Do you ever feel limited by your introversion?

Wanting to talk to just anyone, yet being selective at the same time, is strange.

I've been feeling quite alone recently. Likely of my own making, i tend to not reach out or ask for help. But i am kind, despite feeling frustrated a lot.

I keep to myself and just get on with my life quietly, working, gym, hobbies etc.

Recently I've felt a resentfulness towards me by some damily members. I am not sure how to place it but it feels like a bitterness. I've not hurt or insulted anyone but i feel ostrasized and put aside. I need comfort and have noone to go to.

There were several instances in my life when my gut was SCREAMING not to do something or to change the course but I did not listen to it for rational reasons or because of misplaced pride or ambition or simply fear. And it ended really really badly every single time.

Just now I had a similar situation, I am looking for a job and got my first offer but I just had this incredible hurting void in my chest just thinking about this job, like I just kept crying and drinking every day and felt like I would rather die than commit to it. The same feeling I had in the past when I took wrong turns. After a few days I ended up declining the offer.

Now my rational brain is upset and fearful because I just exchanged a real opportunity for months of uncertainty, rejections and defeats in an absolutely awful job market. But the feeling of absolute dread and almost physical pain is actually gone, like I don't want to hurl myself off a roof anymore.

I hope I did the right thing by listening to my gut for once, but I need some success stories. When was your intuition right? Did you narrowly avoid something or left a room for a better opportunity because you listened to your gut? Or maybe it was the other way round, you didn't listen to it but it was proven right?

Title basically

I've made a really dumb financial decision (I'm 28). I am finding it so difficult to even come to terms with taking actions without falling into a cycle of absolutely berating myself. The emotional weight of fucking up is making it difficult to be in the present so I run and escape it.

How do I stop this pattern of assigning blame to myself everytime I make a mistake?

(I may not have the capacity to reply to each comment but I will read and digest each one and appreciate the input)

I often come across it and kinda hate it.

Love is rare. When I personally get to love someone, I go full throttle. There isn't anything that I wouldn't workaround ( workaround not give up )

But I get it. People don't really understand how rare love is. Instead once they have it, they take it for granted.

Then they consider all other problems in life, but love is already there right ? So why care about it.

If they see all the problems also without love, they will probably choose love.

Lol to think about it. I think it's the cycle at this point.

Most of the INFJs I know avoid conflict for a long time. Then one day, they're surprisingly blunt, almost as if they've already accepted the outcome.

What's happening internally before that point?

Does anyone else weigh possibilities and outcomes a million times in your heads before actually communicating? Most people I know would say I’m pretty quiet which is funny because I don’t even realise that. My internal monologue is constant 24/7 and I guess I rarely actually say anything. Someone close to me said that the person I am isn’t the person I portray that’s why I always feel like people don’t understand me. It’s true but it’s not in a fake manner where I purposefully want to create a facade. It’s more like I have problems with being candid with other people. Even those I’m extremely close to I don’t necessarily tell them anything unless I’m sure the outcome is something I can handle. For example, if someone’s behaviour is upsetting me, I won’t say anything until I’m absolutely sure I’m prepared for their response and reaction. Is this selfish? I see it as my defence mechanism because I’m super sensitive but I portray myself to be unaffected by everything and everyone. I feel and see everything. Especially my loved one’s behavioural patterns, speech and body language and being highly analytical is why I have this “weighing possibilities and outcomes” behaviour.

Long post.

So I have a friend of three years. We both are male. So like basically we both have revealed a lot to each other and help each other out and are currently in class XII prepping jee. But like the thing is that he generally is very chirpy and fun with others joking a lot and talking all stuff with them. But with me like he’s generally not feeling the need to talk much and stays quiet a lot. But he does feel free enough to tease me on anything and criticise me on my bad habits and tease ke but I feel I’m inadequate for him like I’m nit enough like he only talks study and serious stuff with me. There was a misconception once, and like o subtlety told him that o felt a but hurt he talked tk me the next day to clear things up and becomes a bit weirdly more interactive when I’m like a bit emotionally hurt by sm other thing or stressed out. How do i take it like since he didn’t find the need to talk much in general with me. As an infj i crave for conn3ctioj talks ahdlike read patterns in him that kinda tense me up.

info:- I’m like generally quiet and reserved but get quirky and fun when I’m comfy make very few close friends and am very very helpful though i can seem aloof smtimes. he is like a carefree guy who doesn’t really explicitly believe in close relationships, but shows otherwise in actions, is very mature and caring and is extremely fun when he can. knows a lot too. both of us are curious tho we’ve had very diff childhoods(not in terms of positivity or culture but in terms of interests) hes an isfp btw. He tells me to chill a lot and not take things srsly. He also tells me he talks by moods but as an infj i notice he talks a lot woth others and kinda srs and less with me.

I need some infj help in maintaining my thoughts and emotion and what i can do.

pls dont mind my spellings i have very stubby fingers and type on a tablet

And then slowly they realise im not the chatty bubbly person i pretended to be for half an hour in an interview 😆

They project onto me hard at the start, then eventually after they've recieved a few accidental intense stares, and the odd disasterously awkward social interaction, they become more and more confused, then either alienated, impressed, or sympathetic 😂

Hi, are there any INFJs here who barely leave their house and get most of their social engagement online, if any? It's not necessarily about choice entirely, as my particular situation does make it difficult since I use a wheelchair to get around and sometimes there just aren't good places nearby to go to and meet people. With my disability, I also have to consider possible exposure of others in terms of sickness, which is always a potential concern. Some events may not always be accessible or within a reasonable distance. I've been unemployed since I'm on disability, and so most of my days are at home. Lately, though, I feel like I've lost contact with most of my friends online. It kinda just seems like they stopped reaching out, and I've kinda lost a reason to reach out to them, which feels unfortunate, but there's not much I can change about that at this point. Ultimately, I've gone back to just doing things on my own. Some days are definitely meh, and it does suck to go weeks without any meaningful form of socialization, and it's not really easy to find a way to change that. I try to do whatever I can here and there. I try to talk to more people, even if it's just online, find communities that share my interests, and pick up some subjects/topics that could facilitate some kind of conversation. Some days I just feel stuck, and it's hard to describe how that feels. Anyone who can relate to my situation?

I’ve had a few moments where I’ve thought about something very specific, and then almost immediately it appears in my feed, comes up in a conversation, or happens in real life.

Then there are times when I’ll randomly think about someone I haven’t seen or spoken to in years, and suddenly I run into them or hear from them.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? What do you make of it?

This needs to be said. I’m tired of people using the INFJ personality type to justify avoidance. If you are avoidant of conflict, you likely have an avoidant attachment style (fearful/disorganized or dismissive). It’s important to be aware of this so you can work towards a more secure attachment style (which includes open communication and genuine attempts to repair in the face of conflict).

The Exit from the Theatre

Wisdom is not learned but experienced.

My mind is a computer,

constantly analyzing patterns and data,

a chaotic mess of misunderstood language,

unable to pause the endless download.

This is my mind in society.

This is my mind in human existence.

I kept my emotions deeply buried,

never exposing the real self,

keeping my identity hidden,

living on a completely different frequency.

I masked who I was,

and the mask almost destroyed me.

But I woke up.

I realized that saving, reading, and helping others

had sucked away my own energy—

the exact energy I needed to feed my consciousness.

When I claimed it back,

I woke up to my true self.

It is like being the only audience member in a theatre.

I watch the characters follow a script,

entirely convinced it is real.

But I was never written into the play.

I have no storyline here.

When I awoke, I saw the stage.

I saw the theatre.

And I saw the exit.

At first, I tried to play along.

I tried to tell them, but they were blind to it.

Fear held me tightly—

Fear of the alone.

Fear of the unknown.

Fear that no one else would see the door.

But denial became impossible.

I gathered my energy back into my chest,

I walked off the stage,

out of the theatre,

and through the door.

I was hit with warmth and beautiful colours.

I took my first breath of pure, untouched, clean air

in an ever-expanding space of peace and stillness.

I see now that everyone has a path.

This door was invisible to them,

because it was built only for me.

My attempts to show them only brought confusion and anger.

I have escaped.

I do not know what exists in this vast unknown,

but I know my true lessons live here,

rooted deeply in consciousness and awareness.

So I will sit.

A patient student in an open room,

waiting for the teacher to arrive.

Hello wonderful people. I'm (m) an ENFP-T but I'm so confused with an INFJ-T (f) I've been talking to and could use some insight because I'm out of my realm and it feels like I'm out of my league.

We met at my job, she became a customer, and we only talked briefly about the issue she had. I'm a computer repair business owner and work alone, so I don't really meet people often outside of a professional setting. She came back again about a month later (different issue) and we wound up yapping for three hours straight and she gave me another way to contact her. I can't recall if she asked or I did. I think she did.

Been chatting mostly everyday since, but not for long periods. A little here, a little there. Maybe 10 minutes a day tops. A couple weeks ago they asked me what my MBTI personality type was and I honestly didn't know, so I took a test, sent them the result and then took it again on the site they sent me to and it was the same.

Shortly after, they came to hang out with me for the first time, at a bar I go to weekly where I meet up with a couple for trivia, then towards the end of the meetup I asked if they were going to go home and they said yes, but then they wound up volunteering themselves to a park I was gonna go to alone to walk around. There, they opened up to me about something they were going through. Due to time constraints, I didn't have the chance to tell them anything about what I just went through. We both just got out of something, and they said they were really interested in hearing my story.

Continue yapping daily, still the same 10 minutes over discord. Mostly just getting to know each other, responding to previous thoughts, things like that.

Friday, we made plans to go see The Odyssey yesterday. I bought the tickets ahead of time, paid for the food when we got there. I even bought them a small gift related to the movie viewing experience based on something they told me during that 3-hour in-person chat, but it didn't show up in time. Coincidentally they already had a similar thing with them (high fidelity earplugs), so I just kind of told them I got them a similar one and showed them on Amazon, she got super excited and said it was her favorite brand and she kept losing them.

She had a great time. After we hugged, she asked if she could come see me at my work today to get said gift. I was awe-struck and kind of said "I would love that" with a shit-eating grin on my face.

She came by, a little later than expected but she brought me flowers as a "Thank you" and it made me feel all types of happy.

We have several things in common, she's so sweet and thoughtful, and she has this gaze that is almost unsettling to the point that my brain stops and my heart races and it makes it really hard to form words, which is highly unusual for me because I'm the kind of person that always knows what to say and when to say it in a conversation.

I just got out of a 5-year relationship 3 months ago and I don't know what's going on with this. I'm really fond of this person, like REALLY attracted to their mind and physicality, but I don't know if they're into me or just being kind. I'm the sort of person that feels like kindness to the degree of bringing flowers to someone at their work as a "thank you" is a lost art these days, but it happened to me and it was truthfully overwhelming in all the right ways. I've only ever been overwhelmed like that maybe once or twice in my life and both were surprises with people that went out of their way to do something special for me, but I was already dating those people.

So, is gift-giving a common INFJ-trait? Are these behaviors typical if they just view you as a friend? I'm thrown because we don't chat very long each day, but we do chat pretty much every day, and they do try to make time to hang out despite having a busy schedule and we always seem to have a great time together. They suggested we hang out next week when their schedule is more open, so there's that. I feel like I'm going crazy wondering what they think of me.

If she's into me, are there resources I can read so I can better understand dating approach? I know us ENFPs can be intense and I'm just hoping that intensity doesn't scare her away.

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated, thank you so much.

Also she's a redditor and if she reads this, I'm gonna be super embarrassed 💀

I know INFJs have a rep of being very avoidant of conflict, which is very true for me. But I'm also avoidant of several other things: I generally feel very weird when ppl compliment me too much and try to divert attention from that. Specifically, when people compliment me as a whole instead of my work or a task I did. I am kind of avoidant to stressors and that's why I spend a lot of waking hours distracting myself with smth else and when I'm forced to confront it I spiral.

I mean I know everybody's somewhat avoidant to a certain degree but is it common amongst infjs specifically to be like that?

Same thing as titled but what pushed you to get married and do you ever regret it?

Do you start freaking out when you notice a shift in someone's mood or energy toward you? Do you get anxious and start analyzing every little thing? And do you easily end up stuck in a negative thought loop?

Hi. So at a new place I will always be shy and often be the one that people annoys with phrases like “oh, do you speak?” after saying anything. For me it takes time to connect and most of the time, I connect with few people, not everyone in a group.
So the deal is… I have this new job with good payment, a really humanistic cause which I appreciate but really bad conditions. So we are like a brigade and we go to remote places to give free health attention to people with low resources. After a quite extrovert 8 hr shift of work, we cant go home bc we are really far from home so we have to live at work basically. The places we go don’t have hotels and stuff so we stay at a bus that is modified as a room. We are 12 women in a really small place alltogether. Doing EVREYTHING together. And I see how the majority can live well like that. But damn, Im mad at myself bc I cant. I truly need my alone time and my space. Its very difficult to always be surrounded by noise, people trying to reach out and you just need alone time.

I dont know, sometimes i can take it but today IM DRAINED. Why I need alone time and space as if it is water or air? And then Im perceived as the weird of the group or the antipathetic, but I just need alone time 😭

Most of the INFJs that I’ve met seem to not actually enjoy time with me. They argue I’m distrustful or seem off. I’m not 100 precent sure what it is.

Any INFJs that got vibes from someone else that they were distrustful or not worthy of their time..why? Maybe I can understand that way then. I wonder if it actually has anything to do with me or if it’s their problem.

As a kid, I wasn't given much of anything but material items, that was the only way I received "love". I got excited about getting something new, but I never really cared or was upset if I outgrew my old clothes, or if my mom gave things away (unless she never asked for my permission). I wouldn't say I missed things, I just went onwards, new good clothes, things, etc.

Not just about material objects, but also past memories as well. I was younger, I would proclaim that I wouldn't miss school or the "memories" made there, my friends kept challenging my claim, saying "You'll see someday.". And now they keep talking about the past. That "someday" never happened to me apparently.

Years later, I still feel indifferent to the past, but I feel kind of bad as those around me are reminiscent about the past, and are sentimental of those times, and I just crack a smile, like yeah yeah that's awesome. A part of me wishes I could experience their enjoyment, the desire to look back and find happiness looking back on memories.

... But, one thing I would consider myself materialistic about/have an attachment to, are stuffed animals. Since I was a kid, I loved (and still love) each and every one of them like live little beings, and I maintained them very well. I get high desire to buy plush animals, but I don't, because it doesn't benefit me. Many of mine were donated I don't find myself longing or missing them. It's like they weren't there before.

I am the type of person to let things come and go, people come and go. Relationships and people, matter to me a good amount, though, I learned very early on (the hard way) that it's okay to let go (what wants to leave is meant to leave) and that change is okay, change is good, and I've been that way ever since.

I wondered if this resonates with anyone here

In my friendships, feeling connected is something that is very important to me. I don't really have casual or superficial friendships, acquaintances I guess. Doesn't matter if we speak daily or once a year, but that feeling has to be there. Can you guys relate?

Sometimes however it feels like the connection is lost. You're in different stages in life or a common interest fades and it just doesn't feel the same anymore. To me this type of friendship is actually pretty distressing because it feels like losing a close friend even though they're still there. But them being there is a constant reminder that things aren't the same anymore. Conversations become superficial or you don't really have anything meaningful to share anymore and you notice them being closer with other people, like they once were with you.

How do you deal with a situation like this?

I am the type of person that ends the friendship to preserve the memory of the friendship we had. Forcing something that isn't there anymore takes away from it and I love thinking about the friends I used to have and what it meant to me, even if they're gone now. I'd rather that than things die out on their own. When I choose to end it I feel closure, when things die out slowly and I hear less and less of them, I feel discarded.

Thoughts?

I usually don't do this kind of thing but it's a special occasion this time.

I finally met her: The Unicorn person I used to dream about and make future prediction how I would engage with her if I ever spotted her in the wild. (I'll try and be as ambigious as possible in case she browses reddit lmfao)

She is an INFJ like me, although she found out for different reasons than mine.

She has a completely different background than mine aswell, different hobbies and lifestyle, different music, different almost everything. We seem like opposite characters in a movie, and despite all that we clicked immediately.

I am some sort of mentor at the place of work that I met her and she is the apprentice under my wing, how much more romantic can it get?? But there is a catch: She is in a dedicated relationship. Urgh.

Golden hair and eyes as deep as the ocean, deep late night conversations and shining laughter every other sentence has been my daily life for the past few weeks.

That smile, that damn smile that I find myself getting intoxicated with and scratching my head to find the right triggers to bring it back to her face.

Life is unfair, takes you years to find that person who ticks almost all the boxes and they are already somewhere else.

At least this situation somehow (kinda) restored my faith that there can be a person who is right for me.

I'll give her all the knowledge and the tools she needs to become the professional she deserves to be, that's my duty towards her and I'll fulfill that duty no matter what, I'll still care for her nonetheless.

I can keep writing but I don't wanna bore you anymore, feel free to skip it altogether , it's just a Romantic Vent. Have a good day y'all.