[INFJ] INFJs and Dating

[Laurie]

<snip>Even when I get the sense that a real life guy may like me and I'm attracted to him too, I prefer the version of him in my head to the real guy. <snip>

My husband unwisely did this during early years in our marriage. There was always something more better. It really isn't a good position to put someone in since they will never live up to the person in your head (or random person you don't know but idolize) You are wise to see it in yourself.

You need to try to look past the "perfect" trap and try to see people for who they are, more interesting than any perfect person ever could be.

 

[Synarch]

My husband unwisely did this during early years in our marriage. There was always something more better. It really isn't a good position to put someone in since they will never live up to the person in your head (or random person you don't know but idolize) You are wise to see it in yourself.

You need to try to look past the "perfect" trap and try to see people for who they are, more interesting than any perfect person ever could be.

Beautifully put and true, Elaur. Best thing I have seen by anyone on here today. Many thanks. I have also been guilty of seeking the ideal and you're right: It is a trap. It leaves you satisfied with nothing, wanting something that just does not exist. And even if it did exist, you wouldn't see it or appreciate it.

 

[Ardea]

Do you mean the Socionics intertype relationship of supervision?

Definitely.

 

[Synarch]

Definitely.

I don't know that I buy this though I do see how it could be that way as ENTPs tend to be more influenced by other people and when confronted with immovable objects like INFJ/INTJ they will adapt necessarily, at times. I think this is one of those areas where sex appeal could smooth things out and as long as the mutuality of feeling is there, who cares? What problems did it cause for you?

 

[Ardea]

I don't know that I buy this though I do see how it could be that way as ENTPs tend to be more influenced by other people and when confronted with immovable objects like INFJ/INTJ they will adapt necessarily, at times.

XD You hit it on the nose. I don't mind bending, but sometimes BOTH get lost in their ideals, and won't let anyone even try to fit it.

 

[Silent Stars]

Yeah, so how does that work out?

wouldn't know....never been in one.

 

[the state i am in]

i think one of the keys is relying on Ti to check some of the disturbing behaviors of NiFe. NiFe- you feel like you can read people too well, that motives are always impure, that you are envisioning the one and only future way too vividly to argue with it and just go along and have some fun and see what happens.

but also, you need to put yourself in better position. start playing chess and maneuver yourself across the board. use pretenses to talk, hang out, run into each other, etc. you have to gather real concrete information if you want your Ni to have any chance at reading the situation. Fe helps you get to the core of someone else quickly and penetrate beyond the layers and walls and absorb the feelings of others. but it leaves you feeling lost and paralyzed with uncertainty and sometimes paranoid if you don't balance it with another function. and even more importantly, it does NOT stand in as a replacement for real and actual communication, sincerity, and vulnerable honest attempts to SHOW someone else how you feel and what you want.

best advice is to start being more social. it sucks bc it feels inauthentic and like networking when you are spending time with people who you do not deeply connect with, but there are advantages and sometimes people will surprise you or say something more profound and relevant than you (or they) could have ever expected (or you might end up being able to help them in a way that is helpful and fulfilling to you both). you gotta participate if you want to meet people, and finding whatever activities, communities, hangouts, etc you can to help foster that is important and useful, if not natural

plus you have to take risks. and overcome your fear of being unable to cope and manage your emotions if things do not go as well as you'd hoped. it takes time and practice. you have to trust yourself.

 

[ReadingRainbows]

I am always attracted to my polar opposites, but I ussally try to reframe from dating, it doesnt work out well, in all honesty people who seek me out to date end up hurt because I cannot give them what they need/want.
I'm seen as a highly emotional person (I really am not) I had guy who wanted me to cry with him if we had sex!!!! (what the hell) I'm very very selective when dating, such a chooser, I mean, I have criteria...but its more of a spark sort of thing like your emotional music has make a beautiful piano concerto with mine otherwise it wont work.
I end with friends sometimes. I end up with alot of hurting people though, because I display these mothering aspects. Not that I'm complaining, I made better matches with some of them. I just dont seek out relationships. Sometimes I'm not even sure an INFJ can really really fall in love, they just kinda float into it.

 

[tibby]

Sometimes I'm not even sure an INFJ can really really fall in love, they just kinda float into it.

I'm not emotionally very expressive.

Love... it's like, I feel it the strongest when I'm alone, and sometimes in sudden bursts. It feels like I'm actually almost exploding with all the caring inside of me, tingly and deep. How I feel and demonstrate love are not necessarily traditional.

It's so deep, that I don't want to express it in a way I feel is superficial. That's why I'm not like a traditional "romantic".

The way many seem to feel love I can't relate to. In general I'm very neutral with my "outer" emotions, but I think I feel something more profound and deep that doesn't necessarily reach the outermost layer that it'd cause like a superficial emotion, at least not with the same depth. I feel it in the core.

Still waters run deep.

 

[Lexicon]

Yeah, so how does that work out?

For me, not so much.

Something about being assessed as a possible suitable mate makes the whole experience incredibly unpleasant. How does an INFJ not obsess about their faults and insecurities? It's made even more unnerving by the fact that you are also suppose to be, in one way or another, assessing someone to be a suitable mate. I feel pretty bad when I begin spotting a person's flaws, or when I realize that I'm more flawed than them and thus come to the conclusion that I'm inherently unworthy.

Fantasy is so much better than reality when it comes to romance.

I can't wrap my head around "dating."
I'm not sure I've been on a lot of typical "dates."
Usually people I've become romantically involved with were friends with me initially. [I've always had more male friends than female friends].
Perhaps the romantic aspects of our relationships seemed to develop in a more relaxed atmosphere because we always just "hung out," enjoying one another's company, as opposed to specifically meeting up "on a date," to specifically put one another under a figurative microscope, and poke. It just makes things more forced in a way where they don't really have to be.

This of course is coming from someone who strongly requires a solid friendship with a person as the foundation to any kind of romantic relationship. Perhaps that concept comes easier to people who have less of a predetermination of the opposite sex, who always modify their behaviors around the other. You know, that guy who's always "on" when he's around the ladies. That chick who giggles at EVERYTHING a guy says, who seems to raise the pitch of her voice a few steps up the octave when she's talking to some dude. Any male.

Probably why I fail at standard flirting. I'm still back on the playground playing cowboys and indians with boys.. then stealing one specific cowboy's gun & pushing him on the ground second (typical kidspeak for I LIKE YOU), and then playing cops & robbers with em the next...


Romantic relationships just seem to 'fall into place' in a perhaps more natural sort of way for me.
I mean, once it's realized our feelings have extended beyond typical friendship (i.e., we were playing cops and robbers and I let the cop arrest me, and then he kissed me.. which has never happened to be unwelcome.. must be the intuitives I hang out with..), we do end up talking about specifics & such, our feelings and whathaveyou. And it's never really gotten uncomfortable, or felt vague. I never felt like I was being judged, and I didn't feel like I had to consciously test the waters before diving in.