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[INTP] INTP men and love

I Never Find Peace

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I have a suspicion my INTP male friend (with "benefits") is growing attached to me, but he doesn't realize what he's feeling because it's an outgrowth of friendship and he has only ever felt "in love" twice. Both times were clearly infatuation and chemistry, but they were not healthy relationships.

If this is so, what would the signs be? I'm sure that if I tried to talk to him about it at this point, he'd deny it vehemently and say that I was just a close, important friend to him...but that doesn't explain why he wanted to sleep with me EVERY NIGHT this past week. He also wants to communicate with me every day, and often remarks on how well I understand him and what a cool person I am. He is otherwise quite down on humanity.

My intuition is on high alert here, but with Fi and Ne constantly competing in me, it's hard to tell sometimes, so I thought I'd ask other INTPs for some help in understanding their brother.

I care a lot for him. I'm not sure what I feel or want otherwise, though. The last thing I want is for either of us to hurt each other.
 

esidebill

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Hmm. When I was "in love", I'd constantly be messaging my partner in an almost blanketing way. Usually this seen as an abnormal thing by most, but for me it felt quite OK being so "clingy" when I was in love. This was mostly because I had this ambition of making sure the person liked me.
 

Shimmy

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Here are some of my scattered thoughts on the subject:

- If he is really in love with you feelings will get hurt eventually. But that's just a part of life so don't worry too much about it.

- On the other hand, your story is full of assumptions. You assume he's in love with you and you assume you won't be able to talk to him about it.

- If you really don't want to get in the feelings part of it, just tell him straight forward you don't want him to communicate with you all the time, and that you don't want to sleep with him every night.. No emotions, just plain hard demands.
 

Octarine

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I'm sure that if I tried to talk to him about it at this point, he'd deny it vehemently and say that I was just a close, important friend to him...

What he will say is irrelevant, you still need to tell him how you feel before things get out of hand.
 

The_World_As_Will

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Do you love him back?, clearly you must have some sorts of feelings for him, if it's a friends with benefits thing, might as well just make it into a relationship. I say tell him how you feel on this, without assumptions and see what he says, even if he does deny it, he might not deny it and profess his love for you, who knows. But I think the whole friends with benefits thing never really works out, one party always develops feelings for the other, it always turns out that way.
 

INTP

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start talking to him how nice it is to be JUST friends with benefits, how well it works(and say things like how you dont want a relationship, but this way you get to have sex and you get to do it with a friend etc). but dont do it in any obvious way, just start talking about casually it after having sex, because INTPs(or at least me) are good at sensing that there might be a reason why someone says something like this. reasons to talk about this after sex, is that it seems less obvious that way and you can catch him on happy mood. the reason why this happy mood is important with this is because if he has fallen for you, you can see his mood going down like titanic. get an eye contact to him just before ending saying these things and you can see it from his eyes or you can see him starting to avoid eye contact, so that you cant see it from his eyes. even if you couldnt detect it at that moment, you will definitely notice it from his later behavior, as he will start to protect himself from you. or then he might ask you if you are sure that you wouldnt want anything more. i can guarantee that it will work. and as an INFP, you might think that this is cruel or something, but from an INTP point of view its the best way to do it.
 

I Never Find Peace

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I saw him again last night and I've been thinking about this all day. Dammit, I do love him. But am I projecting my Fi onto him, and my Idealist wishful thinking, or is my Ne telling me I am loved, and I'm responding by loving back? Or both?

I'll welcome more of your insights and I'm also heading over to the Idyllic for an NF perspective.
 

King sns

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start talking to him how nice it is to be JUST friends with benefits, how well it works(and say things like how you dont want a relationship, but this way you get to have sex and you get to do it with a friend etc). but dont do it in any obvious way, just start talking about casually it after having sex, because INTPs(or at least me) are good at sensing that there might be a reason why someone says something like this. reasons to talk about this after sex, is that it seems less obvious that way and you can catch him on happy mood. the reason why this happy mood is important with this is because if he has fallen for you, you can see his mood going down like titanic. get an eye contact to him just before ending saying these things and you can see it from his eyes or you can see him starting to avoid eye contact, so that you cant see it from his eyes. even if you couldnt detect it at that moment, you will definitely notice it from his later behavior, as he will start to protect himself from you. or then he might ask you if you are sure that you wouldnt want anything more. i can guarantee that it will work. and as an INFP, you might think that this is cruel or something, but from an INTP point of view its the best way to do it.

No wonder I'm an INTP magnet!
 

Mal12345

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It's just male menopause.
 

Mal12345

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No wonder I'm an INTP magnet!

I fell hard for an ESFP a few years ago. It didn't work out and a couple years later her best friend told me she's been using meth again. I didn't know she ever used it. Thankfully it didn't work out. But still...
 

Shimmy

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I saw him again last night and I've been thinking about this all day. Dammit, I do love him. But am I projecting my Fi onto him, and my Idealist wishful thinking, or is my Ne telling me I am loved, and I'm responding by loving back? Or both?

I'll welcome more of your insights and I'm also heading over to the Idyllic for an NF perspective.

And why is any of this relevant? If you want to be with him and you are both willing and able, then why not do the whole relationship thing? Who cares where your feelings come from, if you feel them they are real.
 

slowriot

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I saw him again last night and I've been thinking about this all day. Dammit, I do love him. But am I projecting my Fi onto him, and my Idealist wishful thinking, or is my Ne telling me I am loved, and I'm responding by loving back? Or both?

I'll welcome more of your insights and I'm also heading over to the Idyllic for an NF perspective.

You are making this quite difficult for yourself. If you are not able to give love freely then by all means dont get involved, but if you are able to.... What's so wrong about about having a relationship with this guy? Its not "I love you because I need you" but "I need you because I love you" if its the latter, then whats wrong?
 

I Never Find Peace

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What's wrong is that he insists he's not relationship material and has a history of rationalizing himself out of what could have been close relationships, and says he doesn't want a relationship. He's also very changeable. He could change his mind about that tomorrow, and then change it back again. He gets vulnerable, and then he throws up walls. He has a death wish. He becomes bitterly disappointed with people when they're irrational, and he gets angry when people are fake. I can understand this, but I don't dwell on it and it doesn't ruin life for me.

I used to think he was almost a complete robot, but now that I've gotten to know him better, I sometimes think he's even more vulnerable and emotionally intense than I am. All these things make me want to shield him from the world's pain, but I think he also courts that pain in a way, or uses the world's imperfections as an excuse not to be close/obligated to others. He's really good at using rationalization and overthinking as defense mechanisms. He's also extremely stubborn.

TL; DR -- I might get hurt.
 

slowriot

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What's wrong is that he insists he's not relationship material and has a history of rationalizing himself out of what could have been close relationships, and says he doesn't want a relationship. He's also very changeable. He could change his mind about that tomorrow, and then change it back again. He gets vulnerable, and then he throws up walls. He has a death wish. He becomes bitterly disappointed with people when they're irrational, and he gets angry when people are fake. I can understand this, but I don't dwell on it and it doesn't ruin life for me.

I used to think he was almost a complete robot, but now that I've gotten to know him better, I sometimes think he's even more vulnerable and emotionally intense than I am. All these things make me want to shield him from the world's pain, but I think he also courts that pain in a way, or uses the world's imperfections as an excuse not to be close/obligated to others. He's really good at using rationalization and overthinking as defense mechanisms. He's also extremely stubborn.

TL; DR -- I might get hurt.

regards to this, he sounds like someone you shouldnt get involved with. What a pathetic jerk.
 

Giggly

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He's not ready for, and may never be ready for, a commitment but he likes you.

If your final goal is to simply get him to admit/show his feelings for you and that's it, then do what "INTP" said to do. It will work.

If getting him to commit to you is your goal, then this is not the man for you. It's not personal, it's just the way it is.
 

Totenkindly

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What's wrong is that he insists he's not relationship material and has a history of rationalizing himself out of what could have been close relationships, and says he doesn't want a relationship. He's also very changeable. He could change his mind about that tomorrow, and then change it back again. He gets vulnerable, and then he throws up walls. He has a death wish. He becomes bitterly disappointed with people when they're irrational, and he gets angry when people are fake. I can understand this, but I don't dwell on it and it doesn't ruin life for me.

I used to think he was almost a complete robot, but now that I've gotten to know him better, I sometimes think he's even more vulnerable and emotionally intense than I am. All these things make me want to shield him from the world's pain, but I think he also courts that pain in a way, or uses the world's imperfections as an excuse not to be close/obligated to others. He's really good at using rationalization and overthinking as defense mechanisms. He's also extremely stubborn.

TL; DR -- I might get hurt.

Sounds like it is prudent to protect yourself appropriately, even while exploring the relationship. you do not want to get blind-sided.

giggly said:
He's not ready for, and may never be ready for, a commitment but he likes you.

I'd go with this.
 

I Never Find Peace

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If he had not started acting more relationshippy with me on his own accord, I would have continued with the FWB mindset. He started to act like he wanted to spend a lot of time with me, almost every night, and began to compliment me more and to be more snuggly. He began to hint that he had stopped being interested in other women just for their looks. He was grilling me last night about a guy that I started dating recently. Also, he mentioned that maybe he should start enjoying life more. I thought "he's falling for me" and then I started thinking about how I felt.

But you guys may be right that no matter how he feels, he won't change his mind about what he wants. I'm going to try to control my feelings and just try to keep thinking of him as a friend. I mean, yes, he's got a bunch of baggage, but he is a really great friend anyway.
 

INTP

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to me it sounds that deep down he does want a relationship, but is afraid to get hurt, so he uses rationalization to make excuses for not getting into a situation where he might get hurt. and because of all these excuses, he doesent realize what he really wants. he is kinda pushing these wants into his unconscious, but acting by these unconscious wants in some things(like wanting to be more with you, getting more snuggly, jealous over other guys, losing interest on other women and i bet there are some other things also that you didnt mention).

i think that you might be able to change his mind about this, it might not be easy.
 

I Never Find Peace

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INTP, I agree with your assessment. But I also think trying to talk someone into a relationship is really clingy and disrespectful of them. What if I adopted the stance that our friendship is the most important thing, but that as a person who is looking for a long-term relationship, if he changed his mind, I would consider it? Meanwhile, we can see other people.

I've been dating this other guy for about six weeks and it's going well so far. I don't want to give him up, under the circumstances. We haven't made it "official" yet but there may be potential there. I'm still getting to know him, though. I think he's IxFP.

The ironic thing is that my INTP FWB pushed me away when we started getting closer, and that's when I started dating the other guy. The INTP was dating other women and that he didn't see me "that way," and that I should start dating other guys. I did and we stopped having sex, and we got to be closer friends. Then we began hooking up again. I did not expect such an outpouring of affection from him and I am wary.
 

INTP

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okay. but you know that you seeing other people makes you seem like greater potential of hurting him if he gets too close to you.

and im not saying that you should talk him into relationship with you. more like, well lets just say that if he would understand that him protecting himself to much is keeping him away from greater happiness and a good relationship is what could give him the greater happiness, if that is something he truly wants(and he may not know that its what he truly wants). kinda like making him realize what he truly wants and if that something is a good relationship, you could present yourself in a good light. in this case you presenting yourself in a good light would mean that you need to seem reliable in his eyes, like true long term material that he can count on. this isnt something you should do if you arent positive that you would be long term material for him
 
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