EJCC
The Devil of TypoC
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2008
- Messages
- 19,129
- MBTI Type
- ESTJ
- Enneagram
- 1w9
- Instinctual Variant
- sp/so
I have a good ESFP friend who I've known for at least five years. She's a cool person - very fun, nerdy, smart, entertaining, etc. - but I've been confused by her recently. Here's how it all started:
There's an application on Facebook where you pick your "top five" things, e.g. favorite foods. I went to her facebook page, and she had done one of those things: "Top 5 Things That Remind You of Your Best Friend". Those five things all described me, meaning that I'm her best friend, which I had no idea of until then. I asked her if she was really talking about me (because I didn't want to assume anything like that - best friends are serious bizness), and her response was "I don't know whether to laugh or cry...", i.e. of COURSE I'm her best friend! What was I thinking??
I thought about why I was so surprised that she would say that I'm her best friend, and I realized that there were two reasons. Firstly, we mostly talk about superficial things, e.g. mutual interests, random jokes, etc, and even then, we have so few mutual interests that sometimes there are silences in our conversations that I find awkward (though I don't know if she does too). Secondly, and most importantly, I've never felt like she cared about me, because she never seems to want to talk about me.
^That second thing is the reason why I'm making this thread. I'm sure she cares about me, since she wouldn't consider me to be her best friend otherwise, but there's no way that I'm ever going to want our friendship to be closer unless she starts talking to me about me. I am not exaggerating when I say that she has NEVER asked me how I'm doing, or what's been going on in my life, and whenever I say something about myself, she'll use it to turn the conversation in a direction that leads to another story about her life. In other words, every conversation we have, if it isn't about someone or something unrelated to us, is about HER, and her alone. And that's starting to piss me off.
Lol, isn't it ironic that in this case, it's the ESTJ in the friendship that's thinking "I give and give and give, so why do I get nothing in return???"
I know she means well, and I know that she's socially awkward (e.g. she spent at least half of our high school prom sitting at a table, drinking sparkling cider, and wallowing in thoughts like "I'm so awkward. No one likes me. Why do I even go to these things?"), so she presumably has very good excuses for acting the way she does, but I still really, really, really want this problem to be solved one way or another. But I don't want to hurt her feelings, so I can't use my preferred method of problem solving (i.e. getting the job done quickly and directly).
Do any of you ESFPs (who are obviously much healthier than her) have any insights as to why she acts like this, and/or what I can do about it?
There's an application on Facebook where you pick your "top five" things, e.g. favorite foods. I went to her facebook page, and she had done one of those things: "Top 5 Things That Remind You of Your Best Friend". Those five things all described me, meaning that I'm her best friend, which I had no idea of until then. I asked her if she was really talking about me (because I didn't want to assume anything like that - best friends are serious bizness), and her response was "I don't know whether to laugh or cry...", i.e. of COURSE I'm her best friend! What was I thinking??
I thought about why I was so surprised that she would say that I'm her best friend, and I realized that there were two reasons. Firstly, we mostly talk about superficial things, e.g. mutual interests, random jokes, etc, and even then, we have so few mutual interests that sometimes there are silences in our conversations that I find awkward (though I don't know if she does too). Secondly, and most importantly, I've never felt like she cared about me, because she never seems to want to talk about me.
^That second thing is the reason why I'm making this thread. I'm sure she cares about me, since she wouldn't consider me to be her best friend otherwise, but there's no way that I'm ever going to want our friendship to be closer unless she starts talking to me about me. I am not exaggerating when I say that she has NEVER asked me how I'm doing, or what's been going on in my life, and whenever I say something about myself, she'll use it to turn the conversation in a direction that leads to another story about her life. In other words, every conversation we have, if it isn't about someone or something unrelated to us, is about HER, and her alone. And that's starting to piss me off.
Lol, isn't it ironic that in this case, it's the ESTJ in the friendship that's thinking "I give and give and give, so why do I get nothing in return???"
I know she means well, and I know that she's socially awkward (e.g. she spent at least half of our high school prom sitting at a table, drinking sparkling cider, and wallowing in thoughts like "I'm so awkward. No one likes me. Why do I even go to these things?"), so she presumably has very good excuses for acting the way she does, but I still really, really, really want this problem to be solved one way or another. But I don't want to hurt her feelings, so I can't use my preferred method of problem solving (i.e. getting the job done quickly and directly).
Do any of you ESFPs (who are obviously much healthier than her) have any insights as to why she acts like this, and/or what I can do about it?