quote i stumbled across a few days ago and can’t get out of my head it’s so important (via worth-recovering)

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Meredith Grey  (via bl-ossomed)

On dating an INFJ

It’s hard being an INFJ’s significant other. While they’re presenting a picture of friendly, excited, got-my-shit-together perfection to the rest of the world, they’re probably dealing with a whole host of fears, insecurities, doubts, and uncertainties in their mind. It’s not that they’re any more scared, insecure, doubtful or uncertain than anyone else, it’s just that because of their dominant introverted intuiting function, they’re constantly checking their beliefs about their experiences and other people for details they might have missed in their attempt to understand the world. This is of primary importance to them. Since they do not base their knowledge of the world on concrete facts, but rather on the essence of theories and ideas, they may be less certain of their convictions than other, more analytical types. The fact that their understanding of the world can largely be explained only in abstract terms means they can’t point out concrete things in the world that provide evidence for their understanding. Thus the need to constantly check and re-check their experiences. They’re not insecure. They just much slower to come to conclusions than most other people, something which might come across as insecurity to people who don’t know them well.

The hard thing is that as an INFJ’s partner, you’re likely to be the only one privy to this extravagant tapestry of ideas that is their minds. Everyone else will probably just see the extraverted feeling side of their personality, which primarily deals with other people’s emotions in the present moment. This function makes them want to help, support and encourage others. No sign of trying to figure out the order of the universe here. If an INFJ has allowed you to get close enough to see what lies beyond this people-pleasing, shit-together persona they present to the rest of the world, you’re likely to feel confused by this very stark difference between your INFJ and the one the rest of the world knows. In fact, confused is probably a bit of a euphemism for what you’re feeling. Everyone else gets this super empathetic, selfless friend while you get a confused jumble of insecurities and doubts? That hardly seems fair. Even worse, you probably got to know your INFJ as the extraverted feeler, and had to start dealing with her introverted intuition as you became closer. Was this all a trap? Did they butter you up with support and empathy just so they could dump doubts about the point of life on you once you’ve become dependent on their emotional support?

It may feel like that. But that is so not what’s going on here.

What is going on is that your INFJ trusts you enough to reveal her true self to you. Because make no mistake. As naturally as her extraverted feeling function comes to her, it will always just be her auxiliary function. Her dominant function is her introverted intuition. In a sense, then, this is the ‘real’ her. Figuring out the world using her intuition is of primary importance to her. This is what makes her tick, what inspires her to get up in the morning. This is the activity her brain is preoccupied with for most of the day. She just doesn’t tell anybody. Except you. She tells you. That is a huge effing deal to her. Words could never express how much she appreciates you for being the person she can share this side of her with. Even if words were helpful here, she may never use them for this purpose because to her the very fact that she’s showing you this side of her is proof enough that you mean the world to her. In fact, this is something INFJs often struggle with in relationships – finding the words to tell their partner how much they appreciate them just for staying after seeing this side of them that they don’t show anyone else for fear of rejection. Words simply fall short when trying to express this deep level of love and appreciation.

Yes, dating an INFJ is hard. You may feel like you’re burdened with all the bad while everyone else just gets to see the good. But remember that in even the most passionate lament about the state of humanity, your INFJ is thinking, “I can’t believe I met someone whom I can share these thoughts with.” Actually, you might do well to add the phrase, “I’m only telling you this because I trust you enough to share my true feelings with you,” to every single thing your INFJ tells you when you’re alone together. Making her feel supported enough to be her true self with you is the greatest gift your INFJ can imagine, and she will reward you with wells of love and devotion other people can only dream of.

How to Understand Your INFJ: Part 1

1. Accept that you will never really understand your INFJ. If it were possible for anyone to 100% understand any INFJ, an INFJ would have wrote a book on it by now. But the truth is, even we INFJs can’t completely understand ourselves, so we don’t expect you to. But we can tell when you’re trying, and that means a lot. 

2. Listen to what your INFJ is not saying. You know the quote that goes something like “the quietest people have the loudest minds”? That is very true of INFJs. The quieter we are, the more we probably have on our minds. We want friends and partners who understand that and will want to talk to us about it, and more importantly, listen.

3. Know that INFJs really aren’t that serious. Yes, we have a lot on our minds. Yes, we can be sensitive. Yes, we like to partake in serious discussions and debates at times. But we are happiest when we can just be playful, carefree and weird with someone who accepts that side of us. 

4. If you’re not happy, your INFJ is not happy. If someone we love is upset, we take on their feelings as our own. We are extremely empathetic. Sometimes even the sadness in the eyes of the person checking us out at the grocery store is enough to dampen our mood for the rest of the day. This is a quality that makes INFJs different from a lot of other types. We value people who understand this and don’t take every mood shift personally. It’s just hard when you feel what everyone else is feeling all the time. 

5. INFJs can be very stubborn. INFJs hate conflict and avoid it as much as possible, but if you hit the right nerve we will jump in and defend our opinions and values to the death. Later we will probably secretly try to understand your perspective (because we’re always trying to understand everything about everyone) and that might even cause us to agree with you a little, but we won’t tell you that. ;) 

6. INFJs can forgive, but we never forget. If you hurt us and then apologize, we’ll probably forgive you and give you a second chance. But we will never forget the hurt we felt and we will be cautious around you for awhile afterwards. 

7. INFJs are experts at hiding their feelings. We tend to bottle a lot up inside, so on the outside everything appears completely fine. Even the most intuitive types (except maybe other INFJs) can’t typically tell when an INFJ is upset. We both like this and hate this about ourselves.

8. INFJs feel a lot of responsibility, always. We need to make sure everyone is happy, but we also need to be there to listen to everyone’s problems. We need to make sure everything on a project goes right, but we also need to make sure everyone working on the project gets a say in what is happening. We need to make sure we get there on time, but don’t want to make anyone upset by rushing them. We are internal perfectionist and put a lot of pressure on ourselves. But we don’t come across as a typical type A personality because those type of people stress people out and we don’t want to stress anyone out. So we just keep our perfectionism to ourselves and it drives us crazy a little. 

Part 2 coming soon.

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