[NF] When Fe & Fi Go Awry: The Definitive NF guide to F-ness (Let the Antics Ensue)

[CrystalViolet]

Thanks Firey. That was also useful. I'm wondering, on the boards here, should everyone push pause on the thread, especially if there's primarily one Fi user fielding the questions and they are getting visibly stressed? If not, what seems like a respectful way to proceed while the other person has time to collect themselves?

It may be a good idea. I think it's also up to the Fi user to recognise when we get to that place too, which I admittedly don't always. Especially when I'm on the soap box. This would of course have to be handled with a great deal of care.
What you kinda want to prevent is the the big old clamp down, where they storm off, and won't talk...which I think you addressed as a being source of distress....but it does boil down to breathing space.
For me at least.

 

[redacted]

I didn't go to bed, but I have one more quick thought before I do:

Sometimes it's not necessarily that I want my Fi heard, it's that I want non-Fe heard. Not because I don't respect it. But sort of like Te gets bulldozerish in an effort to accomplish, get to the goal, etc., Fe is always in action.

And I'd like to hear where people are, in an ephemeral moment, just to touch base, check in, give space, breathe, etc. Sometimes great things come of it. I feel like Fe is so action-focused sometimes it misses opportunities for healthy relationship moments.

Fi and Fe do overlap, though. The internal standard and external standard don't have to be completely different.

An Fe reason to listen to other perspectives is that they're part of the environment, and therefore relevant to value-judgments. An Fi reason to listen to other perspectives is some internal standard-ey thing like "it's wrong to not listen". They look the same on the surface, though.

I don't really think of Fe as having this problem honestly. Not any more than Fi...in fact it seems like Fi is the function less likely to care about other perspectives, because if they go against the internal standard, they're "wrong". Fe by definition cares, because they're part of the environment.

 

[KDude]

An Fi reason to listen to other perspectives is some internal standard-ey thing like "it's wrong to not listen". They look the same on the surface, though.

I definitely believe that, but just hearing it makes me confused.

I'm not too "active" in my Fe unless I see something going downhill sooner or later, and I wish to prevent it. I want relationships to develop a little more organically, like usehername is saying. Every once awhile though, if there are problems, I see that it might not be worth preventing, or that not a whole lot is at stake anyways, and I just step back and let things happen.

 

[skylights]

Okay, somewhere in the past few pages I started having flashbacks about experiences I've had with a couple of Fi doms. I have had a few friendships go south because an Fi dom felt like I was suppressing emotions that they could "sense" that they felt like I was ignoring. Where I might have felt some basic frustration at some situation I couldn't control, the Fi dom read it as anger, and reacted as if it must go much deeper than I care to admit. On occasion, they would accuse me of having anger towards them, when 1) in my experience it wasn't anger, just frustration that would easily pass once I ranted a little and 2) it wasn't directed at them at all. And I gotta tell you, the more someone insists I'm feeling something I'm not and insisting I deal with it, the more I realize that person doesn't know me. And that we might have a problem in the friendship.

oh! so i find that sometimes my INTP dad brother will express their frustration about something they're working on, and i don't understand why it's being expressed in their interactions with me as well as everything else, since i didn't really do anything. it's a mistake of Fi to try to interpret it personally, but i do because i'm kind of Fi stupid that way, and then i spend the rest of the day wondering why they hate me.

i don't mean at all to suggest that your friends weren't being butts (wow my language is really sophisticated tonight lol) by trying to read way too deeply into your emotions, but maybe that's part of what they were feeling too - like that they took the anger personally, realized it didn't correlate with their behavior towards you, and thus tried to seek a reason for the anger being directed towards them. as in they searched themselves but they couldn't find any answer, so obviously it must be you. and that what they weren't seeing was that the assumption that your frustration was being directed at them, was totally off.

also, i find that i tend to pick up on more emotion than most people, but being that emotion is a combination of body language and such, i don't deny that it's possible that sometimes i interpret as emotion details that are not, in fact, emotion. but i think that also many Ti users tend to pick up on less emotion than most people, and thus when it comes to Fi-Ti interactions, maybe since we're both on opposite ends of the spectrum we can end up seeing each other being kind of ridiculous.

I think Fi doms think they want us to be straight and open, but an Fe user's version of straight and open will look quite different, and feel quite different. If we really never censored ourselves, Fi users would stay permanently hidden. We just don't seem to speak the same language. Y'all would really think we were mean, even though we'd see ourselves as just shooting straight. Because we would dispense with the need to affirm feelings or validate. We'd just tell you how we read the situation. And we wouldn't mean to be hurtful, but it would probably feel that way, because we've abandoned the agreed-upon niceties we generally try to employ. We generally don't do that with people until we've established a friendship and the friend knows that we would never attack them personally. Even though Fi thinks it would like everyone to be open and above board, it generally gets its feelings hurt when we do. I have been called "relentless" by a Fi-dom before, when that was certainly the last thing I was intending.

yeah, that's a good point. we're still kind of squishy-fuzzy, aren't we?

well and correspondingly, if it's all Fi talk, then it comes off as completely self-absorbed. i think that happened in a Fe/Fi thread a while ago. it felt like to the Fe users that the Fi were ganging up and only affirming one another while totally ignoring the Fe users. and the thought of a Fi gang is kind of hilarious. it's like a pack of wild kittens.

though i think even with my own posts, they're a little bit self-absorbed. it's because i assume this is my space to talk about me - i wouldn't want to talk about you so much because i don't feel like i am in a position to talk about you because i am not you - and that if you see anything interesting that makes you think about you then you will talk about you. but actually Fe users seem to talk about others more than themselves unless asked about themselves. i just see everything as an open invitation to talk about myself, lol. i guess i expect everyone else will, too.

anyway, i think i make this mistake with Te and Ti too. i don't check in with what Ti people think or validate their ideas. i need to work on that.

skylights is a good example here of someone who's providing an Fi perspective AND trying to understand the Fe one.

thanks tallulah, you too, from the opposite side. and feel more than welcome to let me know if i start not doing that too. it's so easy and comfortable to fall back into your own paradigm.

Another point that occurred to me during the last two pages is this. Sometimes a Fe user has absolutely no problem with you at all, but then gets their hackles raised about the way you (general Fi you) phrase something or approach something. Something that would lead an Fe user to believe that you feel like you are taking some sort of moral high road, or that you feel like you are above using the usual social roads to get there. Or maybe that you feel like you actively want to stir up some stuff to get down to the "real" us. So then we get frustrated with you and try to tell you why. And then you accuse us of having some deep seated anger issue or some sort of underlying problem with you. And 99.9% of the time--trust me on this--we DON'T. But if you keep acting like we do, you can bet it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn't have a problem before--I only had a problem with a little piece of the conversation, or didn't understand your intent--but if you accuse me of feeling and suppressing something I'm not and attribute it to the wrong thing, hoo, boy, I will almost certainly get angry THEN.

fuck that's a good point.

i think this happens with my brother and i. (he's an INTP.) i'll say something about what should be happening, and he says it's self-righteous (it probably is). and then i think he's just pissed off at me because he doesn't like me in general for whatever reason (because to me it seems like i didn't do anything to merit that judgment). aaaand if what you say is true then he might not not like me in general, he might have just thought that whatever i was being moralistic about was stupid.

sometimes it probably is.

This is totally off topic for the way this thread has been going, but I really wanted to ask because Seymour's quote may go to the heart of something that has been confusing (and upsetting) me for years.

My husband (INFP, but really close to E) and I (INFJ - and really I) once started to get to know someone from a community organization. We invited them over to dinner twice. The first time was fairly awkward, but we thought we'd try again. About halfway through the second dinner, the guest started telling us some very personal things, with a lot of anger. When the guest was done, they looked straight at me, not my husband, and, after a moment, got angry at me, but wouldn't say why. It seemed that they were expecting something from me, but I didn't know how to respond.

"How to respond" - I guess that's a very Fe concept (I'm still learning about this). How does this person want me to respond? What do they need?

haha. yeah. that is pretty Fe. "how to respond" to me typically has less to do with the other person and more to do with "say what you think." i mean, i'm interested in what they need too, but i figure what they need has more to do with what i communicate than how i communicate it.

So, was this a case of an INFP's Fi reaching out? If so, why would this person expect an immediate response from me (they knew that I was a quiet person) rather than my husband, who is far more talkative and good with words than I am? They'd had numerous conversations with my husband and only one - ever - with me.

yeah, probably, about the Fi. sounds like he was trying to really connect with you guys. (though seriously some people really push it overboard. i've had someone tell me about their entire history of abuse in a tutoring session.) it's possible that he wanted to hear from you because you'd been quiet. i dunno, maybe it's because i'm an E, but i always want to hear what the quiet person is thinking. maybe he kind of already thought he knew how your husband would respond. and maybe if it's looked at through the lens of connection, he was hoping for a response from you to indicate that he had made it through to you. if someone's really quiet around me and not giving me many signs of affirmation, i start to suspect i'm being displeasing to them, and i try harder.

and that's really sweet about your cat. my cat can pick up on emotion too. he's kind of a jerk normally but when i'm feeling really horrible he'll come over to me and be sweet.

So what I'm getting from people is that you don't have to make specific "thank you for your contribution" statements at every point, but rather when things start getting tenser in the conversation or it is obvious the person has spent a lot of effort working on what they said?

yeah, exactly. to speak Fi, i mean. lol. fidelia would you mind talking about what seems to be more Fe style? from what you and talullah have said it would seem to be more of a direct and less affirming style. which is confusing to me, because IRL Fe seems more supportive than Fi.

In theory I can see this. The place where that seems to usually break down is when I read the other person as being patronizing, usually after I've just told them where one of the hot buttons are that would be better avoided and they go there anyhow.

yeah... i think that it kind of feels annoying to be told you shouldn't go somewhere. it makes me want to go there more, because it feels like something important is being hidden from me.

i understand that the intent is protection and better results for both parties but the directive is inherently unappealing to me. Fe is naturally protective but it's frustrating to Fi because we suspect that what is really important is under the bubble. it's a hot button, after all, because it really gets to someone(s). and it gets to someone(s) because it resonates somewhere deeply with them. it's obviously an area of hurt, but to be metaphoric about it, Fe wants to put on a band-aid and Fi wants to expose it to the air. both are healing in different ways - i think what we need to figure out is which strategy is more useful at what time.

However, I can't see that just saying "Thanks for all of the work you've put into this" and then going on to say what I normally would is going to go over a lot better.

haha, actually, at least personally, i'm really easy to placate. tell me you like me and you can probably give me an enumerated list of things about me that suck and i won't really mind that much. for me it's so much about simply being validated in and of myself as a holistic being.

but it's more than thanks for the work - it's thanks for opening yourself up like that, because there's something valuable inside. maybe that's what you meant in briefer language, but that's what we (or at least i) am looking for. and rarely will anyone actually ever say that, but i think that's what has to be communicated. it's an appreciation not of the contribution in and of itself, but the contribution as an extension of the person's identity.

i guess in practical terms it would work out like (and tell me if these examples suck and are totally off. they're kind of cartoonized. exaggerated.):

i really suck and i hate everyone!!!!

Fe being pretty nonjudgmental despite the obvious "i hate everyone" breach of harmony and attempting to gather more info:

why do you hate everyone?

which reads to upset me as, "yup, you really suck. what's wrong with you? why would you hate everyone?" whereas speaking in Fi style you could be kind of a jackass about it and still come of well by saying:

okay, first of all, you don't suck. you're kind of a whiny emo sometimes but you're also smart and compassionate and we like having you on the boards. second of all, quit being overdramatic, you don't hate everyone.

and all that silly language and the commanding tone would be okay because of the underlying sentiment of identity validation.

all i'm really looking for is someone to tell me why i'm okay. it's the Fi need for objective affirmation, because our subjective judging function can't give that to us. i'm willing to bet that problem accounts for 99.8% of my personal crises. all i really want is for someone to tell me that i don't just suck. everything is too subjective inside for me to be able to believe it with certainty. i mean, at the deepest level i believe everyone is fundamentally good and valuable, so obviously that should apply to me too, but i just feel the need to check that sometimes. ._."

huh. maybe this is why NFPs are so damn sensitive.

I find myself having a hard time really believing that the Fi person in question can't see that they are using inflammatory language, especially after they've been informed that they have. That's usually the point at which I quit trying to make them feel comfortable because it seems like there's been no sense of trying to put themselves in my shoes (which I'm trying to do with them), yet they are giving me no direction for how to do better with them and they also are assuming that they know how I feel and are going to tell me.

haha, aw, fidelia, you give us too much credit. some of us are kind of stupid sometimes when it comes to seeing outside our own perspective. it's the same thing tallulah was talking about, i think. you tell me i'm using inflammatory language, but i don't have any inflammatory intent, so obviously you're the one with a problem and i tell you that. which comes out inflammatorily. (now officially a word.) the problem is that we may well have tried to see ourselves through your shoes, but it was a Fi scan. it was based off subjective criteria, not your objective Fe criteria. so then we don't find anything out of order and it is only logical that if it's not a problem on my end, it must be one on yours. i suppose the way for us to try to fix this is to look at our language on the page - not our intention - and thereby engage Te to check it, which will give an objective read instead of a subjective one. which is, incidentally, why ENFPs say really contradictory things sometimes. we need to hear them outside of ourselves if we want to look at them objectively. i wonder how this works for INFPs? is it the same?

how about on your end, though? i'm curious to hear more about the style Fe users would prefer.

sorry it's frustrating to understand. it's hard to explain too, sometimes you ask questions and (obviously) i have to write a few paragraphs before i figure out what i'm getting to. i also have trouble understanding the Fe side of some things. but slowly and surely i think we're getting somewhere.

 

[OrangeAppled]

That reminds me, what if you do hurt someone though?

A Fi-user said to me (I'm paraphrasing) that Fe-users disregard what is meant (intent) and focus on the tangible (form). I don't know if "form" is the right word, but I do think Fe-users focus on the results of emotional interaction and do think the intentions of others are secondary.

Does intent really outweigh results for Fi-users?

Example:
I do dislike when I'm read wrong, aka assigned a motivation/intent I did not have, when I hurt someone's feelings. My response is to take back what I've said/written, because obviously there was a communication failure. But with Fi-users that doesn't seem to work very often, because the misidentified intent still remains and I'm unsure how to correct that. As a (weak) Fe-user it's like a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't-trap.

Yeah, I mentioned in my massive post that Fe people can seem too results focused, so that they can come across as phony and impure in motive so as to achieve certain results. It is not that a Fi person has no concern for results, but Fi, as a function, is oriented inward. It does not focus on external results or standards - it holds concepts of what is ideal and what is unacceptably flawed, and these are only related to the external through perceiving. This lends a flexibility to Fi. Where Fe adapts to its environment, Ne sees various interpretations of it and Fi chooses what is closest to the ideal. This means we tend to accept a variety of ways to authentically express a feeling, to perceive the meaning behind the expression, rather than to judge what form is correct. In a simple form, it's called "giving the benefit of the doubt". It can also make some Fi-doms appear naive or unrealistic - the positive possibility is given too much focus.

Before I digress...if someone has offended me and I misunderstood them, it is best that they clarify what they meant. A retraction can seem simply like an attempt to placate me, which seems like an invalidation of my feeling. It can seem akin to someone saying, "you're over-reacting", which seems dismissive. I can only know if I have over-reacted if I know the true intention of the statement. Plus, since no one may even know what basic value I am reacting from, they cannot gauge my reaction accurately. I find that most of the time, people have no idea what I am actually upset about.

However, if their motive was genuinely harmless and the person offers a brief explanation, then I'll probably accept that. I'm not one who usually wants to squabble over every word choice....for instance, the back & forth of a thread like this exhausts me quickly (even just reading other people's back & forth).

Let's be real though; some people claim they had no negative intent, but they did. Then they backtrack and try and make it seem like you're overreacting so as not to take responsibility for their words. At a certain point, phrasing and form does matter, or else it is too far removed from any possible positive intent to insist that there is one.

Generally, I find myself far less perturbed by Fe people than vice versa because even if they seem a bit "fake" to me at times, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt, and as I get to know a person I will more accurately perceive what is authentic for them as an individual. It can also be a Pe thing to reserve judgment until more info is taken in.

I feel Fe confining at times when it insists on one or two appropriate ways, especially when those ways don't suit my feeling. I feel unfairly criticized when Fe people jump to conclusions regarding my feeling based on whether or not these standards are met. I think as a Fi person, you learn to withdraw and shrink back your feeling as few external means that are deemed appropriate are also accurate to the feeling. This is why Jung says when Fi appears positively, it is often in an indirect way (ie. through a "cause", art, leading by example, etc.).

The brackets are added by me, just to give very simplified interpretations to relate it back to the conversation at hand....

The existence of positive feeling can be inferred only indirectly. Its aim is not to adjust itself to the object [not to judge good/bad based on externalities, such as "results"), but to subordinate it [results are secondary to underlying values] in an unconscious effort to realize the underlying images [to uphold basic ideals which form the values].

Conversely, even when Fe seems to disagree with the consensus, it is often on the grounds of a greater value which has basis in consensus. Their perceiving function particularly allows them to see outside of a current context to judge, so that they do not sway with the breeze; for instance, they can see more important results outside of immediate peace. Just with Fi, there is a hierarchy of values. This is why Fe people will agree that bad things can produce good results, so not everything appears to be judged by its results. However, if you probe further, this can be with a view to what is not immediately apparent, to the long-term results which go beyond the current context. Basically, Ni foretells these possible bad results, and Si recalls them. This also makes Fe seem very adaptable, for as long as no foreseeable negative outcome looms ahead, the Fe person is happy to adjust to the external, which allows them to meet the needs of other people or reflect their feeling. This is why Fe is generally viewed much more positively than Fi, but also why they can seem to accommodate others to their own detriment (ie. doormat syndrome) or to become annoyed/confused when an individual goes against the externally accepted ways because they don't know how to reflect it accurately (ie. seems overly judgemental, projects negative feeling where there is none).

Even where it seems to show a certain independence of the quality of the concrete object [seems to be independent of consensus/the external], it is none the less under the spell of traditional or generally valid standards of some sort. [in some way it is judging by external standards].

....Such feelings are governed by the standard of the objective determinants [ie. such as results, an external way to gauge good/bad]. As such they are genuine, and represent the total visible feeling-function.

The valuations resulting from the act of feeling either correspond directly with objective values or at least chime in with certain traditional and generally known standards of value. [again, in some way Fe is connecting to external standards, even if not in an obvious, direct way]

 

[Fidelia]

Two great posts! Now I have a whole pile more things to write and think about and it shouldn't be tonight, but I'm scared these posts will be buried by morning!

 

[Tallulah]

Definitely awesome posts. I will need to digest and think a bit, I think. But I will say a couple of things...

Sky--your brother doesn't hate you. We (INTPs) have no problem finding fault with an idea, but we almost never attach the idea to the person. People are separate from ideas. Ideas are important, but they're also always open for debate, dissection, or new information.

Also, I don't think it would ever occur to an Fe user that someone might feel like we were thinking they were a terrible person, so it wouldn't ever occur to us to affirm them as a person. We'd assume they knew our opinion of them as our friend hadn't changed just because they were frustrated or emo about something. And I personally would probably feel like I was blowing smoke up their posteriors if I just busted out with an affirmation of them as a good person if they hadn't specifically expressed doubt about that. But maybe I will start, if I know the person is an Fi user! I didn't know that's part of what needed affirming. I think the Fe person, by asking why you might hate everyone, is trying to affirm your right to think someone's a douchebag, and wants to know why specifically, so they can help you hate them temporarily.

 

[KDude]

all i'm really looking for is someone to tell me why i'm okay. it's the Fi need for objective affirmation, because our subjective judging function can't give that to us. i'm willing to bet that problem accounts for 99.8% of my personal crises. all i really want is for someone to tell me that i don't just suck. everything is too subjective inside for me to be able to believe it with certainty. i mean, at the deepest level i believe everyone is fundamentally good and valuable, so obviously that should apply to me too, but i just feel the need to check that sometimes. ._."

huh. maybe this is why NFPs are so damn sensitive.

It's not just an NFP problem. It's lack of Se. I think it covers this area in some odd way. This actually reminds me of something I read in Thomson's book awhile back. Ni doms have the same problem (possibly not to the same extent):

Although Extraverted Sensation is the INJ's inferior function, it should not be supposed that INJs are entirely in their heads or never leave their journals and computer terminals. They're bona fide Percievers, and their senses may be very keen. INJs follow sports, enjoy outdoor activities, take up Tai Chi, drive fast cars, cook gourmet meals, make art---all sorts of things that involve sensory engagement with life. Their Extraverted Sensate skills are undeveloped in the sense that INJs have a hard time seeing themselves objectively.

edit: Just to add, SJs probably come in second in their sense of "objectivity of themselves". They find a lot of confirmation/identity/encouragement in Si. Why you do think they get pissed if you screw it up? (that and they often crack jokes on what isn't "normal".. what they're doing there is thinking they're objective. They're fairly confident of who they are in relation to things/people around them). That, or take an SJ out of their element and they won't feel safe and start venting about it..they don't know themselves in something too new and need time to adjust. SPs are fluid and grounded on where they stand and how they can express themselves in many situations. Ne and Ni OTOH are in a different boat (ENJs less than other N's probably).

 

[Totenkindly]

i guess in practical terms it would work out like (and tell me if these examples suck and are totally off. they're kind of cartoonized. exaggerated.):

i really suck and i hate everyone!!!!

Fe being pretty nonjudgmental despite the obvious "i hate everyone" breach of harmony and attempting to gather more info:

why do you hate everyone?

which reads to upset me as, "yup, you really suck. what's wrong with you? why would you hate everyone?" whereas speaking in Fi style you could be kind of a jackass about it and still come of well by saying:

okay, first of all, you don't suck. you're kind of a whiny emo sometimes but you're also smart and compassionate and we like having you on the boards. second of all, quit being overdramatic, you don't hate everyone.

and all that silly language and the commanding tone would be okay because of the underlying sentiment of identity validation.

Oh geez... no wonder Fe/Fi conversations are a train-wreck sometimes.

EDIT (my skimming sucks lately):
I mean, my response to the Fi #1 line would be, "Why do you think you suck? I don't think you suck. And why do you hate everyone?"

Would that be good enough to feel like you were heard? My response (from my end) is saying, "I care, so I want to take your comment at face value and then try to understand why you feel this way, so you will know I 'get it' and want to 'get it'."

Sometimes Fi seems very inscrutable... like one thing gets said but something else is being asked for.

I guess Fe can seem the same way. The difference I think is where the obfuscation happens; for Fe, it's in the preordained format of the language used (a lot of stuff might be covered by the same comment), whereas for Fi it occurs in the barrier that exists between the exterior world and the interior self into which people on the outside cannot really see into.

all i'm really looking for is someone to tell me why i'm okay. it's the Fi need for objective affirmation, because our subjective judging function can't give that to us. i'm willing to bet that problem accounts for 99.8% of my personal crises. all i really want is for someone to tell me that i don't just suck. everything is too subjective inside for me to be able to believe it with certainty. i mean, at the deepest level i believe everyone is fundamentally good and valuable, so obviously that should apply to me too, but i just feel the need to check that sometimes. ._."

huh. maybe this is why NFPs are so damn sensitive.

Thank you for this, it is resonating for me and I can actually identify with it somewhat as well.

 

[cafe]

I would tell my Fi-dom daughter "You don't suck they suck! Who do I need to kill??? What did they do to my baby girl???"

 

[PeaceBaby]

I forgot to address the active listening thing, because I think that's where PB and the Fe users had a breakdown. (Hee, that's going to be my new band: PB and Fe Users!) PB, the reason why fidelia and others had an issue with your suggestion to use active listening was not because they had a problem with the technique or were reluctant to use it. It's because they do use it from time to time, and they felt you were implying they didn't know about it at all, and should really try it sometime. I personally feel like fidelia's been using a form of active listening throughout this whole thread, but she does it more in the form of asking more questions to show she's trying to understand deeply, rather than repeating what the person said.

I'm left wondering why no one could express it like this, rather than telling me I was being condescending and patronizing.

A post full of questions feels like no one is listening to be honest, and that was already said wasn't heard. The questions themselves sometimes seem to suggest it, especially when they seem unrelated to what was said.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm left wondering why no one could express it like this, rather than telling me I was being condescending and patronizing.

Probably because Tallulah was a third-party observer, rather than someone actually involved in the exchange(s).

It's a lot easier for someone outside the discussion to get the "lay of the land" and comment generally on it (like a spectator describing what has just happened at a sports game) rather than members of the team actually out on the field lost in the nitty-gritty of the second-by-second play.

 

[Thalassa]

I'm not bothered by Fidelia's questions at all. I don't ever feel any sort of ... violated...by her. I am honestly perplexed by the Fi users that do get offended by her because I think she tries so hard.

 

[PeaceBaby]

Probably because Tallulah was a third-party observer, rather than someone actually involved in the exchange(s).

Yes you're right, and skylights has the same vantage point. It's useful.

 

[Ivy]

Wow, post edits are going nuts in this thread! Getting this stuff right/accurate/authentic seems to be really important to people.

This has been your daily unnecessary admin commentary. Carry on.

 

[PeaceBaby]

I'm not bothered by Fidelia's questions at all. I don't ever feel any sort of ... violated...by her. I am honestly perplexed by the Fi users that do get offended by her because I think she tries so hard.

No one here is saying fidelia doesn't try. I guess I feel like the questions keep coming without any evidence that what was said before was heard or understood.

That feels overwhelming, you know?

I need some evidence or feedback to answer new questions. Otherwise I feel like I'm just building a house of cards. If I take an hour to post, and within a minute or two are new questions, did you hear what I was saying? Because some of the questions were answered in the post I just made, generally speaking.

Maybe my answers aren't obvious enough.

 

[MacGuffin]

Another point that occurred to me during the last two pages is this. Sometimes a Fe user has absolutely no problem with you at all, but then gets their hackles raised about the way you (general Fi you) phrase something or approach something. Something that would lead an Fe user to believe that you feel like you are taking some sort of moral high road, or that you feel like you are above using the usual social roads to get there. Or maybe that you feel like you actively want to stir up some stuff to get down to the "real" us. So then we get frustrated with you and try to tell you why. And then you accuse us of having some deep seated anger issue or some sort of underlying problem with you. And 99.9% of the time--trust me on this--we DON'T. But if you keep acting like we do, you can bet it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn't have a problem before--I only had a problem with a little piece of the conversation, or didn't understand your intent--but if you accuse me of feeling and suppressing something I'm not and attribute it to the wrong thing, hoo, boy, I will almost certainly get angry THEN.

Hot damn, you just described a few of my interactions in the past. If there's one thing that will strip away the Type 9, laid back, inferior Fe user I am... it's that. Even then, I still hold back a lot. They get hit with a single A-bomb of anger and react with horror, not knowing I have plenty more racked and loaded.

I think you captured the essence there. It can feel like Fe people are deliberately missing the point when they are giving Fi peeps a grilling. It does feel like personal attacks. So we push back in defense, and then that's when all hell breaks lose. And truth be told, I never figured out how to get past that. Because that moment when clarification is asked for , I answer but it seems bring more questions, and all of a sudden it feels like people are trying to open up your head with a can opener, and I will clamp down and batton the hatches, and get the guns out, because you ain't touching ma inner thought processes.

Yeah, we're just tying to understand, don't intend it to be an attack.

Definitely awesome posts. I will need to digest and think a bit, I think. But I will say a couple of things...

Sky--your brother doesn't hate you. We (INTPs) have no problem finding fault with an idea, but we almost never attach the idea to the person. People are separate from ideas. Ideas are important, but they're also always open for debate, dissection, or new information.

I do think INTPs can get personally attached to their ideas, esp. if they think they've worked out all the possibilities.

 

[Kalach]

Another point that occurred to me during the last two pages is this. Sometimes a Fe user has absolutely no problem with you at all, but then gets their hackles raised about the way you (general Fi you) phrase something or approach something. Something that would lead an Fe user to believe that you feel like you are taking some sort of moral high road, or that you feel like you are above using the usual social roads to get there. Or maybe that you feel like you actively want to stir up some stuff to get down to the "real" us. So then we get frustrated with you and try to tell you why. And then you accuse us of having some deep seated anger issue or some sort of underlying problem with you. And 99.9% of the time--trust me on this--we DON'T. But if you keep acting like we do, you can bet it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn't have a problem before--I only had a problem with a little piece of the conversation, or didn't understand your intent--but if you accuse me of feeling and suppressing something I'm not and attribute it to the wrong thing, hoo, boy, I will almost certainly get angry THEN.

Hot damn, you just described a few of my interactions in the past. If there's one thing that will strip away the Type 9, laid back, inferior Fe user I am... it's that. Even then, I still hold back a lot. They get hit with a single A-bomb of anger and react with horror, not knowing I have plenty more racked and loaded.

I think you captured the essence there. It can feel like Fe people are deliberately missing the point when they are giving Fi peeps a grilling. It does feel like personal attacks. So we push back in defense, and then that's when all hell breaks lose. And truth be told, I never figured out how to get past that. Because that moment when clarification is asked for , I answer but it seems bring more questions, and all of a sudden it feels like people are trying to open up your head with a can opener, and I will clamp down and batton the hatches, and get the guns out, because you ain't touching ma inner thought processes.

Yeah, we're just tying to understand, don't intend it to be an attack.

*brofists the splendid contrary image because no one else will and the south bound train roars thunderously past the north-bound, itself likewise speeding all a-clatter down the dim tunnels of the dark night*

 

[Seymour]

This thing of feeling like you're walking on eggs around INFJs makes me want to cry, it's so discouraging because there's almost nothing I can do about it and I hear it in my own life -- people are intimidated by me. But I have zero power over anyone, and I can't imagine that my approval means that much to anyone. I think my orientation is not that personal. And I hear from INFPs that this is a shortcoming in some way, that I'm not experiencing the richness of me, honest to god? I'm just not that fascinating. And how I feel could be because of anything. So I really have to give things time. And 99.9 percent of the time, I am GLAD and everyone else should be too that I kept my mouth shut. So when I hear that I'm hiding my feelings and making myself hard to read, I want to tear my hair out.

It seems crazy to me to tell someone else, in effect, you can do whatever you want and it's always ok with me. I can't provide unconditional approval. I suspect it, anyway. I think it means you're not paying attention.

Well, even what I was talking about above is more on the order of "I will always give you the benefit of a doubt" (as OA phrased it). To expand on that, it's more like "I will interpret your actions knowing your intentions are good. If they seem not to be, I will ask before judging." It's not carte blanche to be a selfish jerk.

I also struck by "I'm just not that fascinating. And how I feel could be because of anything," because I think everyone's interior world is probably that fascinating. And while we feel things for various reasons, feelings are never about nothing. I may feel an inappropriate surge of dislike for someone, but that's not meaningless data. Something triggered that emotion, and merely dismissing that feeling as "inappropriate" is discarding valuable data (even if that data turns out to be more about me than them). If I share that inappropriate feeling with someone else, that's a sign that I trust them enough to see past the ugliness of that feeling. After all, we all have ugly/inappropriate/negative feelings.

Okay, somewhere in the past few pages I started having flashbacks about experiences I've had with a couple of Fi doms. I have had a few friendships go south because an Fi dom felt like I was suppressing emotions that they could "sense" that they felt like I was ignoring. Where I might have felt some basic frustration at some situation I couldn't control, the Fi dom read it as anger, and reacted as if it must go much deeper than I care to admit. On occasion, they would accuse me of having anger towards them, when 1) in my experience it wasn't anger, just frustration that would easily pass once I ranted a little and 2) it wasn't directed at them at all. And I gotta tell you, the more someone insists I'm feeling something I'm not and insisting I deal with it, the more I realize that person doesn't know me. And that we might have a problem in the friendship.

I think Fi doms think they want us to be straight and open, but an Fe user's version of straight and open will look quite different, and feel quite different. If we really never censored ourselves, Fi users would stay permanently hidden. We just don't seem to speak the same language. Y'all would really think we were mean, even though we'd see ourselves as just shooting straight. Because we would dispense with the need to affirm feelings or validate. We'd just tell you how we read the situation. And we wouldn't mean to be hurtful, but it would probably feel that way, because we've abandoned the agreed-upon niceties we generally try to employ. We generally don't do that with people until we've established a friendship and the friend knows that we would never attack them personally. Even though Fi thinks it would like everyone to be open and above board, it generally gets its feelings hurt when we do. I have been called "relentless" by a Fi-dom before, when that was certainly the last thing I was intending.

So again, here's the "I'd come across as meaner without filters" and a kind of implication of "you wouldn't be able to handle my emotions if I expressed them all." Those statements may well be true, but that represents a very different assumption than the one I tend toward. The "knowing that we would never attack them personally" is part of the "benefit of a doubt" dynamic I was referring to above, and it's not something I would offer to anyone but a good friend. What's the nature of the things you hold back that would come of as mean? Is it just a phrasing/language issue?

And, just to be 100% honest, I don't share everything that pops into my head even with my very closest friends. There are some things (especially negative valuations of others) that would do far more damage than good were they expressed. Is perhaps part of the issue that most Fi judgments are turned inward, and when expressed aren't directly about others? Even in the cases where they are about others, I may choose to share the emotional content without sharing the valuation of the other person. I can express my irritation with my partner without saying "I think you are being idiotic when you do such-and-so.. you should know better by now."

Another point that occurred to me during the last two pages is this. Sometimes a Fe user has absolutely no problem with you at all, but then gets their hackles raised about the way you (general Fi you) phrase something or approach something. Something that would lead an Fe user to believe that you feel like you are taking some sort of moral high road, or that you feel like you are above using the usual social roads to get there. Or maybe that you feel like you actively want to stir up some stuff to get down to the "real" us. So then we get frustrated with you and try to tell you why. And then you accuse us of having some deep seated anger issue or some sort of underlying problem with you. And 99.9% of the time--trust me on this--we DON'T. But if you keep acting like we do, you can bet it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn't have a problem before--I only had a problem with a little piece of the conversation, or didn't understand your intent--but if you accuse me of feeling and suppressing something I'm not and attribute it to the wrong thing, hoo, boy, I will almost certainly get angry THEN.

Lots of good stuff here. And I think you are right... to an Fi-dom, being able to discard the social niceties and cut to the chase feels like a truer, better way to be. It feels like a relief to encounter the real other person and deal with what's actually going on with them. It feels less filtered and more authentic.

I'm not saying it is actually inherently better, but it's hard for it not to feel that way when it's one preferred mode of operation. And again, I don't want that kind of interaction with everyone... only those I like and/or respect. In fact, if I dislike you and still go that route, that's a high sign of respect, since I'm trusting you to work with my openness despite that dislike.

My GF is INFP and we run against value-issues pretty often. My value set is focused on whether or not a value actually reinforces good behavior and negatively reinforces bad behavior (Fe). Her value set is a lot less obvious, because it can't be predicted by the outward situation -- it's about whether or not a certain (possibly unnamed) ideal is met.

To me, she seems a bit too poetic and not utilitarian enough in terms of her value set. But to her, I'm too nitpicky -- too focused on the tangibles of what's going on; she often thinks I miss the deeper value-problem.

This is great, too! I usually feel like adults aren't pavlovian (even though we all are in some ways), and to orient things around "reinforcing good behavior and negatively reinforcing bad behavior" is likely to backfire. If carried out on a surface level, it can be like those "motivational" posters, which never fail to make me feel first oppressed and then subversive.

In work settings, I feel like when you treat people like adults, they usually rise to the occasion. When you treat people like children, they usually sink to that level. Sometimes, being herded by Fe feels like there's an assumption that I'm not a adult who is responsible for his own stuff. That gets Fi's back up, because we can feel very territorial about the management of our own emotional space.

Yeah, I think it's a bit hard for a Fe user to see the value in validating people's feelings no matter what--there are plenty of people out there that are all too happy to use it as an excuse to do whatever the heck they want and say they had good intentions, absolving themselves of responsibility for their actual actions and the consequences of both actions and words.

That's why it's not enough for a Fe user to just say, "Ah, well, they had good intentions," because we see the ramifications of people's actions all too clearly. We see the ripple effect.

Very true. The "good intent is not enough" was a difficult lesson for me to learn, and it's still not always a natural assumption. Part of Fi is managing one's emotional state, and part of that (for me personally, anyway) means I have a lot of good intent inside. That's an important part of my identity, so being told "it doesn't matter" is hard to hear. My natural inclination is to believe that "with good intent, understanding and perseverance a good result is assured." (Makes me roll my eyes to state it like that, have to admit.) Sometimes I think INFPs are so interior that we feel like once we've got things aligned internally, we're mostly done and the external action is just an niggling detail.

[...] My husband (INFP, but really close to E) and I (INFJ - and really I) once started to get to know someone from a community organization. We invited them over to dinner twice. The first time was fairly awkward, but we thought we'd try again. About halfway through the second dinner, the guest started telling us some very personal things, with a lot of anger. When the guest was done, they looked straight at me, not my husband, and, after a moment, got angry at me, but wouldn't say why. It seemed that they were expecting something from me, but I didn't know how to respond.

"How to respond" - I guess that's a very Fe concept (I'm still learning about this). How does this person want me to respond? What do they need?

There are two very different things going on here, though. The first is how to respond - how to make the other person feel heard. I know I botched that - I'm not good at thinking on my feet. This post will probably take me at least 20 minutes to write. I'm still sad that I wasn't able to respond in a way that made them feel heard.

[...]So, was this a case of an INFP's Fi reaching out? If so, why would this person expect an immediate response from me (they knew that I was a quiet person) rather than my husband, who is far more talkative and good with words than I am? They'd had numerous conversations with my husband and only one - ever - with me.

It's not that I didn't care. I cared very much. It's that I'm not good at expressing that in a brief period of time.

[BTW, I did apologize later for having offended them and asked what I'd done to offend. They responded that they had forgotten about the whole evening.]

I can't really know what your guest was actually trying to do in reality, but it may well be that he sensed you were "good people" and he was trying to break through by being open and vulnerable to you. Of course, maybe he had other issues going on as well. Still, I think your statement of "It's that I'm not good at expressing that in a brief period of time." is well taken. I sometimes feel like Fi is a pretty much constant emotional barometer. I may not know why I feel what I feel in real time, but I do know what I'm feeling (although granted, sometimes I have to untangle it with what I'm feeling from others). I feel like with some INFJs, they may not know exactly what they are feeling in real time, and even when they do it's harder for them to express.

In theory I can see this. The place where that seems to usually break down is when I read the other person as being patronizing, usually after I've just told them where one of the hot buttons are that would be better avoided and they go there anyhow. I've run into this more than once now and so I do understand that I need to deal with it differently.

However, I can't see that just saying "Thanks for all of the work you've put into this" and then going on to say what I normally would is going to go over a lot better. I find myself having a hard time really believing that the Fi person in question can't see that they are using inflammatory language, especially after they've been informed that they have. That's usually the point at which I quit trying to make them feel comfortable because it seems like there's been no sense of trying to put themselves in my shoes (which I'm trying to do with them), yet they are giving me no direction for how to do better with them and they also are assuming that they know how I feel and are going to tell me.

It does seem ironic that from Fe's perspective, a nicety like that seem artificial and patronizing. Isn't that usually an Fi complaint? But still, the re-establishing of good intent (especially before something negative) is helpful. It can also help defuse the NFP response of taking critique and criticism personally if it's clear that "my judgment of you and/or your contribution is still positive, even if I have these specific issues."

I can see where it is that we all reach the impasse. I'm just struggling with how to avoid it from a Fi perspective. While I believe acknowledging their contribution is a start, I really don't know how to proceed from there. If I am even tactfully honest about my disagreement, it is read as a personal attack. If I say nothing, I think I'm being disrespectful to them or choosing not to engage, which negates the point in trying to hash it all out in the first place. If I just repeat what they said in my own words, I don't see how that helps, especially if they stated it clearly.

I'm sure this is just as frustrating to you people as it is to me, and this is not well-expressed. For sure, getting the can opener treatment is not pleasant. It is done with good intent though. In an effort to not think poorly of your motives, we are trying to delve for more information about what we don't understand. I'm realizing though that this is not obvious to the other person and feels very uncomfortable.

I think the can opener treatment (heh!) can be unpleasant, especially right after one feels like one has laid one's card on the table and made oneself vulnerable. Laying one's emotional cards out, being met with a blank stare followed by a very specific "So, during that you said X here and Y there..." can feel like a rejection. Maybe it feels like asking for a thank you card for some out-pouring of emotion, but the moment after trying to reach out is a moment of vulnerability. I think the Fe user may assume "I'm still digging, so clearly I'm still interested so there's no need to focus on what I did understand."

Hot damn, you just described a few of my interactions in the past. If there's one thing that will strip away the Type 9, laid back, inferior Fe user I am... it's that. Even then, I still hold back a lot. They get hit with a single A-bomb of anger and react with horror, not knowing I have plenty more racked and loaded.

You do realize type 9s are in the anger triad, and one of their core issues is failing to acknowledge suppressed anger? Just sayin'!


EDIT: Props to PeaceBaby and her post below... I respect her sticking with the discussion and continuing to put herself out there.

 

[Totenkindly]

*brofists the splendid contrary image because no one else will and the south bound train roars thunderously past the north-bound, itself likewise speeding all a-clatter down the dim tunnels of the dark night*

"You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter - because we'll be together...."