[INTJ] Sentimentality in INTJ

[Robin K]

An INTJ friend of mine I find is hopelessly sentimental. Among many things he loves Christmas, still hasn't thrown away his old toys and has spent a lot of effort to find old cartoons, which he plans to put on DVDs, along with complete covers. (And it's not cartoons in general, just the ones he watched as a kid.)

Such connections to the past I associate with SJs, however I am very sure he is INTJ. Therefore I am wondering if any of you INTJs out there experience a similar connection to your childhood and if you have any idea where this is coming from.

 

[agentwashington]

An INTJ ex of mine had a lot of keepsakes, presents that he got from other people, etc., that was important to him.

 

[SirCanSir]

Why are you examining sentimentality in INTJs specifically? What do you find too weird about it. Is it because they seem to be too practical for that?

From a couple of examples in my life ive noticed they can be sentimental since they value certain connections with people and like to maintain things that remind them of that. One of them seemed to be awfully sentimental about things that are remnants of his past relationships with others (mainly friendships) and would often talk a lot about that but im still a bit uncertain of his type. I think he is definitely NT though. Just using him as an example because thats what he used to score at the tests.

 

[Robin K]

Why are you examining sentimentality in INTJs specifically? What do you find too weird about it. Is it because they seem to be too practical for that?

From a couple of examples in my life ive noticed they can be sentimental since they value certain connections with people and like to maintain things that remind them of that. One of them seemed to be awfully sentimental about things that are remnants of his past relationships with others (mainly friendships) and would often talk a lot about that but im still a bit uncertain of his type. I think he is definitely NT though. Just using him as an example because thats what he used to score at the tests.

Not weird at all. ISTJs uses their past experiences all the time to create practical solutions.

As I understand it, INTJs uses Ni to draw conclutions about the future, using input from Se immediate experiences and Si past experiences are not particulary vivid. They are very much future oriented people. What I'm trying to do is to understand Si a bit better and the reasons for my friend's sentimentality. My guess is that the INTJ doesn't have particulary strong connections to the past in general, but has very vivid memories of certain experiences, which are of great importance to their inner value system, Fi. That is, they are very attached to memories that are important to them. That would explain why they are able to take such decisive desitions - by just paying attension to the important things, unlike me (an INTP) who feel the need to take into account a lot of variables, coming from my much broader "recordings" of the past.

As another friend but it (I'm not sure of his type): I have a selective memory.

 

[Talvoz]

Hi, I see this post was from several months ago, but I just came across it and thought I might give my two cents as an INTJ myself. From my understanding and experience, an INTJ is more likely to be sentimental about particular items or events, like you (Robin) said, as opposed to the past in general. Another consideration might be that since INTJ's do not form attachments to things and events as often, when we do form these attachments, they are likely significant so we prefer to keep the items around and stay involved in those events. Personally, I think this may be especially true if we associate the items or events with particular concepts that are important to us, like inspiration, creativity, or ingenuity.