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[NT] ENFP confused by INTx

Thalassa

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ISTx are not boring. Only the unhealthy ones. :cheese:

They just don't suit me, I mean, I can casually date them or have a fling, but I feel...distant from them. Like something is missing. And that bores me, no matter what their good qualities may be.

A lot of what I read through in this thread from the INTP's, describes an unhealthy person and has nothing to do with a healthy INTP or INTJ. My Dad is a classic example of a healthy INTP. It's like night and day. The reality is, this man is unhealthy and the sooner the OP comes to terms with that, the better off she will be. Reread all of her posts, if you have any doubts. The OP is setting herself up for disappointment. She will not have to go through this crap with a healthy man. I know.

Yeah I've observed that some INTx are more open or friendly or well-adjusted than others...in fact I made a thread about this a few days ago, about Ts and Openness and using being a T (especially an NT) as an excuse to cover up other issues.

Gawd, I'm always shocked to realize how warped and selfish people's thinking is. So you're INTx, so what?? You're not a bunch of friggin babies! We don't need someone to hold our hands and walk us through life. Sometimes we need a dose of cold cruel reality, like a threat that you're gonna leave us for someone else if we don't commit. That's not a game, that's not mean, it's reality baby! People have a right to get frustrated and move on with their lives. Who the hell do we think we are?

I empathize.
 

Thalassa

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Oh and Happy Birthday Agent Furrina!!!
 

Rex

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Happy new year and birthday.

If he states the same about bonds i think you will find sucsess. and please do give him alot of info about what you think of doing together with him. I had a hard time the first 4-6 hours this new years eve because of lack of info.
 

Thalassa

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In my experience, INTJs say this shit...like they want more attention, a more assertive female...but when that actually happens they distance you. I honestly think they tend to want someone unavailable in some aspect.

I have no idea how INTJs and ENFPs even end up together since the one's I've known seem to be so freaked out by feelings.
 

AgentF

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Happy new year and birthday.

If he states the same about bonds i think you will find sucsess. and please do give him alot of info about what you think of doing together with him. I had a hard time the first 4-6 hours this new years eve because of lack of info.

Thanks :) I had an amazing time.

Can you clarify what you mean about more info? Do you mean, be explicit with him about how I feel?
 

Rex

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Just basic info about ho is going to be there if its a party and how many roughly.
I was not excepting drinking at all as the impression i got was that were were to hang out with our friends at their place. And they have a kid. She did not mention drinking either so i had nothing with me. I was thinking about it, mainly to cool down the nerves a bit.
 

AgentF

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checking in...

hi, everyone,

just wanted to check back in. nothing has really changed, apart from some heavy deliberation on my part (i.e., trying to exorcize my feelings for him with no success). i had learned that he'd slept with his ex recently...he had told me he wasn't exclusive so didn't lie to me, but it still hurt as it happened on my birthday*. shitty, just shitty. so last week i told him i needed time to think and decide how i wanted to proceed: a) walk away; b) be friends--he says he wants me in his life one way or another; c) date for the 2 months he said he needs to decide whether he can commit to being with me in a long-term, exclusive relationship ultimately leading to marriage (= our individual relationship goals).

i spent several days away from him in order to make sure i really wanted this. tried detaching, evaluated what being friends would be like, let myself feel anger towards him, tried sorting out my feelings over his demonstrated lack of exclusivity and absolutely CRAPPY sense of priorities. as it turned out, i can't walk away from my feelings for him, so decided to date and see what happens. what helped is that he sensed me pulling away, and kept contacting me...saying hello, asking about my silence, updating me on his dating situation. since the worst case scenario is a break up in 2 months, i spent about a week considering whether i want that. i guess i'd rather be pleasantly surprised later than miserable now...so we're dating with no guarantees.

so nothing really new. i hope that, by being myself and being patient enough to lay a healthy foundation, he will know whether he can be with me. certainly, i've demonstrated patience and loyalty. he recently told me he is 80% available for a relationship. that was much higher than i expected, but at that time he also repeated that he's not sure if he wants a LTR with me. he is always precise, not very romantic but at least i know where i stand.

i will keep you posted. i have to admit i think he's being very strategic about this, which drives me crazy. he wants to rescue friendship at the least, whereas that doesn't seem like an option to me. it will hurt too much if he decides he can't be with me in 2 months. i just don't believe men and women can be friends after being romantically involved...i even tried convincing him that sleeping with his ex (who still wants to be with him) hurts her, but he said she claims she's ok with it.

having a very hard time not concluding somewhere under the surface, he is a selfish person who is ok hurting others for his own gain. he's admitted he jumped in too soon in the past and doesn't want to repeat that mistake. i hate this nagging feeling that i'm a lamb being led to the slaughter...but he'd have to be a cold-blooded bastard to intentionally hurt me. i've repeatedly asked him to cut me loose if he *knows* that we can't be together, and he says that's not the case...that he isn't sure but is trying to decide. since when is love a decision?

:(


*apparently, he would have been with me on my bday had i asked him before she did...and would have tried meeting up with me at the end of the evening had i asked him. why should i have had to be so explicit? aren't these things understood?! and what kind of person prioritizes "ending things on a good note" with his ex, as he puts it, over protecting the potential of a new relationship? i will never, never understand the logic behind this. how can someone who puts so much energy into being ethical and protecting those he cares about, be ok with a system where one confirmed woman and possibly a second (who is in denial about the affects of sleeping with her ex) get hurt, in order to satisfy his needs? INTJs *care* about integrity and honesty, or so i thought...i feel like i've bumped into a major blindspot of his. and it isn't attractive.
 

SillySapienne

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Drop him like he's hot.

The sooner you get out the less time you will have wasted and the less hurt you'll feel.

He is not over his ex, either.
 

Greta

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Girl, you need to lose this loser.

You're way too invested and he's using this fact to play you like a fiddle.

And once fiddle has been played in a relationship, it's all downhill from there.

Close this chapter if you know what's good for you.
 
V

violaine

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^Agree with the above. This guy is a mess and I think you are only going to get more hurt than you already have been.
 

the state i am in

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that sounds pretty bad. i wouldn't stay in that situation. it feels extremely disrespectful. and like he's not not taking any responsibility to fairly disclose his actual feelings (i've been trapped in situations where i didn't know how to publish the whole truth of my feelings (i didn't know them), but my behavior at least was aimed at being as fair as possible). even if he doesn't know them, he's doing hurtful things, and in that case, when he hasn't earned any leniency either, when he hasn't made sacrifices for you, it's not at all fair to ask for sacrifices from you. the "wanting to be friends" thing can be nice and noble, but it's also saying "yeah, let's be friends because i like keeping people around who love me so much." if you don't, things change, and he seems really poor at commitment, and is in fact using previous issues he's had as an excuse to behave worse, to slant things so dramatically for his own advantage (and avoidance of risk). i know about wanting to avoid risk. i've gotten angry as a way of manipulating a situation. i've been a fickle 5w4 sx/sp. he's not helping anyone including himself by pulling this bullshit, and at this point, i don't know how the relationship could be recoverable even if he were to suddenly change. could he feasibly change enough that his reasons wouldn't be to avoid his own needed self-improvements? because he has to address his own shit and stop assuming that others will do that for him in the right time. not being able to say look, i really do need time, and whether you wait for me or not, it's absolutely necessary for me to get over my shit. if he was saying, look, i think i need time, but i'm willing to try bc i think this relationship is worth giving a shot even if the timing isn't ideal, well, he wouldn't fucking sleep with his ex in that case!!! that's definitely a choice, and that that's okay bc it's not legally lying is really telling. i don't know how i wouldn't be overwhelmed with guilt if i were to see the person in your position if i had said what i said to you, continually reinforced notions of possibility to keep things going, and then made a choice that i didn't even try to explain, feel remorse for, and use as a springboard to fully and completely equalize everything, to try to make up for it to you in some way. especially if i really believed in a special possibility existing between the two of us, and ESPECIALLY a long term, life long, this is it possibility.
 

INTP

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Drop him like he's hot.

The sooner you get out the less time you will have wasted and the less hurt you'll feel.

He is not over his ex, either.

this.
 

Thalassa

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He slept with his ex ON YOUR BIRTHDAY? Plus you're saying he's a selfish person who has no problem using others to his own gain?

Run, run, run away.
 

AgentF

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i haven't decided what i'm going to do yet. still reflecting/detaching/mourning. i think i got fucked over here. but my intuition tells me that, yes, he fucked up, but he isn't a bad person.

the question is, do i want to take this journey with him, already having been hurt. it just saddens me that he has no idea how blind he's been, and what a good partner i could be. he said once that if i walked away from him, he would respect my wishes but come back when he was ready for a relationship. and that i might turn him down, and that he would go away and come back again later. he then said maybe i would be the one that got away. i looked at him in shock that he could even verbalize that possibility, and seem melancholy but accepting of it. that tells me he is on some level ok with it, and i'd rather be with someone who has what it takes to fight for a relationship.

life isn't perfect and pretty. people get sick. lose jobs. become humbled one way or another...and having a loving, supportive companion is what matters then. who knows...perhaps he has that in his ex, and anything else is auxiliary. just comforting sex.

how very sad. i don't want to be a casualty, which is why i'm trying to detach. the option to walk away from him now obviously exists. i could say "come back when you're ready for a relationship." and maybe i do that. maybe now, or maybe in two months after i've taken a hard look at him and catalogued his strengths/weaknesses, and made a rational decision about whether or not he has what it takes to be a good partner to me. i kind of feel like i don't have all the information i need...just a big ol' smoking gun (his sleeping with an ex in parallel with me, and subsequent denial of any wrong-doing) combined with the lovely things i see in his personality. things which exist in all of us, perhaps, but which i appreciate in him. but those things combined do not a relationship make...and yet i am compelled to want to investigate further. i am a mess. but, a silent mess, as i haven't succumbed yet. still, for now, trapped in my deliberations.

i read here that the ENFP's hidden agenda is "to know": http://www.socionics.com/articles/hiddena.htm

and there's the rub. i want to know, i hate having identified a possibility, even a faint glimmer of one...and walked away without knowing. i'm just trying to achieve the knowing without having my heart kicked to the curb like an old shoe. i'm a wonderful, loving, loyal person. it is so sad to me that this one man says he realizes it*, but doesn't know what to do with it.

ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT NOTE: he has repeatedly told me that his ex doesn't get hurt when they have sex after their break-up (which he precipitated citing reasons of incompatibility). i told him that is b.s., that women *always* feel emotionally bonded after sleeping with someone they used to love (and in her case, currently loves). i told him that, every time he sleeps with her, it prolongs the pain of their breakup and makes it impossible for either of them to fully heal. at least, perhaps for her. am i alone in this belief? can some women please comment?

* i've been told that i'm awesome. that he's excited about me. that he hopes to have me in his life one way or another for a long time to come. that he has started to love me (most recently). but why the f*ck don't i merit an acknowledgement that he hurt me by sleeping with his ex on my birthday?! or a revision to his position on being exclusive, as a result of seeing that it hurt me and is jeopardizing a relationship with an awesome person? are we so common that he can gamble...is he so broken that he can't be any different.
 

Thalassa

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I think the trick may actually be walking away from this person so perhaps he'll realize he values you in your absence. Otherwise, I think not.

I know it's hard, I've felt the way you feel before, and yes, just because people mess up doesn't make them bad people. But just because someone "isn't a bad person" doesn't mean they love you or will treat you well.

I understand how you feel, I really do, and it's so freaking hard to make yourself snap out of it, but I think it would be in your own best interest.

:hug:
 

Rex

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Load up your Megaphone machine gun and yell at him like a madman...

pr-megaphone.jpg


But first we need to know if you ever said anything to him about him meeting other girls.. its a given i know..

And yes you should probably try to walk away from him. But not before you have talked about it/yelled at him.. in the flesh.
 

INTP

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the bottom line is that he really wants to be with his ex rather than you. he might like you and would like to be with you, if he didnt want to be with his ex more than you.
 

slowriot

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if you believe this guy, you are stupid. So he tells you, now, that he loves you? Was this after the sex with the ex? Seems manipulative to me, keeping you lingering until he figures out if he need you.

This is way too much on his terms. You need to change the dynamic atleast.
 

Tallulah

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Yeah, the fact that he slept with his ex on your birthday is all I'd need to know. I think I was giving him too much credit before. This guy doesn't have your best interests at heart.
 
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