[MBTI General] ENFP's and INFP's who have experience with ISTPs...

[ChocolateMoose123]

I've been with my SO xNFP (tested both) for a while now.

I have noticed that he is very attuned to what I may or may not need - small things - always asking if I'm okay, etc. I've gotten used to it but 99% of the time - I'm ok! However, there has been once or twice that I've been extremely upset - not something he has done - to the point of holding back tears - a rarity. He seems oblivious to this until I can't hold it in anymore (anger or sadness).

I think I'm being very obvious and transparent and he says he had no idea I was even upset. I feel like every fiber of me is vibrating. So what experience do you have with ISTPs expressing emotion? Is is shocking?

 

[Standuble]

I think my manager is an ISTP (90% sure he is a Ti-dom in any case) and the only emotion he seems to express (apart from laughing at jokes) is irritability. I would be sceptical that he even realises he is being like that (probably fixed on the perception that he is being completely objective and rational) and he insists on sticking inferior Fe into the department's affairs (which from my perspective is always a car wreck, making everybody's lives more difficult.) He tells us on occasion that at home he will be completely fine yet blow up over a minor issue (e.g. what's for dinner.) I can't stand the guy because he is ultimately completely selfish yet seems to think he is doing the best thing for everybody (yesterday I got in trouble for losing my rag over an issue and his criticism was that he couldn't listen to it. No stopping to be empathetic for my issues or whether anyone else cares. He makes a fuss a lot as well and we can't complain when we become irritated by him and his actions.)

Long story's short: I would say shocking but also frustrating. An emotional retard should not be running a team.

 

[Amargith]

For me it is more that the mind of an ISTP is both fascinating and fucking alien. Seriously. You guys work completely backwards to us. So while I do check up on you, I curse under my breath that I have trouble recognizing the infrastructure, let alone how strong of a reaction a stimulus is going to get out of you. On top of that, you do tend to be a bit... -no offence- emotionally retarded, in that you won't actually acknowledge to yourself, let alone to others - lets not show weakness!- that you are distraught. And if you do acknowledge it and tell us, the severity of it is hard to gauge coz you tend to relate it matter-of-factly. I'm guessing that FJs might have an easier time as they at least are familiar with your infrastructure.

But, fret not, my dear. The more you are willing to show him how you work, the more he will learn -eagerly so.

NFPs tend to be mad about figuring out people, fascinated by new projects (such as your alien mind) and if they love you...they consider it their personal mission to understand who you are and what makes you tick.

So bear with him, do not have expectations, for gods sake talk to him and inform him of this and let him do his research to finetune your triggers, get the background info he needs and the parameters he needs to gauge severity of impact. He'll crack the code to your alien mind in no time

Lastly, keep in mind that he is Fi-user. We tend to check less for cues with people than Fe-people do, as Fi tends to value personal space and will only get its head out of the clouds when someone taps us on the shoulder, so to speak. Iow, we need to focus on you first to run a scan of whether or not you are in fact ok, and that isnt as automated as for an Fe-user. I tend to do a daily scan of my INTJ when he comes home, to check how he is holding up overall, but I cannot do that all day long or my batteries will be drained.

 

[Southern Kross]

I agree that ISTPs can be kryptonite to the NFP people reading abilities. ISTPs have a way about them that just disrupts our normally fine-tuned intuition. They seem so completely unaffected by anything and everything, to the point that I may forget that they feel things too, and then suddenly, the emotions come out of nowhere.

The first thing I will say is, find a way to communicate the fact that most things don't bother you, and that it's not necessary to always ask. The ISTPs I been around have had to say this to me, explicitly, to stop me trying to 'over-read' them. I need to see that this person is an exception and if I can have a different rule that I apply to them (ie. "this person isn't easily perturbed" and/or "I need to not overthink things with this person") it makes it easier to get my head around it.

However, if you put this across, you're going to have to be explicit when you are upset*. If you tell a NFP to chill out and shut down their need to constantly read your internal state, you can't ask them to guess your feelings when you want them to. I suppose you could also explain how you typically react when you're angry or upset (eg. that you go very quiet, or disappear off to spend time alone etc) so that the NFP will recognise the signs.

*Basically, we have to be able to intuit the emotion (Fi), or we need to be hit over the head with it (Te).

 

[Stansmith]

They think I'm stupid pretty much

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

[MENTION=14363]Standuble[/MENTION]: I can say that if your workplace runs on passive aggression or "hurry up and wait" beaurocracy, then your boss is probably slowly deteriorating under that. I've been at a job where that was happening and you start to adopt that mentality of tit for tat. Truth is, he may see you as having been an obstruction to his job at some point in the past or been openly unsupportive to him. Then when you had your issue he just said he didn't care. The cycle continues. Best thing I ever did was move on from a job once that point had been reached.

Thank you for all your responses. [MENTION=5871]Southern Kross[/MENTION] [MENTION=5494]Amargith[/MENTION]. The fact I even show him this emotion says a lot about him. How much I trust him. I'm not sure I can even measure my feelings until they have reached that point? But really before that point, Ive noticed I say that I'm "stressed out" or "exhausted" when he asks about my moods. A lot of my emotional turmoil comes out in body fatigue before I feel or notice what it actually *is*. Whoa. Just had that realization while typing that. Ha. Something I need to pay attention to.

Anyway, he's great in responding and I love his doting nature. I feel taken care of and that is a luxury I don't indulge in. So he is a treat to me.

 

[Southern Kross]

The fact I even show him this emotion says a lot about him. How much I trust him. I'm not sure I can even measure my feelings until they have reached that point? But really before that point, Ive noticed I say that I'm "stressed out" or "exhausted" when he asks about my moods. A lot of my emotional turmoil comes out in body fatigue before I feel or notice what it actually *is*. Whoa. Just had that realization while typing that. Ha. Something I need to pay attention to.

Anyway, he's great in responding and I love his doting nature. I feel taken care of and that is a luxury I don't indulge in. So he is a treat to me.

He must be a good guy if you let down your guard around him.

So are you saying your emotions will often surprise you too? Do you cry or lose your temper completely unexpectedly, for example?

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

He must be a good guy if you let down your guard around him.

So are you saying your emotions will often surprise you too? Do you cry or lose your temper completely unexpectedly, for example?

Yes. In a way. Most of the time feelings are on a sub wavelength. I know they are there and I'm aware of why I feel a certain way but its not enough to illicit an emotional response. It's more of a thought. An awareness but its passing.

That doesn't surprise me. ISTPs have feelings and we are often aware of them. They get to be tricky when something isn't resolved easily or the stress doesn't abate. What is surprising is when it wells up (usually anger or frustration) and it becomes "uncontrollable" or my internal voice is saying "Shit. Why can't I shake this off?" It is not the norm. So the feeling is not unexpected but the reaction itself is. At least, for me.

 

[Esoteric Wench]

I have noticed that [my xNFP] is very attuned to what I may or may not need - small things - always asking if I'm okay, etc. I've gotten used to it but 99% of the time - I'm ok! However, there has been once or twice that I've been extremely upset - not something he has done - to the point of holding back tears - a rarity. He seems oblivious to this until I can't hold it in anymore (anger or sadness). I think I'm being very obvious and transparent and he says he had no idea I was even upset. I feel like every fiber of me is vibrating. So what experience do you have with ISTPs expressing emotion? Is is shocking?

My husband is an ISTP so I have some experience in this area. I'm going to respond to the OP in two separate posts. This first post will be about an xNFP asking and ISTP about how they feel:

One of the things that took me some getting used to was that under most circumstances I got no emotional read off of my ISTP. If you were to drop me in a group of people, I could pick up on their respective emotional vibes very quickly... almost effortlessly. But not with my ISTP. It's like you guys are wearing lead-lined underwear that my emotional x-ray vision (viz., my Ne coupled with my Fi) cannot penetrate.

Since I couldn't read his emotional state, my first way of handling this was to use my Te to regularly ask him about how he was feeling. While he appreciated my attentiveness, his usual response to my query was something like, "I'm OK" or "I'm not feeling any particular way right now." The latter of these answers was particularly perplexing to me because I couldn't imagine not knowing exactly how I felt at any given moment. In other words, the idea of not feeling anything was so foreign to me that at first I discounted it. I assumed that he must just not be in touch with his emotions thus he couldn't answer my question about his emotional state.

It took me a a while (and an understanding his cognitive function order) for me to finally get that my ISTP spent a significant amount of his life not really feeling any way in particular. I have come to attribute this to the fact that he has no F functions until his inferior function.

ISTP = Ti > Se > Ni > Fe​

Once I understood his inferior Fe, I concluded that he really just didn't see the world in the same F-way that I did. Thus, it was really intrusive for me to keep asking him how he was feeling. I was asking the wrong question. Instead, I decided to start asking him what he was THINKING about. Wow, what a difference this made. He was very willing to explain - in detail - his Ti meanderings with me. Once I understood that this was the way he shared his inner world with me, we both were happier. He wasn't being peppered with questions he didn't know how to answer. I was able to figure out his vibe. All was good.

 

[Esoteric Wench]

In this second part of my answer, I wanted to respond more directly to the OP's question about expressed ISTP emotion being shocking for NFPs:

Just yesterday, my ISTP had an emotional meltdown. He was feeling stressed out by his "to do" list for that day and he became very curt with me for no apparent reason. I've been with him long enough to have learned how to pick up on this as a sign of his emotional state. Instead of asking him how he felt, I told him what I observed: "You seemed to be stressed out to me." He then was able to identify his emotions and deal with them. But according to him, he didn't even realize how he was feeling until I said something to him. He went on to explain that he often doesn't recognize that he's feeling anything until he's been wrangling with his emotions for a considerable amount of time.

I've been with my ISTP for going on five years, and even now he sometimes shocks me with what seems to me to be an eruption of emotions that comes out of nowhere. He's normally so calm and collected. Then, when he does express an emotion, it normally is done very powerfully and abruptly. I've come to the conclusion that it's because unless the emotion is very, very strong he can overlook the fact that he's feeling anything at all. His emotions are unattended to and they can build up in him until they are very strong and he is on the verge of <insert your favorite emotional reaction here>.

I hope this makes some sense.

 

[skylights]

^ Nice info, @Esoteric Wench. Helpful!

Personally - my brother's an ISTP. He can be challenging for me to read. Mostly I've learned that him being super, super quiet and not really responding to anything is a good signal that something's not right. But my ESFJ mom and ISFJ boyfriend are much better at reading him than I am.

I suspect that you guys put out some sort of Fe-available signals that we xNFPs struggle to pick up on. We really read mood, so if you don't do a lot of "mood" changing, that's probably why he's not getting it. I'm quite good at responding to nuance in mood but it's challenging for me to understand how to address feeling where there's not much emotional overtone. I guess because my ISTP and I are siblings, I usually figure out enough to not be shocked, but sometimes I'm surprised by the gravity of something weighing on him. He can get really grumpy over basically nothing (he's a teenager, after all) but if it's a serious thing then he's often more subdued. I usually end up asking the super-blunt, Fe-stupid "errr so what can I do for you?"

 

[RaptorWizard]

Lots of the INFPs on the forum have called me an ISTP, so either I'm another one of the atypical 'alien' ISTPs, or I'm some other type that they 'don't get', and since they often don't get ISTPs, it would only logically follow that I could be one!

To post more to the point, why do NFPs always have to see inside of people? I guess motivations are a prime directive for you folks, and since the ISTPs may have motivations without the same kind of 'ideological backing', you get way too freaking confused.

I guess the types may both be at opposite ends of the emotional self-awareness spectrum from each other.

 

[Southern Kross]

Lots of the INFPs on the forum have called me an ISTP, so either I'm another one of the atypical 'alien' ISTPs, or I'm some other type that they 'don't get', and since they often don't get ISTPs, it would only logically follow that I could be one!

The type certainly suits you more than some of the other options you've chosen. However, you may be a little too playful and forward to be one - perhaps a ESTP?

To post more to the point, why do NFPs always have to see inside of people? I guess motivations are a prime directive for you folks, and since the ISTPs may have motivations without the same kind of 'ideological backing', you get way too freaking confused.

Firstly, being N makes you inclined to work things out in roundabout ways; we just find the indirect path to be the easier one for us. Secondly, it's because Fi is just so focused on subjectivity. Fe provides more of a short hand, a standard, common language, through which to evaluate people. We just can't do that well. We have to read each person as an individual, on their own terms. The only way to do this is to try to get into their head and anticipate what direction their emotional tone is going. Knowing someone's motivation isn't as important - it's more about knowing where their head space is and where they're coming from. It helps us to make sense of everything else they say, because we see it as filtered through that specific feeling tone. The specific feeling tone is the temporary yard stick with which to measure and interpret their behaviour - if that makes sense.

And I do think anticipating is important to us (especially when it comes to emotional atmosphere). ISTPs for example, can handle things well when they simply react as they happen, but we can't manage that as efficiently. Whether it's because we can't evaluate things well in the moment, or because we can't handle not knowing what's coming, I'm not sure. It may be a combination of both. For example, I can't tell you how often someone will ask me if I want a cup of tea, and I sit there like an idiot, stuck in complete indecision. I will try to consult my feelings and bodily senses, attempting to work out if I do want it or not, sometimes for a ridiculous amount of time. I might even have to imagine the taste of it in my mouth, to test if that would be satisfactory to me at that particular moment. Often I have no idea and will just say yes (or no), so the other person isn't left waiting for an eternity. Sometimes I'm still not even sure until I actually drink it.

I guess the types may both be at opposite ends of the emotional self-awareness spectrum from each other.

Yes, perhaps.

As [MENTION=8904]Esoteric Wench[/MENTION] pointed out, ISTPs are Fe inferior (Feeling is last), but at the same time, INFPs are Te inferior (Thinking is last). That may have something to do with it. Well, that and having no functions in common.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

In this second part of my answer, I wanted to respond more directly to the OP's question about expressed ISTP emotion being shocking for NFPs:

Just yesterday, my ISTP had an emotional meltdown. He was feeling stressed out by his "to do" list for that day and he became very curt with me for no apparent reason. I've been with him long enough to have learned how to pick up on this as a sign of his emotional state. Instead of asking him how he felt, I told him what I observed: "You seemed to be stressed out to me." He then was able to identify his emotions and deal with them. But according to him, he didn't even realize how he was feeling until I said something to him. He went on to explain that he often doesn't recognize that he's feeling anything until he's been wrangling with his emotions for a considerable amount of time.

I've been with my ISTP for going on five years, and even now he sometimes shocks me with what seems to me to be an eruption of emotions that comes out of nowhere. He's normally so calm and collected. Then, when he does express an emotion, it normally is done very powerfully and abruptly. I've come to the conclusion that it's because unless the emotion is very, very strong he can overlook the fact that he's feeling anything at all. His emotions are unattended to and they can build up in him until they are very strong and he is on the verge of <insert your favorite emotional reaction here>.

I hope this makes some sense.

You seem to have a good understanding. Everything bolded makes absolute sense. The underlined is very true. I can relate. Thanks for the well thought out response.

I think he does that Te question thing in your earlier post. I've noticed he tries to break down my responses. We were watching Netflix tonight and he asked about a movie, I said, "Sure." he immediately skipped it and said. "You said, 'sure' you're not into it." ha. I have to laugh because most of the time it *really doesn't matter* but I just let him go with it. If it wasn't for this site, I might be annoyed. Instead, I think it's sort of endearing because I take it as if he wants to make me happy. Sometimes, when I'm in the mood to do so, he makes me think about what I really do prefer - which is strange but I think that's why I mentioned feeling pampered by him.

 

[Southern Kross]

You seem to have a good understanding. Everything bolded makes absolute sense. The underlined is very true. I can relate. Thanks for the well thought out response.

I think he does that Te question thing in your earlier post. I've noticed he tries to break down my responses. We were watching Netflix tonight and he asked about a movie, I said, "Sure." he immediately skipped it and said. "You said, 'sure' you're not into it." ha. I have to laugh because most of the time it *really doesn't matter* but I just let him go with it. If it wasn't for this site, I might be annoyed. Instead, I think it's sort of endearing because I take it as if he wants to make me happy. Sometimes, when I'm in the mood to do so, he makes me think about what I really do prefer - which is strange but I think that's why I mentioned feeling pampered by him.