Im trying to unload my thoughts here so please bear with me, but do other INFP struggle with showing their authentic self to others? As a result of my own situation I've managed to develop socials skills with interacting with a lot of people outside of my own interests which I feel like has eiden my perspective as a person. However, I've always felt the need to keep my a good chunk of my authentic self on the wayside, as if any time I let that out people seem... put off? Or disinterested
I originally thought of it as due to lack of compatibility, however as years went by I noticed this pattern more and more. I do try to mitigate this by asking more questions about the person themselves and essentially turn the conversation to about them to not completely kill the conversation.
As a result over the years I feel like I kinda constructed this outside 'persona' which csn function socially but comes off as either shallow or maybe uninteresting? Im not too sure as I've not had anyone point it out directly. But I think as a result of this people (unsurprisingly) are not that interested in engaging with me proactively.
I've also noticed this issue seems to occur more when I interact with females, I wonder if it's because they can sense the bullshit/mask? But regardless of gender it does happen with both.
I think the reason I'm thinking about this more is because I'm living with a ENFP friend who I've known for a long time and his ability to interact, understand and get people to be interested in him, his interests and hobby is incredible, I know that I shouldn't compare myself to a extrovert, but man it does feel like night and day when it comes to the quality of interaction.
Anyways sorry for my wordy rant, but I dont know who to ask about this, I feel like whenever I talk to my friends about this it can either be overwhelming for them or somewhat off putting for them to hear.