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[ENTP] Are ENTPs aggressive/forceful?

Economica

Dhampyr
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Well, I don't wanna get too involved in talking about that particular woman, cos she's really just an example of similar experiences I seem to have with other INFJ's, but not just that type - in fact most non-NT types :(

...Maybe you should try describing your interaction with a less dysfunctional example of a non-NT than your INFJ friend?
 

The Ü™

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My mom's boyfriend is either an ENFP or ENTP. I am inclined to think he's an ENTP because he can be insensitive and selfish at times.

Regardless, his dominant Ne function is obvious. He comes up with crazy off-the-wall ideas that are really creative but gives little thought as to whether or not they're workable.

But that's exactly why I like him. He had this idea for building a water slide going down out of the bathroom window on the second floor. I thought it was cool, even though there are certain legal and practical considerations to take into consideration.

But it does seem that ENTPs are the quirkiest of all the types.
 

substitute

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ENTPs dont come across to me as particularly aggressive or intimidating, but I notice in my ENTP friend that he often says hurtful or offensive things to people for the sake of beeing funny, he seems to see it just as playful teasing, but some things he says are actually very hurtful, I imagine especially to F people.

Oh hello stranger! lol

Yeah, I used to be like that a lot more than I am nowadays, I've learned to tone myself down a bit around more sensitive people, and I tend to actually keep that side of myself (the Oscar Wilde disciple lol) restrained until I know the person well enough to know what they can handle and what they can't. The last thing I want to do is upset people, or to joke around at another's expense.

He also seems like a major goofball who seems to take nothing seriously and is not committed to anything. He does not strike me as particularly dependable or trustworthy, usually you get the feeling that he says something, and five seconds later he has it comlpetely forgotten.

I can be like that too, but it's a false impression because I am actually very seriously committed (even fanatically so) and loyal once I find something/someone worth committing to. I had a sorta 'oh shit moment' in my early 20s where I realised I had just this back-catalogue of started and unfinished projects and hadn't really achieved anything, so I made a point of working really hard on myself to develop stamina and a sense of commitment. You wouldn't believe how hard it was for me when I started doing this by just buying a model aeroplane and forcing myself to finish it even though I was bored by the time I'd just figured out how to finish it!!

I still goof off in my 'down time' though - I can be seriously silly when I'm off duty, but that doesn't mean I can't quickly snap back into responsible mode if I need to.

you come across as a genuinely committed person in your writting, but I thought I'd give you some impression that an ENTP I know gives of to the people around him, and that some ENTPs might come across very differently from how they think they do.

Aw shucks! Thank you! Yeah I guess it's hanging out with NJ's so much that's had that effect on me. But my Enneagram sometimes comes out as 8, or split evenly between 5 and 8.

...Maybe you should try describing your interaction with a less dysfunctional example of a non-NT than your INFJ friend?

Well I dunno, I can't really go over in detail every INFJ or NF I've known... but the general trend is like that woman but just less 'extreme'.

My brother for example is ENFP. He seems incapable of understanding the concept of someone actually enjoying losing their temper. If I lose my temper at him, he gets shit scared and starts thinking I'm gonna hit him or something, thinks I've turned into a loose canon that's out of control and keeps telling me to calm down, which just irritates me because ffs I'm not angry at him, I'm not threatening him, I'm just frustrated with an idea that isn't cooperating ... lol... or a situation or just myself, and I've no intention at all of harming him, and I'm not like, dysfunctional or anything, I'm perfectly in control of myself and I'm enjoying the temper because it's so relieving to get the frustration out and exorcise it. If I had to sit on it and hold it all in then I probably would get dysfunctional and I would get angry at him then, because I'd be resenting the way his toxic reaction to anger forces me to hold in all this frustration. If he'd just leave me alone and let me rant, and just laugh at me, I'd laugh with him and it'd soon pass and I'd feel relieved to have got all the frustration out. Within minutes we could be laughing and sharing another joint, and I'd be thanking him for letting me rant, but it ends up like an hour of him stubbornly insisting that he won't listen to me until I calm down, and me insisting that I can't calm down until he listens to me and getting increasingly pissed while he gets increasingly scared and confused!
 

Totenkindly

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:shock: WTF? His dominant Ne couldn't get any more obvious if it put on a grass skirt and did the Hula!

I'm with you. The outer behavior is not "him" -- it's merely a disguise he wears to disarm or distract others, giving him time to think about what is happening and craft a new plan internally.

ESFPs' selves are established in Se, not in the internal world. That's where they do their thinking; they don't really observe their behavior as a third-party, they ARE what they appear to be (at least, until they mature a great deal).

---

I think I've just realised from reading these replies, what part of the 'problem' is. It seems that what, from my point of view, is someone who's totally absorbed by enthusiasm with an idea, and to whom nothing but the idea matters, and who has in a sense lost his own sense of self in a state of mind where all he wants to do is gather more information to add to this idea, in order to do which he needs to poke it out of others (in the form of their reactions to the idea), can come across quite differently from the other side. It can seem as attention-whoring, or great self-confidence or social ease, or indeed, assertiveness.

Oh, definitely. I think that's at least part, if not all, of it. I felt the same thing with my good ENTP friend. He would just get so caught up in the concept or idea that he was irrepressible and had no sense of how to rein it in... nor saw a need to.

And really, it's not like he NEEDS to per se -- it's simply one approach to things -- except that when he deals with introverts and especially non-N introverts, there is a real chance he could easily become annoying and just feel very overbearing to them, like a dynamo. He would exhaust me after awhile, just trying to deal with him sometimes, and I was even on the same page mentally/imagination-wise.

It's just something for you to keep in the back of your head -- "How am I coming across to these cowering, timid, easily exhausted introverts?" :)

You're get it, I'm sure. I mean, you came up with this on your own; now it's just a matter of not forgetting it when you're interacting, and just taking a little more care to tune into the people around you, not just the idea. Do not abandon your enthusiasm, though; it's one of your strengths.
 

Blackwater

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If the ENTP has a tendency to overly nuance its conclusions then the INTJ has a tendency to reduce its conclusions to either 0 or 1.

ENTP: "We must be aware of liability X within the theoretical framework of Y."

INTJ: "Are you saying that Y is totally useless?"
 

Siúil a Rúin

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I've known her for six years...

It's like she sees it as my job, my responsibility to constantly alter my behaviour and monitor myself so as not to hurt her precious feelings, but she doesn't seem to think it's at all reasonable that she should make a similar effort to restrain her paranoia!!
Wow. Yeah, that goes beyond personality/temperament types. She definitely has issues of some sort. Was she mistreated as a child or abandoned? Here are a few thoughts that may or may not apply.

1. If you mean a great deal to her, she may feel incapable of coping if you ever did reject her, and so she rehearses it as a reflex. It could be a twisted way of actually trusting you, or trying to, but there is always one more test she needs you to pass. Has she ever arrived at trusting anyone? Or is she stuck in the testing phase with no way out?

2. That she has lied to you and you forgave her is an important fact. Oftentimes a person's lack of trust results from their lack of trustworthiness. In a cheating relationship for example, the one who is cheating can actually get paranoid that their partner is cheating. It can be about projecting one's own lack of trustworthiness.

3. When a person has been abandoned and/or violated, that leaves an unresolved issue. When such scars occur in childhood, we don't have the emotional/rational tools to cope, so our brains store away the suffering. As we get older we tend to project that rejection and relive it in the present as a way of trying to resolve it. That is part of the reason why children of alcoholics or abusers often marry in kind. If that's the case, she needs counseling.

4. Is there anything about her paranoia that pressures you to reassure her in ways that benefit her? Could it be in part manipulation?

5. Chemical imbalances in the brain can also result in anxiety problems and paranoia.

Those are the possibilities that come foremost to my mind at the moment. What I would like to emphasize here is that the behavior you describe is not so much INFJ as it is dysfunctional. Do what you can, but don't lose hope. You will have no trouble connecting with a healthy INFJ or any other non-NT, I strongly suspect.
 

Totenkindly

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If the ENTP has a tendency to overly nuance its conclusions then the INTJ has a tendency to reduce its conclusions to either 0 or 1.

ENTP: "We must be aware of liability X within the theoretical framework of Y."

INTJ: "Are you saying that Y is totally useless?"

INTP: "Maybe. I think."
 

Siúil a Rúin

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My mom's boyfriend is either an ENFP or ENTP. I am inclined to think he's an ENTP because he can be insensitive and selfish at times.
:thelook: Yeah, so I'm thinking selfish and insensitive have little-nothing to do with type. Maybe some types are just more likely to behave that way with a smile?

Also, I'll add that I keep hearing these stories of extreme dysfuntion associated with INFJs. Sometimes I fear that when people encounter someone who is withdrawn, unrealistic, overly emotional, and rigid, the assumption is INFJ, when really they are just NUTS. I know an ISTP with all those same qualities. You'd be surprised how many types can be all those things. To anyone and everyone: please don't type all nut-jobs as INFJs unless they've taken the test, K? :cry:
 

substitute

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My mom's boyfriend is either an ENFP or ENTP. I am inclined to think he's an ENTP because he can be insensitive and selfish at times.

My ENFP brother (7 years older than me) is wayyyy more self-centred, irresponsible and insensitive than I am - the whole family agrees...

Regardless, his dominant Ne function is obvious. He comes up with crazy off-the-wall ideas .... He had this idea for building a water slide going down out of the bathroom window on the second floor.

LMAO!! I love it! *goes to look at own bathroom window, rubs chin*

Those are the possibilities that come foremost to my mind at the moment. What I would like to emphasize here is that the behavior you describe is not so much INFJ as it is dysfunctional. Do what you can, but don't lose hope. You will have no trouble connecting with a healthy INFJ or any other non-NT, I strongly suspect.

Thanks, that's actually very insightful and helpful. She wasn't abused as a kid, but she was married for a while to an abusive husband... But this gives me lots to think about... and was that a veiled compliment in there somewhere? :huh:

I do usually get on okay with most people... just now and then I meet these very sensitive types and it gets me all like, anxious, second-guessing myself all the time and worried that any minute now they're gonna drop their rattle for reasons incomprehensible to me, but which they'll nonetheless blame on me. I get sick of being called insensitive and intimidating when a lot of the time I feel like I'm virtually in a straight-jacket because of how hard I'm always trying to be sensitive and approachable.
 

Totenkindly

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Also, I'll add that I keep hearing these stories of extreme dysfuntion associated with INFJs. Sometimes I fear that when people encounter someone who is withdrawn, unrealistic, overly emotional, and rigid, the assumption is INFJ, when really they are just NUTS.

INFJs are all nuts? :thinking:

Well, okay... but that is the craziest thing I ever heard.

:D
 

Siúil a Rúin

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I do usually get on okay with most people... just now and then I meet these very sensitive types and it gets me all like, anxious, second-guessing myself all the time and worried that any minute now they're gonna drop their rattle for reasons incomprehensible to me, but which they'll nonetheless blame on me. I get sick of being called insensitive and intimidating when a lot of the time I feel like I'm virtually in a straight-jacket because of how hard I'm always trying to be sensitive and approachable.
fwiw, I'm basically an INFJ (usually test that way). I really like the ENTPs I've met. One on this board is an important friend to me. I have a student who I'd guess is an ENTP that I really enjoy teaching. He does accidentally insult me from time to time, but it is so hilarious. He's young, talks really fast, and is really smart. I can see that some teachers could peg him as trouble, though, because he is very honest about not being motivated. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from him... My teachers are always assuming I've read things because they think my comments are quotes. They've never considered that great minds think alike. Here's another... Now this isn't an insult, but I've never had a teacher work so hard at a 'you really could do better' speech. One more... I've been working on a theory as to why I'm so unmotivated, but it's still a work in progress. He's really smart and his brain works so fast that reality can't keep up. It's very frustrating for him. I've tried to help him figure out how to get motivated, and can see that he is completely sincere in what he says. My favorite people are the ones with good intentions who do sometimes say the wrong thing. I find that really charming and hilarious. Perhaps a sense of humor is a big factor in people being able to get along?

(edit: not implying that lack of motivation is an ENTP thing, just happens to apply in this one example of a really smart, young kid)

INFJs are all nuts? :thinking:

Well, okay... but that is the craziest thing I ever heard.

:D
You're just begging for a good goobering and snurpling! :tongue10:
 

Totenkindly

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My teachers are always assuming I've read things because they think my comments are quotes. They've never considered that great minds think alike. Here's another... Now this isn't an insult, but I've never had a teacher work so hard at a 'you really could do better' speech.

Once upon a time, my ENTP and I were writing a computer book together. I made the mistake of letting HIM be in charge of talking to the agents and publishers. His cover letters were so audacious -- one quote I remember (and groan over) is, "It's not a matter of if we get this book published, but when."

I still tease him about that... especially because the book was never published. :)

He doesn't try to sound pompous, it just comes naturally. Actually, it is just part of his "confident/bold" front -- his enthusiasm for his ideas, and honesty.

You're just begging for a good goobering and snurpling! :tongue10:

Help! Help! She's crazy! Crazy INFJ on the loose! Eeek! Run!

ummm... wait, what's a snurple??
 
R

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I've been reading here and there where other types (particularly F's and S's) talk about ENTP's and saying that we're generally forceful, aggressive and assertive, implying it in a bad way.

This strikes me as odd, because I've never thought of myself as an aggressive person. Assertive, certainly - I will be outspoken about things that piss me off, and I can be persuasive and I admit, manipulative too at times.

I agree with assertive, but not with forceful and aggressive.

As an INFP, the vibe I always get from ENTPs in social conversation is "competition" and "one-upsmanship." If I say I've done something, they say they've done it too but even better. If I express an opinion, they play devil's advocate and take the opposite side just to show me that they can defend an impromptu opinion better than I can defend a long-held heartfelt opinion. And If I express an idea, they insist they had that same idea a week ago and have since improved on it tenfold.

The last word is always theirs. If they mention that they visited Hawaii recently, then I'll mention I lived there for five years. That'll drive them into a frenzy, and they'll launch off into a list of all the exotic places they've ever lived. And furthermore, they'll challenge me to a trivia contest on Hawaii just to show me that they learned more about Hawaii in two weeks than I could possibly know after five years there.

As an INFP, I look for a cooperative, give-and-take vibe from a conversation. But with ENTPs it's always "competition" and "one-upsmanship." I understand that they see it as playfulness; but I just consider it exhausting.

I think I've just realised from reading these replies, what part of the 'problem' is. It seems that what, from my point of view, is someone who's totally absorbed by enthusiasm with an idea, and to whom nothing but the idea matters, and who has in a sense lost his own sense of self in a state of mind where all he wants to do is gather more information to add to this idea, in order to do which he needs to poke it out of others (in the form of their reactions to the idea), can come across quite differently from the other side.

It can seem as attention-whoring, or great self-confidence or social ease, or indeed, assertiveness.

In effect, it seems like what I need to do with my INFJ friend, is to somehow make her aware that when I'm in that mind space, what she's actually talking to is an incarnated idea, or perhaps a hub around which float ideas that have magnetized to it from the ether, which is presenting itself to her for whittling, adding to, moulding etc, and not a person who is challenging her or throwing down gauntlets or insisting on anything.


To me, that sounds like pure ego on your part. You're saying, "Look at me and all the brilliant ideas I'm generating! Feed me some raw material, and I'll process it and generate a dozen or more theories from it! Watch and admire!"

The ENTP is onstage declaiming brilliantly (at least in their own mind), and I'm expected to be the admiring audience. If I try to climb onstage during a break in their lines and express some lines of my own, they grab my lines away from me and tell me to go back to the audience and sit down. My lines belong to them now. They feel that they can express my lines far better than I can. So eventually I get irritated and quit feeding them lines if only to get them to shut up.

If you want to try an exercise with your INFJ friend, then try to give to your friend the very admiration that you want from her. Try to facilitate *her* ideas to the point that *she* becomes an incarnate idea. When she says something, don't seize her idea and run with it to show her how you can generate additional variations. Instead, ask questions to draw out more of *her* idea. And when there's no more to be drawn out, then let the idea rest. Don't build on it and improve it. Just admire it. Respect her ownership of her idea.

I think that's the stifling thing about ENTPs: They think of themselves as a hub for ideas which in practice means that they hijack everyone else's ideas and juggle them for entertainment. But people get tired of having their ideas and their thunder stolen. So why not practice letting your friend be the hub. Try to learn to be the audience instead of the person onstage.

Also remember the emotions. When you're talking with NFs, they often have invested an emotional stake in a given idea, and hence have a great interest in directing and molding the development of the idea. Don't merely wrest the idea from them and show them all the tricks you can do with it. By doing that you trivialize and clown with something that might in fact be very important to them.

To be perfectly frank, I would never speak to an ENTP of anything personal or emotionally important. They would just play with it until it's empty of content. It's like trying to play ball with a puppy. You throw the ball to the puppy, and the puppy tears up the ball and shreds it before bringing it back.

Shut down your idea-generating capacity and learn to hear and mull over the ideas of others without trying to improve on them. If you want their idea to be developed further, then ask questions and let the owner of the idea develop the idea in the directions that suit them best. Respect the ownership of the idea.

I do usually get on okay with most people... just now and then I meet these very sensitive types and it gets me all like, anxious, second-guessing myself all the time and worried that any minute now they're gonna drop their rattle for reasons incomprehensible to me, but which they'll nonetheless blame on me. I get sick of being called insensitive and intimidating when a lot of the time I feel like I'm virtually in a straight-jacket because of how hard I'm always trying to be sensitive and approachable.

I enjoy talking with ENTPs occasionally. We have some laughs and take some cheap shots at each other, and I remember that it's all just hot air. But for that very reason, it feels like wasted time. I can't trust them with anything important to me, because they'll hijack it and trash it. So in the end, there's really nothing gained from a conversation with an ENTP but just a lot of puppy drool and torn-up balls.

FL
 

The Ü™

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ENxPs are definitely good talkers and they're really good at getting everyone to believe them, in general.

In short, they're either good liars or good storytellers. My mom's boyfriend is really good at embellishing stories about his day at work, though my mom tends to be skeptical about them.

Most Ne people I've encountered also seem to be really paranoid. My mom's boyfriend, for example, is a classic conspiracy theorist. (Though I guess a paranoid person is more likely to be iNtuitive, anyway, since it's interpreting meanings.)

I can relate to most of his views, and like him, I fancy being an idea person, but I'm just not very good at communicating verbally.
 

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Thank you, FL -- I found that helpful, just to have a different perspective. I know in the past I've been guilty of the same thing you've credited to ENTPs (well... now that I think about it, my "bombing" of your posts on INTPc two months ago probably is a good example), and it helps me to hear again how sometimes the "playful" thing can be received negatively by others.

It's not that I am not aware of it, it's just that I think I do not really understand the "depth" of the hurt/annoyance because I don't experience it myself.

(Interestingly, it also acts as another point in favor of me being "T" -- since I don't have the same level of protection of my ideas as F's seem to and naturally gravitate towards the "hub / plates in the air" thing that you have described as typical of ENTP. While I find their extroversion unnecessarily abrasive/full of seeming hubris sometimes, I consistently have such a good time with them due to the constant plate-juggling and idea-spinning, it's just a lot of fun.)
 

substitute

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I agree with assertive, but not with forceful and aggressive.

As an INFP, the vibe I always get from ENTPs in social conversation is "competition" and "one-upsmanship."

I can see where you're driving at here, and I've been accused of that too, but from my POV it isn't like that at all... sometimes I do it in a blatant way, meaning it tongue-in-cheek, sending myself up really, but some people just don't get the humour and think I'm serious and egotistic and everything... can't please 'em all though... *shrug*

To me, that sounds like pure ego on your part. You're saying, "Look at me and all the brilliant ideas I'm generating! Feed me some raw material, and I'll process it and generate a dozen or more theories from it! Watch and admire!"

I sorta knew someone'd say that... again I've had people say that to me before... but again, it's not how I see it at all. I mean, I don't see the ideas as 'mine' at all, or the fact that I'm pointing them out as any reason why I should be thought of as clever or whatever. To me the ideas are like wonderful mists and jewels hanging in the air, like elusive little mythical beasts, and when I see one I get so excited that i want to chase it and want others to chase it with me. I don't take any credit myself for how good the idea is - it's not mine, like I say - it was there all along and all I've done is to happen to be looking in the right direction when it came along.

If someone else points out an idea to me, it's like I 'look' where they're pointing and tend to assume they want to chase it like I do, and what you're seeing as the one-upmanship thing is actually me trying to help clear away the undergrowth and stuff so we can see the clean, shiny idea unobstructed.

It just baffles me when this is attributed to ego, when in fact it's when I feel at my most humble, almost on my knees in love with the awesomeness of the idea.

The ENTP is onstage declaiming brilliantly (at least in their own mind), and I'm expected to be the admiring audience. If I try to climb onstage during a break in their lines and express some lines of my own, they grab my lines away from me and tell me to go back to the audience and sit down. My lines belong to them now. They feel that they can express my lines far better than I can. So eventually I get irritated and quit feeding them lines if only to get them to shut up.

I think you may be overgeneralising a whole type because of your experience with one or two bad examples of it... cos I can honestly say I don't do that...

If you want to try an exercise with your INFJ friend, then try to give to your friend the very admiration that you want from her.

Dude, I do not want her admiration. I already have it and it irritates me, I've spent years trying to get her to STOP admiring me and expecting me to know everything.

Try to facilitate *her* ideas to the point that *she* becomes an incarnate idea. When she says something, don't seize her idea and run with it to show her how you can generate additional variations. Instead, ask questions to draw out more of *her* idea. And when there's no more to be drawn out, then let the idea rest. Don't build on it and improve it. Just admire it. Respect her ownership of her idea.

I would totally do that, if she ever would actually come out with anything, but all she does is sit there like a doe-eyed thing, waiting for me to entertain her. Which I don't want to do.

Wow, it's amazing how deeply two people can misunderstand each other...


I think that's the stifling thing about ENTPs: They think of themselves as a hub for ideas which in practice means that they hijack everyone else's ideas and juggle them for entertainment. But people get tired of having their ideas and their thunder stolen. So why not practice letting your friend be the hub. Try to learn to be the audience instead of the person onstage.

Again I think this is part of the problem - I personally find the concept of 'ownership of ideas' quite alien, because I don't think of ideas as things people can own, either mine or anyone else's, I see them as wonderful things to be shared, and all anyone does is to point them out. If I point them out for other people, I don't expect or think that they'll think I'm wonderful or amazing for doing so - all I want recognition for is the idea, not myself. I don't want people to say "Wow, he's amazing!" I want them to say "Hey, this idea might have something to it - let's build on it!" I want them to forget I exist and just like... I dunno... haha, I guess I envisage sometimes everyone in a worshipping circle around a bunch of floating ideas, passing them between each other for reverent examination, telling each other the parts of them that we see that the others might not, so we can all get the most possible out of them.

Also remember the emotions. When you're talking with NFs, they often have invested an emotional stake in a given idea, and hence have a great interest in directing and molding the development of the idea. Don't merely wrest the idea from them and show them all the tricks you can do with it. By doing that you trivialize and clown with something that might in fact be very important to them.

Again, this is actually helpful in that you're reminding me of that concept that I find quite alien - people feeling entitled to 'own' ideas. But it's a mistake to think that in 'taking' and running with them, I'm trivializing them. Quite the opposite. Quite the opposite. If I thought it was trivial or simplistic, I'd ignore it.

To be perfectly frank, I would never speak to an ENTP of anything personal or emotionally important. They would just play with it until it's empty of content. It's like trying to play ball with a puppy. You throw the ball to the puppy, and the puppy tears up the ball and shreds it before bringing it back.

Ouch... all I can say is you must've met some ENTP's that are nothing like me... in fact I'm the one most of the people I know always come to with personal stuff, and I've had some people say I should be a counsellor because I listen without prejudice or judgement and accept people as I find them. If I was so terrible with this, then why would they do that? I actually make GREAT EFFORTS and go out of my way to listen to people and keep quiet while they're talking, and it's a fundamental part of me to respect a person's individuality and autonomy as a person, and to respect them and hear them out before I reply.

I enjoy talking with ENTPs occasionally. We have some laughs and take some cheap shots at each other, and I remember that it's all just hot air. But for that very reason, it feels like wasted time. I can't trust them with anything important to me, because they'll hijack it and trash it. So in the end, there's really nothing gained from a conversation with an ENTP but just a lot of puppy drool and torn-up balls.

FL

Ouch again!! Maybe you might want to take a look at the idea that you may be just a teeny bit oversensitive? This might've been the case with me, say, ten years ago or something, but in the last 10 years I've worked damn hard on myself to learn to listen, respect, restrain myself, etc... I don't think it's fair to have such a great prejudice against a whole type like this... as I say, it'd be like me making a blanket judgement that all INFx's are bunny boilers just because some I've met have been.

Ego-monsters come in all shapes and sizes and like Toonia says about not judging all people who're just NUTS as INFJ or vice versa, maybe you should think about not typing all egotistical, insensitive maniacs as ENTP's and vice versa??

I mean, in a way, one could say that the ENTP's you're talking about are the ones showing true humility before the ideas, while you're the one showing the big ego, wanting to grasp onto it and own it as yours and yours alone and claiming the credit for its awesomeness, wanting to be seen as the only one who's ever thought of it and so jealous and guarding of it that you don't care whether it never reaches its full potential?
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
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Really, I think this is just a matter of perspective. The ENTP is perceiving one way, the INFP another, and honestly, both of you are right.

We are not arguing the motivations of the person in question, we're merely exploring how those actions are perceived by others who are different. So there is no need to justify one's behavior. It's just something to take into account.

The same thing happened in a conversation with a friend yesterday. He was upset over how someone was behaving in a particular situation but was interpreting the behavior through his own filters, not from the person's in question. I was able to help frame the other POV so that my friend could understand why the other person was behaving this way, based on their personality, and that it really wasn't being done for the same reasons that would have been driving him if HE had been behaving that way.

This was not an excuse for anyone's behavior, nor did it mean that the two people in question didn't have to think about how others might perceive them. But really, this sort of friction is just an inevitable part of human interaction.

Here, I see that (1) the ENTP doesn't mean to seem pompous, he is really doing what he feels most alive doing and (2) F types can really take that behavior personally. So both sides need to have some give and take if they are to interact and benefit from each other. The ENTP has to sense when it's appropriate to "go nutty" and play with the ideas, and the F's have to learn how to value/make use of the ENTP's ability.
 
R

RDF

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[...] I mean, in a way, one could say that the ENTP's you're talking about are the ones showing true humility before the ideas, while you're the one showing the big ego, wanting to grasp onto it and own it as yours and yours alone and claiming the credit for its awesomeness, wanting to be seen as the only one who's ever thought of it and so jealous and guarding of it that you don't care whether it never reaches its full potential?

Fair enough. I'm just giving you a counterpoint to the "they're going to drop their rattle" type comments in your own posts.

Just consider my post a good old-fashioned ill-natured rant to reflect my mood upon returning to work after a three-day weekend. :steam:

FL
 

cafe

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substitute, do you adjust your communication style according to the person you are communicating with?
 
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