[ENFP] ENFP Girlfriend Stringing Me Along - Should I Keep Trying?

[Galena]

Hmmm, are you *the girl* that's under the microscope?

Nope! Just a clear reader of the OP. :hi:

I definitely agree that whatever the OP does, it needs to involve telling her respectfully but in no uncertain terms what the problem is with her behavior. It will hurt to learn, but her future relationships will have more hope if she does.

 

[Poindexter Arachnid]

The mic is on and working well... we heard you repeat yourself loud and clear... over...

Keep listening.
Let it sink in.

The fact that you're blaming HIM for the circumstances says a lot about your character (mostly that you don't have it).

She's being dishonest and passive-aggressive and has shown that she clearly doesn't care about anything other than her feelings and you expect him to grovel at her feet? Are you fuckin' kidding me?

If you have to beg for love, something ain't right.

Maybe you should get with him.

That depends. Is he successful?
'Cause I gotta be honest: I'm a high maintenance kinda guy.

 

[Giggly]

ENFP meets ESTP & finds him attractive. She pursues potential as Ne-dom do, & they date. She's enamoured more with an idea of him than anything though, and as his reality become clearer, doubt sets in about the real potential. His absence gave her time to sort out her own feelings (Fi) instead of staying caught up in pursuing an idea. She seeks to end it & gives her reasons. He keeps trying to talk her out of it. When they meet, her heart is tugged by his feelings & she sees his perspective in the moment (perhaps reviving some "potential"), and agrees to keep trying or at least think about. When alone, she recalls her own feelings & why they are valid & goes back to her prior decision.

Just read this post.

Assuming this is true, her reasons seem lame and I can see why he's holding on/fighting it.

Sticking around because you're over someone but pity them is one thing; still having feelings but not being sure if it can work is another. This situation seems like the latter to me, which is why it's more of a push/pull, imo.

 

[Thalassa]

You know I was just re-reading some Jung, and it was talking about how J-doms (IxxPs and ExxJs) see P-doms (ExxPs and IxxJs) as the most ridiculous, irrational people, and this was specifically on the Pe type, assigning bad motives to the Pe dom, where the Pe dom simply doesn't have that clearly of a rational motive; the Pe dom is apparently more likely to believe that relationships only last as long as things like circumstances allow, and the J-dom doesn't see this as especially human.

That appears to be going on in this thread.

It also is going on in that thread where a Pi dom sarcastically said that an Fi dom's "razor" was why assign chance when something could be easily attributed to malice.

Cool.

Jung was so smart.

 

[Ivy]

DoD is banned from the thread for repeatedly taking things to an unnecessarily personal level.

 

[Giggly]

She's being dishonest and passive-aggressive and has shown that she clearly doesn't care about anything other than her feelings and you expect him to grovel at her feet? Are you fuckin' kidding me?

She may be being dishonest, but I don't think she's being passive aggressive.

That depends. Is he successful?
'Cause I gotta be honest: I'm a high maintenance kinda guy.

I would have never guessed it!

 

[Giggly]

You know I was just re-reading some Jung, and it was talking about how J-doms (IxxPs and ExxJs) see P-doms (ExxPs and IxxJs) as the most ridiculous, irrational people, and this was specifically on the Pe type, assigning bad motives to the Pe dom, where the Pe dom simply doesn't have that clearly of a rational motive; the Pe dom is apparently more likely to believe that relationships only last as long as things like circumstances allow, and the J-dom doesn't see this as especially human.

That appears to be going on in this thread.

It also is going on in that thread where a Pi dom sarcastically said that an Fi dom's "razor" was why assign chance when something could be easily attributed to malice.

Cool.

Jung was so smart.

Wow, that's so true. Amazing!

 

[highlander]

There's a lot of good advice in this thread from the women.

It's an interesting thing to read about because that fickleness of ENFPs is the primary reason I went with other types back in the day. A number of years after finishing college this ENFP admitted to having a huge crush on me for a couple of years. She was beautiful and we got along great but I told her I thought she was "too fickle" and that's what drove my decision. My sense was there was too much risk to being hurt. I'd rather be with someone I could depend on. Looking at type, that of course is coming from an Enneagram 6, which tends to focus on things that can go wrong and according to the statistics, 6s prefer 9s and 2s. ENFPs are seldom 9s or 2s. So an INTJ Enneagram 6 would be less likely to end up with an ENFP than other types of INTJs which is irrelevant to this thread but something I just thought of.

Honestly, I don't think the ENFPs are intentionally doing anything wrong. They have a sense that certain things bother them or it's not right but aren't sure what to do. They have a hard time making final decisions in general and also with ending relationships (or at least finishing them for good) unless you do something serious to violate their trust in which case you're toast. Even after ending things, they still want to hang out and be friends and can sometimes appear to give mixed signals.

Personally, I wouldn't put up with it. I'd move on and not hang out with her anymore.

 

[deanmartin12345]

Hi all - thank you for the responses.

[MENTION=13147]senza tema[/MENTION]: I didn't try to contact her in those 10 days in between. She was the one who told me she would call and didn't so I didn't really want to push it.

I do live in a big city so will be able to meet someone else. It just sucks losing someone you really liked when it was so out of the blue. The thing that surprises me the most is that the whole time I thought she liked me more than I liked her. Like she was the one who wanted to go exclusive in the first place.
[MENTION=6877]Marmotini[/MENTION]:

that he wants to try to make it work if they were just getting along great ten days ago and they had told each other they loved each other.

That right above is correct. I think that it's pretty weird behavior to tell someone you love them and then tell it to them unprompted after the first time and then end it a month later. I guess I'm also just confused as to how someone could do that and tell them 'I love you' on the phone a week before ending it. And the last few times we hung out she seemed normal & happy - not weird or distant.

However, I am going to meet with her one last time to exchange our stuff and say bye - I've tried salvaging this relationship enough at this point.

 

[Thalassa]

Hi all - thank you for the responses.

[MENTION=13147]senza tema[/MENTION]: I didn't try to contact her in those 10 days in between. She was the one who told me she would call and didn't so I didn't really want to push it.

I do live in a big city so will be able to meet someone else. It just sucks losing someone you really liked when it was so out of the blue. The thing that surprises me the most is that the whole time I thought she liked me more than I liked her. Like she was the one who wanted to go exclusive in the first place.
[MENTION=6877]Marmotini[/MENTION]:

That right above is correct. I think that it's pretty weird behavior to tell someone you love them and then tell it to them unprompted after the first time and then end it a month later. I guess I'm also just confused as to how someone could do that and tell them 'I love you' on the phone a week before ending it. And the last few times we hung out she seemed normal & happy - not weird or distant.

However, I am going to meet with her one last time to exchange our stuff and say bye - I've tried salvaging this relationship enough at this point.

RED WORDS: Omgz I know. Fuck.

BLUE WORDS: Hold up. Wait a second. Maybe she is insecure. This is deeply valuable information.

I take back almost everything I said. Apparently my intuition about strangers on the Internet fucking sucks (though works pretty well for me IRL from voice and facial cues, but that's probably Se/Ni). Keep pursuing her. Just see if it works.

That piece of information changes everything, I think.

 

[Amargith]

[MENTION=18097]deanmartin12345[/MENTION] I hope youll find someone who is right for you, and wish both of you the best. It sounds like it will be the best kind of break up -an amicable one.

 

[A_priori]

Hit delete

 

[PeaceBaby]

I think that it's pretty weird behavior to tell someone you love them and then tell it to them unprompted after the first time and then end it a month later.

Just a quick thought for you on that: I would say that NFP's sometimes speak and THEN gauge how true or real that feels to us arising from that process of articulation. Inside, there's not much decided. We have our feelings, yes. But there's no composition about that, there are no words, just a complex inner 'swirliness' of FEELINGS. So, when we assign words to these feelings, and then, when said aloud, we get a "truthiness" feeling about what we say.

My point? I can imagine her first saying "I love you" to you, being true to that inner happiness she felt in the moment. But now, repeating it to you isn't capturing her ideal of the kind of feeling she's supposed to get when she says it to you. Not getting that FEELING makes it feel "false" or "wrong" to her. Or when she says it, it simply FEELS wrong and therefore she is trying to end it.

Still though, it seems that spending time with you makes her wonder if she's interpreting her own feelings correctly because you obviously still have some effect on her emotionally. NFP's can be challenged separating their own emotional states from those of the people around them. Why? Because she likely feels your confusion and affection and it starts to make inroads into her own emotions and they swirl together inside her making it harder to differentiate what emotions she owns vs what ones she is sensing from you.

Gah, this post isn't coming out quite the way I want, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm going for here.

Not trying to obfuscate either, just add another layer of consideration. I think it's big of you to have a good-bye chat with her, leave it on good terms. Best of luck to you!

 

[sculpting]

I have been dating this ENFP girl for about 6 months. I am an ESTP. She's pretty typical ENFP - easily distracted, has a hard time following through on things she's into because there are too many possiblities, her head is very much in the clouds and not necessarily paying attention to things like rules, details, etc. She is extremely smart though, charming & charismatic, funny, and super social. Like at a bar she'll run around and talk to everyone. She gets easily distracted by sparkly things.

We got together about 6 months ago in September and then in November she asked me to be her boyfriend. We are both 24. She tends to be idealistic in relationships - like on Valentine's Day when I got her a gift, she told me how much she loved it and how I'm totally the best. She'd often say things like that. She's a very sensitive person as well but is pretty openly sexually liberated (the relationship moved pretty fast in that sense when we first met). We told each other I love you about a week before Valentine's Day. Since then we would say it to each other unprompted. We always did fun stuff together and had a great time. Before I left town for 10 days, nothing seemed wrong.

However, when I was out of town out of the blue she sent me an email telling me that she wanted to end it because she's just not feeling the emotions she needs to feel in a relationship. I was surprised because the week before when I was still gone, she had called me out of the blue and told me "I love you, I miss you, and I'll see you when you are back". But then I got that email one week later. She told me that I'm an awesome, fun person to be around (she has never been bored with me) but that she doesn't feel the deep connection she wants to. Like that we aren't creating a world together, we don't have the kind of love that can transcend her problems, and she doesn't feel the same way about me when I am with her as when I am not.

She also mentioned that she doesn't feel like we spend enough time together (which I told her I am more than happy to do), that she feels like her simple dreams of being a teacher are not compatible with my dreams of doing amazing things and that she isn't sure if the reasons I like her are good enough - she keeps saying I could like anyone for those reasons. She also says that she feels self conscious around me. I told her that I'd love to spend more time with her but breaking up seems to be the wrong way to do that and that she can tell me anything so she shouldn't feel self conscious around me. She has also told me that she's not even sure if she should be in a relationship right now because her life is a little up in the air in August and so she's not sure if it's the best thing for her right now. Also, she has really disliked her job ever since I've met her. Finally she's taking steps towards getting a new one and leave soon. I feel like part of her feels that she may need time to work on herself and get through this before being in a relationship.

I've met with her twice since she sent that email and every time at the end of the conversation we kiss and she says she's going to think about continuing it. I also randomly bumped into her a few days ago and we had a great 30 minute conversation and touched but it doens't really feel resolved. Do any other ENFP's have any idea what is going on/what she is feeling? Or why she could change so quickly? Or if it is worth it to try to keep it alive? She seems a bit confused to me. Thank you.

I agree with much of what Marmotini says. You know what I notice-how much you notice about her. That is quite cool.

I wont guess as to what she feels, but I will say, she is needing something seemingly in her own head, not in your reality. She could also be trying to be indirect and let you down easy.

I would advise that you take care of yourself in this situation, as she isnt looking out for your emotions or well being with her actions.

 

[Giggly]

The thing I noticed was that he talked a lot about how she compliments him and the great things she says to him, about him and how she feels about him and he loves all that, but he never once complimented her or said what's great about her. All he said was that he wants to stay together.

I'm not saying he doesn't compliment her but he just didn't say he did in the OP and I wondered if he does in real life.

 

[Winds of Thor]

The thing I noticed was that he talked a lot about how she compliments him and the great things she says to him, about him and how she feels about him and he loves all that, but he never once complimented her or said what's great about her. All he said was that he wants to stay together.

I'm not saying he doesn't compliment her but he just didn't say he did in the OP and I wondered if he does in real life.

Yea 'cause she might not have or know any real reason(s) to be with him. OP, if you like her, and you haven't done so, get your act together and show her why! We're spending this time & effort helping you. A little honor, please!

 

[OrangeAppled]

Just read this post.

Assuming this is true, her reasons seem lame and I can see why he's holding on/fighting it.

Sticking around because you're over someone but pity them is one thing; still having feelings but not being sure if it can work is another. This situation seems like the latter to me, which is why it's more of a push/pull, imo.

IMO, she has recognized her feelings were towards a fantasy, an idea of him. He's reigniting possibility when they meet-up, which is confusing her.

I agree with [MENTION=122]marm[/MENTION] that this is confusing for J-dom, but the OP is P-dom himself. IMO, IxxPs do the "exploring" before commitment that Pe types do, but we don't tend to re-open possibilities once committed. That's why people say it's hard to change our minds on things we've examined thoroughly & have conclusions on (but people also don't realize how deeply we've considered & for how long). ExxPs do both, perhaps because they don't go as deep & so it's easier to re-open an issue. I think that their exploring can be so enthusiastic it looks like dedicated commitment to people. Ne-dom especially seem possessed by ideas & then can quickly lose interest & turn them into obligations & cages.

The thing I noticed was that he talked a lot about how she compliments him and the great things she says to him, about him and how she feels about him and he loves all that, but he never once complimented her or said what's great about her. All he said was that he wants to stay together.

I'm not saying he doesn't compliment her but he just didn't say he did in the OP and I wondered if he does in real life.

I had a big tangent, but I'll give the cliff notes & perhaps make a new thread on "Relationship Stages".

Anyhow, this is what infatuation is, and why when it wears off many relationships don't survive.

It's about how someone makes YOU feel, not about valuing them for the person they are (not just emotional response, but a genuine feeling). When they no longer have that effect on you, then you think, "I've fallen out of love", but really, you never truly loved the person to begin with. You just loved how they made you feel.

So at one point the ESTP probably made the ENFP feel a certain way, so she felt "in love", but now he no longer has that effect (what she has basically detailed in her break-up reasons, IMO). With the infatuation gone, she's seeing they're not really compatible (according to what she feels she needs) and she doesn't really love him for him nor felt loved for herself.

The relationship stages go something like this (tangent time!):

Infatuation - this when the brain is high on the other person, this allows people to get to know each other while making it worth the hassle.

Disillusionment - brain high wears off & you see the person much more clearly. Usually you've bonded enough to go into the next phase, but many people just break up here.

Negotiation - You begin to negotiate with yourself & your partner what you're willing to do to make it work. If you can't work it out, then you break up. OR, one party may end up giving a lot more than the other, especially if they are not disillusioned or have developed a real love.

This is where I think the OP is - infatuated (focused on how she makes him feel) & trying to negotiate with a disillusioned partner who doesn't want to negotiate. If he was disillusioned also, then he'd probably let go if he saw she didn't want to "make it work".

Next stages are:
Commitment
Creation
Security

 

[deanmartin12345]

Hi all. Thank you again.

We are meeting up tomorrow after work to go hiking. She wasn't sure if she wanted to meet with me because she said that our last interaction (where we bumped into each other) caught her by surprise & that she's not sure if we are on the same page. By caught by surprise, it was probably that I tried to kiss her and she didn't really want to do it back. I told her that we can just hang out & enjoy each others' company. She agreed to meet up after I told her that.

I was planning on meeting up with her and trying to show her aspects of myself that I never showed her when we were together. I was going to get her a gift that she will like, flowers (she's told me she likes these a lot - not just on Valentine's Day when I got them for her - but any random day), and write a letter/poem expressing all the things she did that I appreciated & characteristics I like about her. Because when we were breaking up she told me she thought my reasons for liking her were reasons I could like anybody & that she feels self conscious around me & that she's not sure if her simple dreams can match up to my amazing ones.

I'm just trying to express to her through gifts & words of affirmation (things I never did much) how much I care for her and hoping that those will trigger her to feel that maybe she can actually fall for me again. Like she doesn't feel the love/connection that she wants to and I'm hoping to show her through these that perhaps she can because I never expressed myself in this way to her before.

Thoughts? Thank you.

 

[Winds of Thor]

Hi all. Thank you again.

No problem.

She agreed to meet up after I told her that.

Sounds good

Thoughts? Thank you.

This..

I'm just trying to express to her through gifts & words of affirmation (things I never did much) how much I care for her

..will have to be more intensely meaningful than her previously-held mental snapshot of your 'togetherness'. Because sounds like it may be she feels she ought to have known more about you up until this point. Let your feelings and beliefs flow-Dude

After you know she 'gets' you, then there may be a 'theme' or you two may be able to think of yourselves as a couple. If that happens, then she asks you to do stuff together, ...see, she has to have a reason to kiss you. Women have time and future on their conscience. Then if the vibe is mutual, then kiss her.

And do more stuff..whatever the two of you would like doing together. Show her more about you. Make plans. Go canoeing. Do pottery. Whatever. Idk

 

[Ivy]

I don't know... based on your most recent post, I think you've already been broken up with. This sounds like someone who doesn't want to date you but also doesn't want to hurt your feelings and is agreeing to do "friend" things. Telling you she's not sure you're on the same page sounds like it might be as assertive as she's able to be right now. Maybe she's never broken up with anybody before.

I hope I'm wrong because you seem like a sweet guy and she seems like a sweet girl (if flighty) but that's how it reads to me.