How I perceive you thus far
From my personal experiences with enfjs and backed by my understanding of typology. The following are my observations and insights. This post is both meant to entertain, as I believe you’d want to hear how you’re perceived, and gather feedback for what I’ve written.
There’s 3 enfjs I have varying relationships with, an acquaintance, an online friend, and an irl friend.
A) enfj a, I met her in a technical course, invited as a guest speaker as she is a very successful and talented (pokemon) artist. She stayed as a member. She is warm, gregarious, and friendly - I attribute this to her success. She is well connected within the community and is very easy company. I on the other hand, am melancholic. On the group’s first meet ups, she approached me, and was very reassuring.
I mostly see her posts in social media - revolving around art, community, advocacy, and friendships. When I join group vc’s, she stands as a core presence.
B) enfj b, I met in discord as part of a gaming server. He is very intelligent but also very depressive due to it. He is currently taking an astronomy course. Unlike enfj a, he is not as gregarious, although still warm and friendly. He has low neuroticism which I attribute to his capacity to band together numerous difficult personalities to make a cohesive idiotic, silly, mess of a group of friends.
C) enfj c, is a mutual friend turned personal friend. Unlike enfj a and enfj b, this one likes to limit test and provoke reactions. On our first meet up, in a group setting, he was quiet and observant. Observant enough to notice sthing about me and ask about it 3 months down the line. On our second meet up, it was a group sleepover. I was playing a game when he intrusively unplugged the console so I would hang out with everyone else. He is inclined to give counseling to a mutual friend, and very quick to smooth-over perceived disagreements.
Theres so much more to say but I wouldn’t want to feed you drywall of a text no matter how crunchy I think it is. For similarities, the extroversion doesn’t always mean active social enforcers. The FeSe feeds a consistent, light, easy to engage with social presence. While capable of engaging in discourse, these tend to stay in lived experiences rather than deconstruction of reality. A commonality between B and C is despite their carefree exterior, they deeply fear inadequacy and to be secretly hated by others. They somehow also need someone else to express certain emotions before feeling allowed or capable of expressing their own.
To put things in context, this is partly why I write. It seems to me that enfj’s may want a mirror in which they can see themselves in while they are so busy mirroring others. At the end of the day, enfj, in my eyes, is a very sensory oriented type despite being intuitive who prefers to explore, do, and connect with others. Outside of being a “savior”, enfjs are more akin to the “everyman” archetype - grounded & easy going. To many, they may come off as a fraud for the many seeming masks that they wear. I have come to learn that perhaps these aren’t masks so much as an innate gift, a capacity to connect with a human part of ourselves thats very much present in others.
Often, I see the enfj described as too much. Despite being theoretically described as an apex personality, as in, can easily “hold the world in their hands”, the more I squint, the more I see them just as susceptible to insecurity and personality oppression, its just not given attention. To expand on this, I’m not saying they are being oppressed, but that the enfj’s natural inclinations; clear, bold, expressions, made with one’s whole being, may it be fear, confidence or love have to be dimmed to meet the outer world’s expectations. The social world, most of which we are trained to integrate into, asks us to participate in social games, wherein the more convoluted the relationship between intent and expression, the better; no means yes, yes means no, an invitation is just being polite, and so forth. The inherently honest nature of the enfj is just as much of a victim. They’re just better at getting with the program than others.
Looking back, maybe I write this just to be a pickme girl, but when I think about it, is it so bad to do good, to do one’s best for others, just to feel appreciated, or maybe, just because I can? No, I’m writing because I don’t want to do my job.
- xoxo infp 369