haha. the first 2/3rds were right. The last couple sentences weren't right
I was not sure if something of what I wrote will resonate with you, you didn't come off as easy to read, but don't get cocky I'm sure you're predictable as any other ESTP, it's just that I didn't have facial expressions to read, otherwise I'm sure you'd be an open book for me to read
I don't want people to know who I am inside, and hate me/envy me for it, I'd rather they remain neutral. I've made eye contact with people before, and they've immediately told me "You're a dick" or other strange reactions. I had an ENTJ go around and tell everyone I'm creepy. I don't know if eye contact was the culprit, but I've had tons of E3's go behind my back and slaughter my reputation in the office for reasons I'm still unsure of. All I know is when I first met them, I shook their hands, looked them deep in the eyes in a friendly manner, and they were never secretly never friends with me after that.
In my mind, most people are untrustworthy until proven otherwise, and a lot of people don't like knowing this. So I hide my eyes from them so they can't read me. I'd rather be in control of how people react to me.
Brace yourself, here comes a wild infj theory:
People usually can't bring themselves easily to be neutral, they prefer to categorize you as a friend or an enemy, not everyone has a taste for ambiguity and what annoys or scares them the most is the unfamiliar, they associate it with danger. I think they pick up on the fact that you don't trust them, so they perceive you as a possible danger so they act before you do, for me this explain why you have troubles with E3 related to work, they feel threatened where they locate their value. The question here would be why you see them as untrustworthy, and I'm assuming is the 8s fear of being hurt. So you find yourself in a situation where you don't want to hurt someone but you cannot ignore the feelings of doubt towards them and that's what leads you to look away. But the thing is looking away wont make you look less hostile. By hiding your eyes the person who looks at you becomes suspicious, he concludes you're hiding something and like I've mentioned people fear what they don't know the most, so he sees that you're a possible threat, but what that person also picks up on is that you do have power to hurt him but for some reason you don't and here that person actually starts believing that he has power over you, his reasoning is that you don't attack him because your afraid of him and that gives him the right to act against you.(people pick up on fear as animals do) I think the problem is not only that you find people untrustworthy, but because for some reason you haven't lived up to your potential yet. I have a wild explanation for this too, but I'm trying to explain my theory as short as I can. lol You've mentioned you'd like to be in control of how people react to you, but in reality the only reactions we can and should control is our own. By trying to control their reactions you're actually letting yourself be defined by someone else. No matter what you'll do in life someone will be bothered by it, and if they do it's their problem (of course this is so if you don't hurt them purposely with some of your actions). Yes, I know that you cannot ignore their behavior because if they are bothered by yours they're likely to act against you and do you harm, like you've mentioned the troubles you have with some E3, but here you can see what I meant when I said you should only be concerned about your own reactions: their behavior towards you can leave you disappointed in people and can lead you to close up to people who are worth you're attention, (and this makes them win) or you can see it as a lesson and use it as a motivation. What do I mean by that? Well, I think as an 8 you need to learn to open yourself up to pain, look at it this way: instead of running away from it, embrace it, look at it as building immunity towards pain. (in terms of motivation you can motivate yourself to be even more persistent in doing what you want to do and get the things you want:they say living well is the best revenge lol)
Allow yourself to trust someone before you get to know them. What's the worst thing that can happen? You can be hurt yes, but like I said you'll build up immunity against pain. Instead of being to self-aware in that kind of situations and thinking about the form of your behavior(how to shape it so you don't come off hostile), even if you don't trust someone convince yourself in that moment that you trust them and like Infinite Bubble said the form will come naturally, with time you wont even be aware of such things. I'll conclude my wild theory with a quote that sums up what I've been getting at:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.†I have more thoughts on the subject but I'm gonna stop here, I don't know how much I got right this time but felt like sharing my perspective on the matter anyway
