r/enfj

I’m not sure if this is an ENFJ thing or just a me thing. But part of the reason why I feel everything so deeply is because I can vividly imagine it all. Which can be great or terrible. I was recently going to a national park and the paper map the ranger gave me said “27 bears were hit by cars last year, drive safe” and then of course an image of those bears being hit assaults my mind. This happens to me all the time. Anytime anyone tells me anything pretty much, I can’t help but to imagine it in great detail. It makes me feel such extreme emotions, both good and bad

Even though I’m a stereotypical ISTP, I secretly dabble in free-verse poetry once in a while. It’s usually not something I share. Mostly, it's just helps me sort out my thoughts and emotions.

Here’s one about someone I deeply care about—an ENFJ woman. I’m testing it out on you to get an idea of how she would react if I ever read it to her. (Extremely unlikely)

-----------------------------------------

All these words

Enough time passed that we should have become strangers,
but we never quite managed it.

Good friends?

Friendship seems too small.
Love seems too uncertain.

Perhaps it is neither.

Perhaps it is simply the quiet comfort
of being understood by another soul.

We always seem to find the same corner of the same bar,
as if time keeps a seat reserved for us.

There, we trade old stories,
old wounds,
and the weight of whatever life has placed upon us lately.

You ask questions few others ask.
You listen to answers few others hear.

Maybe because years ago,
someone whose judgment mattered to you
had already spoken of me
more than I ever knew what to do with.

And for someone who has always kept much of himself behind locked doors,
I find myself speaking.

Not because I have to.
Because somehow, with you, I can.
Or at least I try.

I never knew what to do with all those words.

Only that when life is unkind to you,
something in me wishes to stand beside you.

Life carried us down different rivers.
I do not curse the current.
I do not wish away the years.

I only know that whenever our paths cross,
something familiar returns,
like a melody remembered
before its name is known.

A reminder that connection exists.

You are one of those people.

Not because of what might have been.

But because of what is.

So, here’s to you, for all these words.
And the silence between them.

It's something I've always noticed since I was a little kid: I'm able to know what others like and how they think, sometimes even better than they do themselves. But when it comes to me, it's a total black hole: I don't know what I like, so I have to analyze things just to figure it out.

I think it's due to my nonexistent Fi (INFJ 5w6), meaning my ability to understand others' desires is linked to my Fe.

Is this the case for you too?

I would like to hear about your personal experiences with this phenomenon of valuing entertainment over substance, and whether you agree or disagree with Socrates that our ultimate human goal should be the pursuit of Wisdom and *why?*

Do you truly believe we can make things better and that at any age people can still be taught to care?

For me I think that *ideally* we should be trying to figure out how to imbue our human experience with meaning and focus on taking care of each other and the world we share with other people and all living creatures, but know that it is an extremely tall order, and I don’t believe that we can do that *without introspection, deep thought, wisdom, and a willingness to ask questions.*

So I think that, at least to an extent, Socrates was correct to value wisdom above all else because I don’t think people are capable of making good decisions without wisdom, perspective, a healthy dose of humility, and an abundance of genuine curiosity about the world around us and how it fundamentally works!

But what do you think?

Do you truly believe we actually have the capability to put things right and teach people how to sit with uncomfortable questions again?

Or are we simply doomed to a painfully slow decline, and an eventual inevitable extinction because not enough people will mentally and emotionally evolve quickly enough?

What are your thoughts / feelings / beliefs / experiences / whatever the hell you can think up?

Happy discussing my home-skillets!

So I turned 22 last week and something happened that made me think a lot. I have always been a person who has people around me always and is a very social person. I wanted to make everyone my friend and I talk to everyone possible. I'm that common friend in many friend groups but not the favorite in any. I enjoyed being that person until recently. I realized that in the process of making everyone my friend, I never really made any friend. I never had any friend who would remember me. Like I never had a best friend. A friend to all is a friend to none, I guess. So all these thoughts started last day. I had my birthday last week, and I never celebrated birthdays in my life. No one ever celebrated my birthday, but all these people who are my friends message me and remember me. Every year, this makes me a lot happy, and I don't care about having a birthday celebration. The wishes and people remembering me were more than enough for me. Birthdays are just normal days for me. So I never really cared until this year. Just like every year, it was my birthday, and a lot of people messaged me, and I was happy. The day passed, and the next day, one friend messaged me asking how my birthday was. I said this, and he couldn't believe it. He asked me, "You have so many friends, and no one even gave you a cake ?". He was shocked. Idk why. He told me about his birthday and the things his friend did for him. And I recalled my birthday, and I just sat at my university hostel room all day. I started thinking about it a lot and asked myself whether I'm all alone. All my life, I had this thought of having so many friends because of me being extroverted and talking to everyone. I thought every person I talked to was a friend. I never thought about making a best friend. Now, I'm becoming desperate to change myself, and I'm trying to be less social. Do you guys think my inability to find a close friend is because I'm trying to make everyone my friend. Should I stop being like that and focus on making just one friend. I don't know if I'm being too stupid, I am not very active on social media and never talk online like this. But I'm afraid that people will make fun of me if I share this problem with someone IRL because I never open up. So I have no one to tell, so I'm trying for the first time to ask something online to strangers. As an ENFJ myself, I'm hoping people like me would understand my situation. That's why I'm talking here. I don't have any online friends, so I can not ask anyone like that either. I talk a lot IRL, so just like that, I'm writing too much here 😭. Now I realize I've written too much for anyone to read. I hope I find answers. If you find this stupid, just ignore it. Please dont make fun of me.

I’m an ENFJ 6w7 woman, and I have 2 close male friends who are INTP and INFP.

I find it insightful to study how cognitive functions affect relationships. All commenters on this post are welcome!

The three of us do activities together like games, book club, and mutual creative hobbies. Our conversations last hours.

I get along intellectually with INTP; we share more hobbies, humor, and banter. I laugh easily with INTP. He’s a bit clumsy with inferior Fe though, and can hurt my feelings, but if I bring it up he’s good about apologizing sincerely and urging me to let him know if it happens again.

The INFP and I go deeper emotionally, but don’t always connect chemistry-wise or intellectually. Our Fi and Fe clash sometimes as well. He’s also idealized me/downplays parts of me that he “disagrees” with, and is overall a bit limerant. I’m sure this has to do with maturity/level of mental health rather than just Mbti.
INTP is a bit more grounded.

If anyone has had experiences with xNxP men, please share! I’m curious if anyone prefers the INTP like me, even though the INFP is seen as the golden pair.

I have a working theory that romantic ENFJ x INFP works best when the ENFJ is the masculine, but doesn’t work as well when the ENFJ is the feminine. For now, INFP is more of a friend vibe

Guys I caught some typical enfj behavior in myself. I am really into mbti typology and, of course, wanna type everyone i know. I really did catch myself thinking that I want to get in people’s heads and understand what their true values, beliefs, and cognitive functions are. Understandable how they think and operate, in order to type them correctly using cognitive functions and not have them mistyped…
This is such an enfj thought to have lol…like just wanting to get into people’s heads and understand their true identities and not go based of your perception of them or their perception of themselves..

I’m curious how many of us have a fearful-avoidant/disorganized attachment style. This is basically a mix of anxious and avoidant. Because of how opposing some of our beliefs and thoughts are, it seems that ENFJ would be the most likely MBTI to be fearful avoidant as well. I am fearful avoidant myself although I try to be secure. What about you guys?

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My enfj would always go up and talk to people and those people would rarely go up to him, but that didn’t stop him. I figured if we were close friends too he would come up to me like that but he would usually stare at me from afar and wait for me to initiate. Maybe he thought I didn’t care as much as him but I did.

At one point I refused to go and talk to him cause he did something I didn’t like. After 2 months of eye tag he finally came up and asked why I haven’t been talking to him and eventually said my behavior hurt his feelings, WHICH I WOULD NEVER HAVE KNOWN cause it’s comes off as he doesn’t care.

Why would he over think interacting with me when he truly cared but just freely went up to several other people?

Do you guys ever over think interactions with someone you’re close to or want to make sure they feel the same way?

I’m an entj f so I know I can come off as cold sometimes, but I was definitely always honest and he got comfortable to speak his mind to me too.

Hi everyone, this is my first post and would love to get your guys' insights.

21F, I think I was INFJ senior year of high school, then ENFJ during my first 3 years of college and now I'm back to thinking INFJ.

Here's what confuses me on the I/E front:

The last two summers I moved to a new city for internships, and both times I made friends easily, social battery wasn't drained, and I was happy. Same thing happens in any new setting once I'm comfortable with people, I make friends fast and initiate hangouts. But day to day, especially at college, I don't have a big friend group and tend to keep to myself, even though I wish I had more people around and a fun busy schedule.

A few other things about me:

• People describe me as outgoing and easy to talk to, and usually assume I'm extroverted
• People are often surprised by how logical I am
• I usually avoid confrontation, which I trace back to some childhood stuff
• I have a few deep, close friendships rather than a wide circle/big friend group
• I've heard INFJs are private, but I actually share a lot of my thoughts with my friends and update them a lot. The only thing I hold back is the really deep stuff, not because I'm private by nature but because I don't want to feel like I'm burdening them with my negativity
• When I'm confused by my emotions, I like to dissect why I'm feeling that way, what in my childhood might have caused it, and what I can do to alleviate it
• I go off vibes on first read of people and I'm usually right
• I get along really well with ENFJs! I'm not sure if it's because ENFJ x ENFJ compatibility is really high or INFJ x ENFJ compatibility is high as well.

What questions should I be asking myself to sort out INFJ vs ENFJ? Curious what patterns you all look for. If there's anything that you'd like more context on, please feel free to ask questions and share any feedback!

Thank you :)

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ENFJs, what is your goal in life?

For me it is to make a difference, to leave a positive, meaningful and lasting impact in the world. Still not sure how I am going to do that yet though, what that will look like.

Im a intp girl in a bit of a crisis so i had a vision today of my future husband and for some reason i associate him as enfj which is unusual because i mainly go for entp. hey. whats a healthy enfj like? ive only met unhealthy ones, 2. otherwise idrk what theyre like. they seem kinda perfect maybe im just in my crisis but hi. open to dms. talk to me. whats a healthy enfj like

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

ISTPs are often perceived as people that require clear boundaries, are independent, and require their personal space in their relationships to function. Some of these traits (independence, highly demanding personal space) often feel like they also cause trouble in maintaining personal relationships (i.e friendships).

So I have some questions for the ISTPs that have managed /are in a long-term relationship:

1. How did you meet your partner and how long were you friends with them?
2. How long did it take for you to realise that you wanted this person as a partner?
3. What are the traits of your partner that made it work with them?

For research purposes :P