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[MBTI General] Being guarded.

d@v3

Perfect Gentleman! =D
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
2,830
MBTI Type
ISTJ
I'm always guarded- Fort Knox style, but it takes little effort (depending on the person) to slowly tear down the walls. Indeed it usually takes months for me to warm up to people. Otherwise Iam just my quiet "guarded" self. :yes: By the time I let my guard down 100%, I figure I'll be married to the person... or at least engaged. :)
 

wrldisquiethere

New member
Joined
Apr 2, 2009
Messages
233
MBTI Type
xSFJ
Enneagram
2w1
Do you ever perceive yourself to be too guarded?
Yes, at times. I am not naturally that way, but have trained myself to be guarded because of different experiences in my life.

Is it a good thing or bad?
I'm not sure. I never feel like I have the right balance.

Do you ever wish you could find a way to fix that problem?
Oh, yeah.

Whilst in relationships, after a given time, are you able to drop that guard?
(example, you give 80% and keep 20% guarded)
Yes. Once I trust that person and have been received after opening up on small levels, I will begin reverting back to the openness which comes very naturally for me when I'm not afraid.
 

Siúil a Rúin

when the colors fade
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
14,037
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
496
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I have to agree, I have said before that many of my friends wouldn't join or hang around for very long because of the comments on their spelling or grammar. Many of them are ashamed of it, or have a condition that doesn't help and makes things worse.

I don't think you should leave over it, for every grammar nazi there is a member who doesn't really care and understands that it's not the be all and end all of online communication.

EDIT: and for many of the members that do make a comment over it, I think it's more a case of jest, a light hearted giggle at the way grammar and spelling is a big thing to a few other members here.
I think it has become part of this online niche's culture and way of proving oneself smart. It is sometimes a way of joking around as well. It is a rather nerdy situation. :nerd: I think often someone has their own thread title or post grammatically critiqued, and so at the next opportunity they express intense disdain for an error they observe. It's a good example of being guarded in some cases. I'm sure there are many different motivations.

My innermost self is quite guarded. I have one level I can give freely, but have had a lot of surprises in life where someone seemed trustworthy only to reveal an ability to do great harm. My initial wiring as a child made for a wide range of trust and distrust. I had one care taker who was essentially an angel and another who was the devil. Both could appear pleasant when it was required of them. Because of this my natural response to a new person is that they are potentially capable of anything from incredibly sincere love to distilled cruelty.
 

Unique

New member
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
1,702
I am not too guarded.

If anything I am an open book.

The disadvantage to being so is that the treacherous piss heads you meet along the way will take advantage of your openness and try to screw with you from time to time, but they are no competition for me and I smite them with ease and am then thankful that I know their true colors and can put them permanently on my blacklist.

There are times though when it is appropriate to be somewhat guarded, but that is not my default.

It's generally this for me too

I can sometimes be guarded emotionally or if someone invades my personal space though
 

juggernaut

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 22, 2009
Messages
1,009
I'm definitely quite guarded. People often make the mistake of thinking I'm more open than I actually am because I don't have a problem with discussing certain topics that are often assumed to be off-limits. Nevertheless, I never give up more than I feel comfortable with and I can't think of a single person I trust fully. I have a few people that I have a great deal of confidence in and a number of others I maintain a fairly neutral stance with, but by and large, I have a minimal degree of faith in my fellow humans. I don't think they're quite as bad as Hobbes made them out, but I certainly don't think people are inherently good either. On average it takes about three to six months for a person to be granted any real access to my "inner being" and quite a bit longer for true trust to be established. Fortunately, I have no problem just cutting people off when they blow it so it rarely causes me anything more than very minor discomfort when a budding relationship is terminated.
 

iseekserendipity

New member
Joined
Jun 5, 2009
Messages
17
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
6w?
I'm definitely quite guarded. People often make the mistake of thinking I'm more open than I actually am because I don't have a problem with discussing certain topics that are often assumed to off-limits. Nevertheless, I never give up more than I feel comfortable with and I can't think of a single person I trust fully. I have a few people that I have a great deal of confidence in and a number of others I maintain a fairly neutral stance with, but by and large, I have a minimal degree of faith in my fellow humans. I don't think they're quite as bad as Hobbes made them out, but I certainly don't think people are inherently good either. On average it takes about three to six months for a person to be granted any real access to my "inner being" and quite a bit longer for true trust to be established. Fortunately, I have no problem just cutting people off when they blow it so it rarely causes me anything more than very minor discomfort when a budding relationship is terminated.
I can relate to that 100%
 

Sil

This is a test.
Joined
Aug 31, 2014
Messages
362
Do you ever perceive yourself to be too guarded?

Is it a good thing or bad?

Do you ever wish you could find a way to fix that problem?

Whilst in relationships, after a given time, are you able to drop that guard?
(example, you give 80% and keep 20% guarded)

If you read between the lines, you'd see there is a book here waiting to be written. Ahhh, to guarded. lol.

1. In some areas of my life, yes.

2. In those areas, it is a very bad thing. It makes life dysfunctional.

3. What do you mean "wish I could find a way to fix the problem?" There's no wishing about it. I CAN fix the problem. It's just not a high priority at the moment. I'll work on it when I feel it's time to.

Nope. Never dropped the guard. I have a dogged belief that people will always use any knowledge/understanding about me to fuck me over at some point down the road when it's convenient, so I don't give people a whole lot of real insight.

I'm a very open, easy-to-get-along-with person in general, though, so that sort of guardedness would be hard to pick up on in real life. The only indicator is the fact that I have no deep relationships.

If I were to give it a percentage, I would say 90% of me is open to anyone and the other 10% is shut off to everyone.
 

Destiny

A wannabe dog
Joined
Aug 5, 2013
Messages
452
I've always been a guarded person. I don't think it's a bad thing though.

This world is a dangerous place out there, and it's always good to keep yourself emotionally guarded from this harsh world out there. Moreover, you never know what people's intentions truly are.
Let's take a relationship for example. People can chase after you and tell them that they love you, but what is their intentions behind it? Do they truly love you, or do they have some other intentions, like do they want you for your money, for your body, or for some other reasons?

I do drop my guard however if I sense that the person is sincere about me and doesn't have any ill intentions toward me.
 

Yama

Permabanned
Joined
Dec 1, 2014
Messages
7,684
MBTI Type
ESFJ
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
I see myself as guarded, but not "too" guarded. I don't think being guarded is a bad thing--better safe than sorry. I'd rather not take a risk and play it safe than risk it all and lose it all. And I am comfortable with that arrangement.

I am very isolated when it comes to the social atmosphere of a place. There are days when I wake up, drive to school, attend classes, and drive home without saying a single word to anyone. I feel very disconnected from other people and don't like it when random people come up to me and start asking about me, and I find sudden questions about myself from some random person I don't even want to talk to while I'm trying to get to class or get home to be rather invasive. I'm very private outside of the forum setting.

It takes me a very long time to warm up to people. But once I've warmed up to them, they can't get rid of me lol. I've described myself much more than once as "easy to get along with, but difficult to get to know." I'll be pleasant (although secretly irritated) if you try to start small talk with me, but it'll all be pretty shallow conversation and you won't really learn anything new about me and I most likely won't be being completely honest (such as saying I like a TV show when I really don't in order to avoid dealing with backlash). The reason I had a reputation as an MMO heartbreaker was because I didn't really "know" any of those people who were telling me that they liked me, so I rejected them.

Honestly I do not know how I have the friends I have now. I will admit that I haven't made any new irl friends in almost 5 years now. I am the worst at meeting new people (and completely unwilling to try), and the absolute worst at staying in touch. Once someone has finally broken down my wall and befriended me, I'm not guarded with them at all. I overshare with them. In fact it's become such a habit that I overshare with my ISTJ that he gets kind of offended if I haven't overshared with him in a while, even though I always feel like venting to him bothers him, because he knows that all that chatter and nonstop "thinking out loud" type conversation (often times one-sided over IM) is just how I express my closeness to people.

tl;dr I'm super duper guarded and have lots of thick walls but have fun trying to get me to stfu if you somehow manage to break them down
 

Dyslexxie

Dope& diamonds.
Joined
Sep 2, 2015
Messages
1,250
I don't think I'm necessarily guarded, as much as I'm distant - for me it's all out there and I wear my heart on my sleeve. What I have difficulty with is letting people get close to me. It's easy to know a lot about me but that doesn't mean I allow most people near me, if that makes any sense.
 

Tilt

Active member
Joined
Sep 18, 2015
Messages
2,584
MBTI Type
ENFJ
Enneagram
3w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I don't think I'm necessarily guarded, as much as I'm distant - for me it's all out there and I wear my heart on my sleeve. What I have difficulty with is letting people get close to me. It's easy to know a lot about me but that doesn't mean I allow most people near me, if that makes any sense.

Same. People know of me but rarely the depth of whatever I am thinking or feeling.
 
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