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[INFJ] Are my friend and I both INFJ or is she something else?

SilkRoad

Lay the coin on my tongue
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One of my best friends has tested INFJ in the past. While in some ways I think it is very possible, I have also tended to wonder if she might be INFP (I doubt she is any other type than one of those). There are some pretty key differences between us and given that I’m convinced I’m INFJ and have no reason to think otherwise, I thought I might get you guys to give your opinion based partly on the differences between us.

I think another distinct possibility is that we are just differently flavoured INFJs. She is a textbook e4. I have no doubt at all that she’s a 4. For myself I have very little doubt that I’m NOT a 4. ;) I am pretty sure I’m a 6, though 9 has also seemed like a possibility.

She’s one of the closest friends I’ve ever had, if not the closest, so we’ve gone through some ups and downs together and have a fair idea of each other’s emotional states. We have VERY different backgrounds: I come from a stable and slightly repressed family, while she comes from a crazy unstable background (by her own admission) and has an emotional and volatile family. She’s suffered a good deal of emotional trauma of various sorts and may be bipolar.

We’ve had so many discussions about friendships/human relations, and men/relationships, that the differences between us are above all apparent there. In some respects I look at her and think “compared to her I’m a robot”. She will get terribly upset about perceived slights and declare that she can’t be friends with that person any more, but a few weeks or months later she’ll be back on good terms with them. With people she really likes less she can get dramatic and say “oh, she HATES me.” I’m much less likely to get offended, but when I do start talking about cutting someone out, I am at the point where I’m extremely upset and hurt because of a lot of things, and I’m not likely to want them back in my life ever. I’m much more likely to do the bottling up/letting things go thing and then eventually explode. She’s more likely to let it out and get into arguments with people, but then it will blow over. In general she’s more likely to make very strong statements but change her mind soon, at least about people. I’m more consistent but I can be like stone if I really set against someone.

Generally, it seems as though her emotions are extremely intense, but more transient than mine. She is much more mercurial. She is more obviously dramatic – I tend to look very calm, but I am pretty sure that internally I’m more wound up than she is. She has a lot more relationship experience than I do but has had a great many which were volatile, destructive, passionate and unhealthy. She has an obsession with Arab men and thinks they’re the only ones worth pursuing, while Western men are all emasculated pansies. She’s pursued and been pursued by several since I’ve known her and is prone to making statements like “I’ve never known a love like this before”, but then she’ll make similar statements about the next one. (Previous ones have been rationalized as “a fling” or “a crush”.) She tends to get swept up by guys who declare their love from the second they meet. There has also been a lot of drama and tragedy. She was on-off with one guy for well over a year and in an off period he was killed in a motorcycle crash. She was beyond devastated and swore up and down that she would never, ever love again, that it was impossible. However, less than a year later she ran off and married another Arab guy who she didn’t know that well. I really fear she’s not over the other guy, who she still loved. When she married this new guy there was a bit too much “he’s just like the previous guy, but better!” It’s all rather messy. I have, er, lectured her about pursuing drama, but I think she is fatally drawn to it. She’s also a million times more impulsive than I am – it is the LAST thing that I am.

On the flip side, although her romantic life tends to be the stuff of movies, she gives me very sane and lucid advice about relationships. Completely unlike her, I tend to fall in love with guys I’m friends with, who usually turn out not to be interested. She’s much better at shutting off and losing interest if someone doesn’t immediately respond and pursue her. I hang around reading into things and hoping the guy is just being hesitant. And it takes me a LONG time to get over failed relationships or even being let down by relationships which never happened. I can be very logical about why it wouldn’t have worked or even why I can now see that the guy was probably never interested, but I’ll still be emotionally wound up for ages, not sleeping, not eating, obsessing about details, etc. She’s said to me a bit impatiently “why get so upset about someone you weren’t even in a relationship with?” I can’t really argue with that but I still wind up very emotional and hurt. But while she thinks I fall in love with people where I’m just grasping at straws and reading into things and maybe they’re even using me, I think she falls in love too quickly because guys pursue her, without her thinking through the future difficulties or asking herself if they’re really sincere. She also thinks it should be possible to be friends with exes or people she’s had feelings for, whereas I am very bad at that and tend to want to avoid the person forever.

We’re both pretty introverted though we take an interest in people and can be outgoing. We’re both drawn to deep reflection and emotions, beautiful art and music etc, though I am far more drawn to literature than she is. She’s more into “emo” stuff like roses dripping blood, than I am…

What do you think? Are we both INFJ? Are these enneagram differences and/or differences in our backgrounds?
 

Crescent Fresh

Diving into Ni-space
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I'm not an expert yet, but she definitely doesn't sound like an INFJ based on your description of her...
 

Crescent Fresh

Diving into Ni-space
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Btw, I almost felt you were my long-lost twin sister after reading this thread. ;)

I felt overwhlemed that there are too many similarities in terms of our perception between the lines you've stated.
 

SilkRoad

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Btw, I almost felt you were my long-lost twin sister after reading this thread. ;)

I felt overwhlemed that there are too many similarities in terms of our perception between the lines you've stated.

Really? Cool! :D weird, I've had a few people on this forum say something like that to me in recent months. It's always good to hear particularly when you're going through a "no one understands meeeeeeee" phase, which I kind of have been ;)

So you don't think she sounds like an INFJ...any idea what she sounds like? Do you think there's any mileage in the idea that she is, but the enneagram type or experienecs make a difference? Do you think I sound INFJ? ;)

By the way, I know this was probably a pretty critical description. I do love her to bits and value her immensely. It's been a bit of a high maintenance friendship but she is a supportive friend too and I value her a lot. There's something very special about her, a comment which many of her friends have made, and not just "special" as in "crazy" ;)

I'm about as sure as I can be that she's IxFx. It's the other two letters I am less sure about. I haven't looked at it/thought about it sufficiently yet in terms of dominant cognitive functions.
 

Arclight

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Does she think she knows her type?
Has she ever taken one of these little online quizzys ??

She sounds a little bit like my ex GF.
 

SilkRoad

Lay the coin on my tongue
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Does she think she knows her type?
Has she ever taken one of these little online quizzys ??

She sounds a little bit like my ex GF.

Yeah, she tested INFJ when she took the humanmetrics test, I think (the first one I ever took.) But she's not as fascinated as me, so didn't follow it up a great deal. She thought the description could be accurate, but really it was more of a "woohoo! SilkRoad and I are the same type!" thing. ;)

I have at least three friends who have tested INFJ, but only with one of them - my friend who lives in Japan and is probably the person in the world whose perspective and personality are closest to mine - am I convinced she's INFJ.
 

Arclight

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Hmmm well you Know.. My stuff comes up something like this

I-75% N-65% F-60% J-60% , nothing too dominant.

My Guess for you is.

I-60% N-75% F-75% J-75%

It could just be something as simple as a sliding scale..
Sometimes when you talk I am like.. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!! Others I am like.. Well I understand, but her reaction is a bit OTT, Others I am like ..I understand, But where is her passion??

Sounds to me , you guys are just drawing on different experiences and coming to a few different conclusions.
Yet you like each other and understand each other. It's good to have friends like this :)
 

SilkRoad

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Hmmm well you Know.. My stuff comes up something like this

I-75% N-65% F-60% J-60% , nothing too dominant.

My Guess for you is.

I-60% N-75% F-75% J-75%

It could just be something as simple as a sliding scale..
Sometimes when you talk I am like.. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!! Others I am like.. Well I understand, but her reaction is a bit OTT, Others I am like ..I understand, But where is her passion??

Sounds to me , you guys are just drawing on different experiences and coming to a few different conclusions.
Yet you like each other and understand each other. It's good to have friends like this :)

:D yeah, I hear you! Just being "INFJ" doesn't make two people THE SAME. You will probably relate to an eerie extent in some ways, less so in others. And I don't stake a lot on whether she is, or not. I just wonder about it. Her type might help me understand some things more. It kind of amazes me that we are so close. We really come from totally different backgrounds and life experiences. But I think in a lot of ways we understand each other, and in other ways at least we try.

We are DEFINITELY different enneagram types, and that helps me tease out some of the differences right there.

Your percentage guesses: roughly accurate I think, maybe a bit weaker on the N and the J. :) I think J/P particularly can be prone to flux, based on what is happening in life. THat's what I've found anyway.
 

skylights

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SilkRoad said:
She will get terribly upset about perceived slights and declare that she can’t be friends with that person any more, but a few weeks or months later she’ll be back on good terms with them.

[...]

She’s more likely to let it out and get into arguments with people, but then it will blow over. In general she’s more likely to make very strong statements but change her mind soon, at least about people.

[...]

Generally, it seems as though her emotions are extremely intense, but more transient than mine. She is much more mercurial. She is more obviously dramatic – I tend to look very calm, but I am pretty sure that internally I’m more wound up than she is.

[...]

She's also about a million times more impulsive than I am

these all sound pretty FP to me. what made her lean towards J? ime introverts can lean J sometimes even though they're really not, because some introverted and J traits overlap (thinking before speaking, etc.)

INFJ 4s usually are 4w5... they seem very reflective and a little depressy to me, not really volatile (deep emotion but not acting on it, more thinking on it), so unless she is 4w3, i would be surprised if the volatility was a result of enneagram alone.

i think her relationship behavior sounds the most P of anything to me - strong P combined with her family background. curiously i'm actually much more like you in terms of relationships than like her.
 

SilkRoad

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these all sound pretty FP to me. what made her lean towards J? ime introverts can lean J sometimes even though they're really not, because some introverted and J traits overlap (thinking before speaking, etc.)

INFJ 4s usually are 4w5... they seem very reflective and a little depressy to me, not really volatile (deep emotion but not acting on it, more thinking on it), so unless she is 4w3, i would be surprised if the volatility was a result of enneagram alone.

i think her relationship behavior sounds the most P of anything to me - strong P combined with her family background. curiously i'm actually much more like you in terms of relationships than like her.

I tend to agree with you. I don't really know about the J. I think in those tests that can be somewhat circumstance-dependent. She really hasn't looked into it that closely, I know. I asked her to take the test, she got INFJ and we compared notes on that - I think there was definitely some INFJ stuff she really related to, but I hadn't known her as long. I've just had doubts about it especially based on things like the impulsiveness.

She could be 4w3, actually. Perhaps more so than 4w5, but I'm not sure. I've never been so convinced that someone is a 4, though!

I have a feeling that some of the times we don't understand each other or there is a level of conflict, it could have to do with Fe/Fi. I sometimes feel as though I'm existing in another realm of logic - one which I don't entirely agree with - when we talk. Sometimes she'll be like "well, I know this is the way it's supposed to be. And I know those rules/principles are right for how to approach this situation. But I'm so damaged and flawed and different, the rules don't work for someone like me." That irritates me. Sometimes I feel like I have to be pretty direct with her, but I try to temper it with gentleness, because tough love does NOT work for her and I'm not that good at trying to dish it out anyway.

Despite some misunderstandings and disagreements we do seem to have some sort of unusual empathy at work, a lot of the time. She has said that it's very unusual for someone like me, with a very different background (ie. pretty stable as opposed to highly unstable), to get where she's coming from at all, but she just finds me very open minded. I think above all it's that we make the effort to understand and support each other.

I don't think either of us are ever really going to understand the other's approach to relationships, actually. I guess we just try to support each other when we get into crises, which seems to happen semi-often... Hers tend to be more dramatic and potentially dangerous and tragic, whereas my dramas mostly rage internally but they do freak people out when they get a glimpse of my sad obsessiveness... ;) I don't know, that sort of thing could be partly personality, partly upbringing and experiences, partly just individual variation. I mean, I think pretty much anything in human behaviour and reactions is partly nature (ie. type), partly nurture.
 

Crescent Fresh

Diving into Ni-space
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So you don't think she sounds like an INFJ...any idea what she sounds like? Do you think there's any mileage in the idea that she is, but the enneagram type or experienecs make a difference? Do you think I sound INFJ? ;)

I think there must be something magical about her that you seem to be really value the friendship and wanted to develop a much stronger bond. I suppose she might be quite chrasmatic? :)

Anyhow, you definitely sound INFJ to me, and when it comes to your friend, she seems like an ExxP to me. I can't see any clues of Introversion at all based on your description. Though I'm still trying to master typology as I'm fairly new to this arena. Perhaps you should consult with those who have vast knowledge in this field beside me. :)
 

mochajava

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All the strong, outward displays of emotion don't sound very INFJ to me, at least based on my sample. Also, EVERYONE I have given the humanmetrics test to comes up INFJ or ISTJ... I don't know. I don't trust humanmetrics. 3 friends w/ drastically different personalities and similar interests cannot all be INFJ, right? Right?

Edit: the probability of this is low.
 

priestessofmars

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Your description of your friend reminds me of my ENFJ cousin or this ENFP girl I know. Are you very sure she's introverted? She seemes to be perceiving and feeling for sure. And how are you sure she is intuitive and not sensing? Not trying to interrogate you, just wondering if theres more evidence here that could help out.
 

SilkRoad

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In terms of the introversion, she describes herself as a hermit... ;) she thinks I'm the one with the major social life, but I think I just make more of an effort. (Many other people have made the mistake of thinking I'm very extroverted, which apparently happens a lot to the somewhat more extroverted INFJs...I know I am an introvert, though.) It's funny, I am starting to wonder a little too if she could actually be an E who circumstances have driven to be more introverted. I think she's had a lot of people in her life in recent years who she's withdrawn from a lot because of getting hurt and so on, but she can make instant friends with some people, especially Arabs, especially Arab men... *rolleyes* We didn't become instant friends though. It took a little while (not ages, but a little while) and then we started talking about mutual interests, and about our lives, and just found that we had some things in common and took an interest where we didn't have things in common.

Perhaps someone could help with this: what would an ExxP look like if circumstances and hurt forced them to become more withdrawn? When she's been depressed and going through a lot of issues, she withdraws to a frightening extent. I mean, really frightening because she's sometimes been suicidal as well. I don't know if that's just to do with suffering depression, though. We have quite a lot of mutual friends and she has "gone through" more friends than I have, in terms of being good friends with people but then falling out with them or having more distanced relationships. I tend to be more easy going and thus somewhat easier to get along with - I don't fall out with people much. Not that she (usually) has screaming fights with people but she does get offended quite easily...like I said though, she can make up more easily too.

Her health is not the best and she's pretty exhausted a lot of the time, so that could force her to be more introverted too. It's just that she's always saying that she needs time and space to herself, which doesn't seem too extroverted...

As for the N: she's more imaginative, whimsical, contemplative, future-oriented and prone to cosmic musings on life than I would imagine the average S to be...but that could be me subscribing to stereotypes.
 

priestessofmars

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I think she could be an ENFP. They can be quite sensitive it seems like so it may be easier for them to withdraw and seem introverted than other extraverts. The 2 ENFPs I've known haven't seemed to have very active social lives due to life circumstances but they are without a doubt extraverts. Maybe shes an INFP though.
 

SilkRoad

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Mhm...mind you, she's not that keen on going out in recent years, but it seems like whenever I come round to her place she's on the phone and/or on Skype, Facebook etc, talking, chatting, writing emails... I'm really starting to wonder if she's a withdrawn ENFP. It kind of fits in a lot of ways.
 
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