I love a good debate complete with facts and logic and all that. Are there any other NFPs on here that love intellectual sparing, or do heated debates have a tendency to make you feel disharmonious?
Love it. It has even become a parttime occupation. One thing is weird though, a lot of people seem to find me 'sharp', by which those who agree mean intelligent and critical and those who don't agree mean arrogant and even angry. I have speculated that it might have to do with introverted feeling letting Ne and Te do the talking?
I am very smiling and friendly, I never use ad hominem attacks and get seriously offended if my opponent does. I don't mind agreeing with an opponent if she/he is right and I am not in debate to get a personal one-up but to get to 'the true and the good' together. Which is the same reason I call BS if I sense it, laugh when I hear ridiculous arguments and never do nicities and harmonising moves of compromise. The true and good would loose if I did.
I've heard a few times that if I had been a male nobody would be surprised or offended by my debating style, but me being (a quite 'feminine') female somehow make for different (largely unconscious I suppose) expectations of how I'll behave in a confrontation of ideas.
Some love the ignorance of gender roles, some are very much provoked and interpret my 'merciless' style as a personal attack on them. Weird. Really, it weirds me out, because I don't feel any anger or contempt at those times. Just enthusiasm, being involved and honest about giving my best shot.
Could it be that such weird experiences are what people with Te as Dom or Aux report as being misunderstood by 'Feelers' taking their impersonal logic personally?