AdmiralAndGirlsDesu
New member
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2017
- Messages
- 36
- MBTI Type
- INFP
- Enneagram
- 4w5
As an INFP, from the descrptions I've read, we are one of the most compassionate types. However, in my view, I believe our compassion mainly manifests as "sympathy" rather than "empathy." People often confuse them, but they actually have very different meanings. I believe it's harder for us to feel "empathy" due to our primary function being Fi, and I would like to use something that happened recently in my own life to demonstrate how INFPs tend to be more sympathetic than empathetic:
A female friend from Indonesia (I met when traveling there a few years ago) recently messaged me and asked me for 100 dollars, telling me that her father's gravely ill in the hospital. Now, from what I know about her father, he was an abusive and neglectful jerk that never cared about his daughter and his wife, he drank, cheated, gambled, and even left Christianity (both my friend and I are Christians) for Islam because he wanted a job promotion and needed to appease his superiors in the department he wanted to join. To me, such a man is not deserving of love on two levels: 1. He mistreated his very own family 2. He betrayed his faith (though I'm not a Bible thumper, my Christian faith means a lot to me as part of my personal values). Her parents divorced when she was a kid, and his father's mistress became his second wife (good for him, my friend told me that now he's ill, she wants nothing to do with him).
My own father was similar to him in many ways, and I have no respect for him whatsoever. My parents divorced when I was 7, and I've never been close to him since. In 2016 there was a period where I decided to give him another chance because I'm already an adult, and I wanted to get to know him as an equal. Things went well for a while, but then he revealed himself to be that same arrogant yet weak, foolish, and domineering man I had always known him to be. We became estranged (and I had every intention of making it permanent) because I was so disappointed in him, I thought I could trust him, confide in him, that we shared similar values, but it turns out we don't. When he came to the place I'm living on my birthday last year, I didn't let him enter the door. I told him to "piss off", and I actually used these words.
Back to my friend. My Fi immediately began assessing her situation, and I frankly told her that her father, considering how terrible of a man he was to her in the past, is not worthy of her help and compassion. I didn't want to assist not because I wanted to be selfish and stingy, but because I deemed her father to not be worthy of help, and how I would have left him there if he were my own father. So, I explained my point-of-view to her, but she said that she didn't want to be perceived as a terrible daughter, the despite the fact that her father's a terrible man, she didn't want to see him suffer. Eventually, seeing how distressed and sad she was, I decided to give her that bit of financial assistance for her father's hospital fees. However, I still told her that I only did it because I wanted to make her happier, that her father's a terrible man, and whether he lives or dies is up to fate. Nevertheless, she was very grateful towards me and I'm happy that she's doing a bit better now.
I helped her and stayed with her through her entire ordeal, out of a sense of care and loyalty, but I felt absolutely zero compassion for that wreck of a man, and I always found it difficult to comprehend how she could feel love and compassion towards him. To be honest, when she said that part of it was because she didn't want society to perceive her as a bad daughter, I even felt quite irritated (though I didn't let her know) because it's hard for me to understand how people can be so attached to cultural / societal "norms" without question. As an INFP with dominant Fi, I could definitely feel for her from the perspective of her being unhappy over this, and her being my good friend, but I certainly could not feel for her from a perspective of "common" compassion / empathy, which is more Fe. In this case, I totally extrapolated my own values onto her. However, I've never questioned whether I could have responded in a more "Fe" manner, because that's just not me.
I believe that we don't owe love, care, and respect to each other out of any "norm" or "convention" or the other person's rank / position / status / seniority, it must all be earned and judged based on no other than how well their character and their values correspond to a highly internal moral framework. I tend to make judgments on whether I like / dislike someone or something, and I admit I'm often guilty of not giving enough benefit of doubt. While I appear very quiet on the surface, deep down I am running many emotional "algorithms" to determine whether that particular person / group / situation is compatible with me. If I have determined that I should adopt an attitude of contempt for someone or something, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible for me to change my view.
Fellow INFPs (ad other NFs), how do you feel about this? How would you respond if you were in her shoes, and in mine? Do you think INFPs have trouble understanding perspectives and problems when they can't see how it fits into their Fi "mold"?
A female friend from Indonesia (I met when traveling there a few years ago) recently messaged me and asked me for 100 dollars, telling me that her father's gravely ill in the hospital. Now, from what I know about her father, he was an abusive and neglectful jerk that never cared about his daughter and his wife, he drank, cheated, gambled, and even left Christianity (both my friend and I are Christians) for Islam because he wanted a job promotion and needed to appease his superiors in the department he wanted to join. To me, such a man is not deserving of love on two levels: 1. He mistreated his very own family 2. He betrayed his faith (though I'm not a Bible thumper, my Christian faith means a lot to me as part of my personal values). Her parents divorced when she was a kid, and his father's mistress became his second wife (good for him, my friend told me that now he's ill, she wants nothing to do with him).
My own father was similar to him in many ways, and I have no respect for him whatsoever. My parents divorced when I was 7, and I've never been close to him since. In 2016 there was a period where I decided to give him another chance because I'm already an adult, and I wanted to get to know him as an equal. Things went well for a while, but then he revealed himself to be that same arrogant yet weak, foolish, and domineering man I had always known him to be. We became estranged (and I had every intention of making it permanent) because I was so disappointed in him, I thought I could trust him, confide in him, that we shared similar values, but it turns out we don't. When he came to the place I'm living on my birthday last year, I didn't let him enter the door. I told him to "piss off", and I actually used these words.
Back to my friend. My Fi immediately began assessing her situation, and I frankly told her that her father, considering how terrible of a man he was to her in the past, is not worthy of her help and compassion. I didn't want to assist not because I wanted to be selfish and stingy, but because I deemed her father to not be worthy of help, and how I would have left him there if he were my own father. So, I explained my point-of-view to her, but she said that she didn't want to be perceived as a terrible daughter, the despite the fact that her father's a terrible man, she didn't want to see him suffer. Eventually, seeing how distressed and sad she was, I decided to give her that bit of financial assistance for her father's hospital fees. However, I still told her that I only did it because I wanted to make her happier, that her father's a terrible man, and whether he lives or dies is up to fate. Nevertheless, she was very grateful towards me and I'm happy that she's doing a bit better now.
I helped her and stayed with her through her entire ordeal, out of a sense of care and loyalty, but I felt absolutely zero compassion for that wreck of a man, and I always found it difficult to comprehend how she could feel love and compassion towards him. To be honest, when she said that part of it was because she didn't want society to perceive her as a bad daughter, I even felt quite irritated (though I didn't let her know) because it's hard for me to understand how people can be so attached to cultural / societal "norms" without question. As an INFP with dominant Fi, I could definitely feel for her from the perspective of her being unhappy over this, and her being my good friend, but I certainly could not feel for her from a perspective of "common" compassion / empathy, which is more Fe. In this case, I totally extrapolated my own values onto her. However, I've never questioned whether I could have responded in a more "Fe" manner, because that's just not me.
I believe that we don't owe love, care, and respect to each other out of any "norm" or "convention" or the other person's rank / position / status / seniority, it must all be earned and judged based on no other than how well their character and their values correspond to a highly internal moral framework. I tend to make judgments on whether I like / dislike someone or something, and I admit I'm often guilty of not giving enough benefit of doubt. While I appear very quiet on the surface, deep down I am running many emotional "algorithms" to determine whether that particular person / group / situation is compatible with me. If I have determined that I should adopt an attitude of contempt for someone or something, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible for me to change my view.
Fellow INFPs (ad other NFs), how do you feel about this? How would you respond if you were in her shoes, and in mine? Do you think INFPs have trouble understanding perspectives and problems when they can't see how it fits into their Fi "mold"?