Example: just because someone may go on tangents about how much they dislike lying- they may even be able to rant about specific frustrations that I can relate well to (thus demonstrating they’ve experienced the frustration of putting up with liars)- it doesn’t mean they are honest themselves. I know when I was younger I would make the mistake of assuming that if I could relate well to someone's rant, then their ethical code must be similar to mine (or I wouldn't be able to relate so well)- but the older I get, it ceases to amaze me how much energy others can put into 'talking the talk' without really being concerned about 'walking the walk'. I think what amazes me most is crossing the path of someone who focuses so much on the 'talking' part that they seem completely oblivious to the fact that they can't control what their 'walk' reveals with yet more talking. If that made any sense.
It completely makes sense. I think I know exactly what you mean. It seems as though often it is a combination between insecurity and a total lack of self-awareness. I mean, as well as anything else, I would be embarrassed to contradict myself as much as some people I have known. Even with someone who I have a degree of investment in, I will eventually get fed up and tune out when I realise that from day to day they'll routinely make complete about-faces on their opinions on matters major and minor. It can also keep you off balance because when you timidly say "but I thought you felt this way" or "I thought you were planning to do such and such", they've revised reality about the conversation you had with them a mere few days ago to the extent that it all starts to feel quite Orwellian.
Also, it seems as though people will often rant about the thing that a casual observer can see they do themselves. (Man, I hope I don’t do that, or not much).
I think the problem is not one of dissonance at all. Everyone has a gap between who they are and they project.
Most people have a different opinion of who they feel they are Vs how others perceive them.
I feel the real problem is the concept of "Perfection"
The perfection we expect from ourselves and others.
Expecting perfection means we can only really have one way to go.. Down.
We all do it. We all lie about who we are or deny certain behaviors. So, when someone cocks up, why am I so unforgiving? Why are you?
Why don't we forgive ourselves and each other?
I have mixed feelings about this. I think I know what you are saying. And to a certain extent I agree. We all make mistakes, we're all imperfect, we're certainly all inconsistent to some degree. And problems arise when you want another person to be something they are not, and project that onto them (more about that). That's more your bad than theirs, unless they are really claiming to be something they are not.
But I think it is a big problem when you find that someone is so consistently inconsistent that you cannot trust anything they say. I think that's more what I'm getting at. I have started taking big steps away from those people...
I suspect when I have warm feelings for someone, or I'm interested in getting to know that person in some way, that I am not as rigorous in filtering them. Instead, I'm in information gathering mode and very open to the person as they represent themselves...
Having had a little experience with it now, I have started to accept that a lot of people are playing a game that I'm not playing... My part in those were that I never assumed anything bad, I just filled any blanks in with trust. :/ ...
... And a lot of people, maybe the vast majority, do not work on themselves...
Violaine...thanks for this and as I'm not sure how to put things in bold (another area I'm a bit stupid in), suffice it to say that the points you wrote above I understand to an INSANE degree. (I think!) I've been thinking that exact phrase, "filling in the blanks", lately. Another thing we all do, I suppose, but it's a good thing to be aware of, how you approach it. I do have problems with trusting overmuch, and yet I don't want to become untrusting, so it's a balancing act. Sometimes I fill in the blanks with trust. Sometimes there are A LOT of blanks, more than I realise, and I fill them with what I want to be there...that can really set you up to get hurt...
(By the way, I still owe you a PM!)
I If someone tells me they care about me, then I tend to expect them to adhere to conduct which demonstrates their care; when they do something which seems like a rather blatant contradiction, I can get paralyzed with an almost immediate implosion of possibilities for why it’s happening. I’m guessing this is what SilkRoad was referring to in the op, with ‘INFJ blind spot’. BAJ mentioned possibilities above, but a large part of the problem (for INFJs, I think) is that SO MANY possibilities like that surface that it’s hard to clamp down and say “quit leading me on!†the way other types might be able to. We get so lost in the possibilities of the reasons for others’ behaviors that we sometimes can’t even see the obvious.
I also relate very much to this. I end up generating a million possibilities, but of course (consciously or unconsciously) the one(s) I end up getting super-attached to are of course the most favourable to myself, the other person and the situation at hand (and that's not necessarily just in a romantic context. Also something to be more aware of.
And yes, there are differences between the two examples I cited. One is straight up hypocrisy and I suppose in a lot of cases that is what I am referring to with the "dissonance". Again, I don't think there is anyone out there who is NEVER hypocritical. We all fall into the trap from time to time. It is just that some people seem to make a career of it. I have run into too many people in recent years who espouse a certain highly moral way of life and then go out and do the very things that they are decrying. After I have made a lot of excuses for them - weakness of character, peer pressure, everyone makes mistakes, ad nauseam, eventually I figure out that they are simply being hypocritical. But unfortunately I may have allowed myself to somehow get hurt or even "stumbled" (I'm thinking more or less in the Biblical sense) by them already. I think that perhaps I just need to be more brutal and write people off earlier in some cases.
The question of the guy possibly leading me on is kind of a different scenario. Honestly, that is one where I bear more responsibility (I have ended up in that kind of situation a couple of times.) It is possible that there is some dissonance between their words and their actions, but I probably have to realise that it hurts me mainly because I've started hoping for a different outcome, and also that the "dissonance" may be mainly due to differences in how I feel such friendships/situations should be handled. In other words - I wouldn't tell an opposite sex friend who I only viewed as a friend that they were super-special to me and no one else understood...even if I actually felt a bit like that, because I wouldn't want to lead them on. But I've had a couple of male friends who I had developed feelings for who had no problem with giving me special treatment but then it turned out they only wanted friendship, or at least that is what they claimed, and I kind of had to take it more or less at face value... In response to BAJ's suggestion/query, I never have actually put myself out there to that extent. But those situations/stalemates ended either with the person informing me (and not very nicely) that they only wanted friendship, or starting to date someone else and later telling a mutual friend that they didn't know I liked them, and that if they'd wanted more than friendship with me, they would have done something about it... I do want to draw some lessons from that though - one of them being that I shouldn't get over-invested when no actual relationship exists - but to look out for "dissonance" in terms of not taking comments like "you're so special" or "you're the reason I'm still in this city" or "I can't talk about this with anyone else" and making more of them than they actually represent. Basically, if the guy isn't following up such comments with an escalation of his pursuit of me, or just asking me out, I shouldn't read so much into them. I do seem to end up liking people with whom there is a lot of ambiguity and mixed messages, and I don't think I can do that to myself any more. Too painful. So no, it's not "hypocrisy" on their part, or not really, but it's mainly a question of whether WHAT I WANT THE WORDS TO MEAN, and their actions, are matching up.
Fidelia, I loved your post, but I didn’t have a great deal to add to it – I found much to agree with, though!