u/Longjumping_Kiwi_925

So many people these days are just emotionally immature and not self aware. I find myself getting frustrated constantly with my friend group. Every time I try to set a healthy boundary, they accuse me of being “cold” or not caring about them, not realizing they’re viewing me from a self centered lense. I take into account the underlying things they go through, but no one seems to extend the same understanding to me.

It feels like I am on a whole other level when it comes to most of the people I am around. I have been through a lot of trauma and it’s created a level of self awareness in myself that I don’t often see from others. It feels like I’m constantly working on evaluating myself and my behavior while people don’t even think twice about theirs and just react.

I’m wondering if I’ve outgrown a lot of the people in my life but I don’t want to just cut everyone off because I don’t feel that’s healthy either. Is anyone else struggling with the same thing?

This economy we have inherited is terrible and so many of us are feeling hopeless. We will likely never own a home, and groceries are unaffordable. Employers don’t view you as human and expect you to sacrifice yourself just to make pennies. Promotions are rarely about qualifications and are more about if you’re liked socially, which for neurodivergent people is a losing game. Raises basically never happen and you’re lucky if you’re paid what you’re actually worth.

I see all of this stuff about Gen Z not wanting to work and how that’s a bad thing. But is it really bad if a life that isn’t poverty isn’t possible with an entry level salary? I graduated with my degree in 2025, and I will continue to live at home and not work because at this point it isn’t worth it. My parents have been successful and I don’t have the same hope for myself, so what is the point in putting myself out there into the rat race only to suffer?

At least at home I can smoke my plant medicine (weed), am the boss of my own life, and can focus on my passions instead of slaving away to some boss that doesn’t care about me. Before you judge those of Gen Z who are opting out of the workforce, put yourself in our position and ask would it really be worth it to enter the rat race at this point in time?

I’ve had a lifetime of trauma as a pansexual autistic fat woman. My parents were both cluster B and abusive physically and mainly emotionally. I have spent most of my life hypervigilant and had to learn how to read every emotion that my parents were feeling before they made it my problem. Because of this hypervigilance, I have always noticed the micro expressions of disapproval, noticed the specific word choices people chose, the brief drops in tone, etc. This felt like a curse for me for a while, because I noticed it everywhere. I held the power of emotional intelligence, but it was doing me more harm than good knowing how often I was disliked or rejected. But now I have realized it’s a superpower, because of what it’s caused me to realize.

Recently I was at lunch with a long time friend of mine, and we were catching up on life. I have always had a crush on this friend, but he has unfortunately always been in a relationship since we met in high school. He told me that he had proposed to his girlfriend of 3 years after we finished our first drinks, and I couldn’t help but pick up on more than the surface level words he used. When he told me the news, I saw a brief glimpse of hesitation in his eye, and his smile didn’t look real to me. I felt his energy was off, and it was an energy I had never felt from him before. He seemed genuinely nervous, and he is the type that is normally easy going and has never really struggled with anxiety like I have.

I did the socially appropriate thing and congratulated him, with butterflies in my stomach because now I knew what he really thought of his now “fiance”. After a lifetime of my hypervigilance being my worst enemy, it had finally done some good because I realized I had a chance with him. Everything about his energy and his micro expressions and that little flash in his eye said it all to me. The rest of our lunch was spent talking about our shared interests that we always talk about, and I noticed him blushing a bit when I would make him laugh. On our way back to our cars, we talked about possibly meeting up sometime next week… when we normally only see each other once a year and mostly text.

Now I’m feeling a bit conflicted because I know it’s technically wrong to get in the middle of his engagement. But I believe he could do a lot better than his “fiance”, and we would be the perfect match. I’m thinking about writing him a letter with all of my feelings that I’ve held inside and bringing it to whatever we do next week, or maybe sending it before we meet. I just don’t want to jump the gun too much and scare him off, but I am so happy knowing that my feelings are reciprocated and I just want to tell him I know.

I have been told for a lot of my adult life that I can color in the lines very well. I tend to pay close attention to detail and am very precise. I feel that being an INTJ is a driving factor behind this. I also have been told I have a very high IQ by my mom and prefer to have very few friends.

What ways do other INTJs feel it shows up in their life? Would love to hear your answer.