u/Nep111

I’m curious about how other ENTPs in a relationship perceive friendship with the opposite sex and whether they allow this with their partner/so?
Platonic friendship (not unrequited love or fwb) where there is frequent interaction and I’m not talking about mutual friends, just someone your so talks to often and you’re not involved. Is this “daily presence” possible for you, have you encountered any particular issues? Has your partner expressed any reservations and if so what compromise did you reach?

I befriend guys easily and this seems common for ENTP women. But several guys have explained to me that straight men don’t become close friends with women unless they somehow have an interest or feelings for them (whether consciously or not). I know there are exceptions but knowing this could very well be “the rule” has obviously caused me to reconsider my opinion. My INTP ex saw absolutely nothing wrong with this but I’ll have to say he was also poly and some of these friendships led to sex indeed 🥲
My current ENTJ so has a strong opinion about this saying there’s absolutely zero reason for a straight man to befriend a woman, that he’d never put himself in a friend zone situation.

Thoughts?

Pretty much the question… focussing on the “acquired traits” here, not the ones we have by default. What have you “learnt / absorbed” from the other types (whether intentionally or not) that you didn’t have before and now value? And what type? Other types are also welcome to reply, esp if it’s something you’ve learnt from us or because of us 🙂

Mine are:

1. the ability not to mistake “possibility” with “probability”, taken from the various ENTJs in my life. This is a huge improvement for me, it’s like horse riding with some skills instead of hoping I’m not going to fall off each time I come up with some idea. It has helped me to channel my energy/time and filter out the ideas that would likely result in a waste of time or $. I’m not perfect at this, but I’m okay enough.

2. the “act now” from the Se doms. Sometimes opportunities don’t come twice. If you want to see actual results, action is required and sometimes it’s required fast. No better teacher than the ESTPs here.

You get offered a deal. By pressing one button, you can choose to become infinitely intelligent but you lose access to all emotions.

If you press the button, you will gain perfect logic, perfect memory, and unlimited knowledge. You can never experience emotions. No fear, sadness, loneliness, anxiety or the pain of a broken heart. You can’t experience the positive ones either. If you press the button, you will inevitably lose your memory of what those emotions felt like so far. This also means you won’t miss them as you’ll no longer “understand” them.

If you don’t press the button, you remain as you currently are.

How do you (typically successful) guys handle friendships when the other person is not as successful as you? Put simply, if you’re wealthy and ambitious and those around you stay broke or stagnant in general, what do you honestly do? I could extend this analogy to other fields and not only career/money but the idea is the same: if you value self development and growth, and those around you don’t, do you drop those friendships (assuming you started at the same level) to surround yourself with more likeminded individuals or do you somehow make it work?

I’ve experienced a couple of instances where the girls I befriended turned quite envious and started comparing our lives, or showing a ton of other “limiting beliefs”. I simply had no interest in maintaining those connections eventually but I’m curious to hear how you guys navigate this issue.

(I’m an ENTP btw but a type 8w7. I resemble ENTJs in some ways but my “operating system” is very much NeTi).