it's just that I'm formal and conscious. I also don't talk about sex and bodily functions with people I've just met or talk about my crazy drunken weekend at work.

 

[paradox fox]

How much emotion and vulnerbility do you show others?

I show a little bit to see if people will open up to me. I don't bare my deepest, ugliest secrets right away, but I do share something about myself and see if they will reciprocate. That's only if I trust someone though.

On the other hand, I've cried at really inconvenient times, like at work. It happens when I'm really frustrated, overstressed, or unintentionally breaking a policy that could get me fired. I feel really, really ashamed when I start crying at work.

Do you think you show your truest self outwards or is this somewhat hard for you to do? Is there a inner self that would greatly suprise others around you?

It's really hard to be my truest self with people I don't know very well. I think some people perceive me as outgoing, very much a people-person, but that's not true. I do care about people very deeply, but I'm not a people-person like, say, an ESTP is.

I know what kind of person I really am, and I'm pathetic. So of course I hide those nasty, pathetic parts of myself. I don't want people to walk away from me, shaking their heads in disgust.

 

[Aleksei]

I tend not to hide my emotions, but I also tend not to be that emotional. Most of the time I'm either happy/upbeat, or bored, and in either case it clearly shows. Then once in a while I will get pissed off because someone around me is being an idiot, and that shows too.

 

[Cephalonimbus]

I've learned to hide negative emotions very well and for most of my life i used to either keep them to myself, or channel them into anger or self-destructive behavior. But in the past couple of years i've grown to be much more comfortable sharing my emotions and vulnerability. At least, i try; i sometimes have a hard time determining exactly what it is i'm feeling. I've repressed my feelings for a long time and i'm still in the process of learning to recognize them. Obviously this means that what i say may not always be a proper representation of what's really going on inside, which can be frustrating, but i'm getting better at it and it's something i want to be able to do as well as possible. Some things i do find much more difficult to share than others, but i suspect this has a lot to do with my own reluctance to acknowledge these issues and/or my inability to deal with them... i feel this is a bigger obstacle than my shame towards others, but i might be wrong.

How much i share is not just a matter of trust, it's also based on (my perception of) whether people are comfortable talking about emotions themselves. I'm reluctant to open up unless i get strong signals that people are willing to listen and empathize and even then i tend to need a nudge. This is a major reason why many of my (male) friends don't know much about my emotional life, including my best friend whom i've known since kindergarten. We've never talked about feelings except for the occasional heartache peptalks, so who am i to start babbling about things like insecurity all of a sudden? It's ridiculous, because we're on the same wavelength in many ways and he most likely has dealt with similar feelings himself at some point in his life, we just never talk about things like that. I guess i don't want to be a burden by making people uncomfortable, even when i know they would support me. Perhaps some of them would even be relieved because they feel a similar reluctance in sharing their own feelings, who knows...

 

[phthalocyanine]

if i don't know someone well, i tend to be very reserved as far as my range of emotion. and i don't show vulnerability easily.

if someone shows me that they care and that they are willing and able to hear me, then i am open to share my feelings and vulnerabilities, and hope that if they want to share with me, they will as well.

i don't need approval, but understanding...showing my feelings to just anyone could be misread as a request for simple validation, and what xNFP really wants that kind of shallow head-nodding without anything more?

the general idea in my mind is that everyday interaction is not suitable for sharing the depths of one's soul. most of the time it would be wasteful if not foolish to open up out of nowhere, even if deep down that might be what we'd like to be free to do.