substitute
New member
- Joined
- May 27, 2007
- Messages
- 4,601
- MBTI Type
- ENTP
I have a couple of questions for EXTPs:
What does it take for you to trust someone and show your 'vulnerable' side? And for that matter, when someone decides to take a leap of faith and trust you, do you perceive it as vulnerability? And if so, how do you respond to this vulnerability? Are you truly Darwinian about it and consider it a mistake on the part of the others and use it to your advantage? Or are you endeared by it and feel a need to protect that person, feel special even that they chose to open up to you?
Speaking personally, to me it makes me feel incredibly insecure when I hear those familiar complaints from a loved one, it's like saying I'm not good enough, that because I can't open up in the desired time frame or under the expected promptings, I'm making you unhappy. And therefore, you're only happy with me if I try really hard and rush myself into giving you a key to the parts of my mind that are for me alone, for your benefit - and moreover, that my failure to do so is taken by you as my distrusting you, when in fact it's not about you at all. It's about whether I can bear to hear myself say aloud some of those things - things that I don't like to even confide in myself. Whilst I can have moments like that with people I trust and feel secure with, it's just not who I am on a daily basis. To feel like this is a let-down for you makes me feel like I'm on a time limit, like I'm on trial, and if I don't come up with the goods then you'll leave. And that makes me feel insecure and that makes me not trust you to not abandon me, and that makes me not want to take the risk of investing emotionally in you. It also makes me feel like I have no privacy from you, that you want to pry into the parts of me, that you feel you have a right to. And that makes me feel violated and suffocated, and my response will invariably be defiance, rebellion, and strengthening of those barriers to keep those parts of myself, those emotions that I'm so little familiar with myself, from your prying eyes and value judgements, until I've had time to sort them out myself in my own head.
So, what would it take to get an ENTP to open up to you? Simple: quit asking him to, and quit caring whether he does or not. Then he will feel like you love and accept him and will stay with him for who he is, and not on condition that he becomes something else, and he'll start to open up to you, and you can just take it as it is, then move on.