substitute
New member
- Joined
- May 27, 2007
- Messages
- 4,601
- MBTI Type
- ENTP
But ironically, the initial criticism/issue never gets addressed. The argument is always about how I say something, but never what I actually say. It can be a bit annoying. But whatever...
Yes, absolutely. "The minute you raise your voice I switch off, I'm not listening any more and all I'm trying to do is stop the argument", he says, with a totally straight face, as if he honestly sees no problem with this. And the argument is my fault because I've raised my voice - now!
"Well if you say something and I disagree then I'm entitled to defend my opinion aren't I?" he says. Sure you are buddy, but then when other people defend theirs back, it doesn't automatically mean it's now an argument and it's that person's fault for not respecting your right to defend your opinion. And did it occur to you that there was no need to "defend your opinion" anyway, because nobody was attacking it, and perhaps that the person was just trying to tell you how they felt and that the appropriate response might've been to LISTEN and understand, rather than try to shut them up by repeated protestations of your total innocence and blamelessness, because they're expressing a feeling of not being happy and implying that you just might, possibly, have played a small part in that?
It's always the same - he never FORCES anyone to do anything, God forbid! If we ended up not doing anything we wanted to do just because we got fed up of trying to persuade him that running around in a wild goose chase on the off chance that there might be something really awesome in this random direction he's taking wasn't such a good idea because everything we said he countered with a very vehement declaration that the other place was 'terrible' (i.e. didn't match his vision of a perfect place), that we 'might as well' continue looking now and it's 'not worth' going 'all the way back' (8km - about 5 mins in the car) to the place we're talking about, then it's entirely OUR fault for not being insistent enough. Even though, if we had been insistent enough, he would've then said we were being pushy and aggressive and forceful and ganging up on him.
I've come to the conclusion that most arguments tend to be about bottled up stuff. If people had the balls to just say what's on their mind everyone would live much more peacefully. But that evil Fe is always lurking...weaklings! Preserving the harmony? NO thanks. Not at the cost of truthfulness!
In my brother's case though, he says the same thing as you, but to most other people who talk about him it's pretty obvious that the reason they don't bring things up with him is because to do so is like running the gauntlet and seldom gets anywhere. The only possible outcomes, from personal experience of not just myself but many others, all share in common that you're left feeling very frustrated, dismissed, unheard and that you've had traits and motivations ascribed to you that are so absolutely ludicrous that it's as though your body was simply a stage prop filling in for the person he was actually talking about. He walks away happy because as far as he's concerned he's defended his corner and if you still have a problem then it's your fault, and it's no skin off his nose if you're a "loser", but the other person walks away feeling a lot of impotent frustration and rage that can take days to go away because the person you need to address about it, you know will simply not hear it or answer for it or take any responsibility for it at all.
He also takes absence of criticism as absence of flaws in himself - rather than, as is often the case, it's actually confirmation of it. As in, if only one person tells him he's very pushy and touchy and can be inconsiderate of other's feelings, then he sees it as just this one person's problem - nothing on earth will get him to speculate as to whether it's more likely that that one person is just the one person in the many he knows who is willing to run the gauntlet of his touchiness and defensiveness to actually raise the subject with him, whilst everyone else can't be bothered and so just suffers in silence, hoping to just take him in small doses.
I'll tell you one thing Substitute, I might not show it, but nothing pisses me off more than unwarranted or unfair criticism from people I like. So although I don't relate to your brother's description, I also don't know the context in which such arguments happen.
Ah, but how will you really truly know whether it's unwarranted unless you first let the person have their say and listen without getting defensive and upset, or walking away? With the ENFP's I know, half the time the reason they think it's unwarranted is because they have yet to actually listen to your whole point of view, and are stuck on what they've extrapolated your point to be from the half-sentences you can squeeze in between their self-justifications and seriously screwy retellings of events (man, I thought my Si was bad but these guys make me look like an ISxJ!). And sometimes I wonder if they don't sorta do that on purpose, because it's easier to argue against an insanely half-baked idea that nobody actually suggested, but which, if they did, would make them stupid and nasty people (and therefore easier to dimsiss) than to take on board the rather more sensible and possibly valid one that somebody actually did say, which might mean accepting that you've done wrong and having to apologize.