What It Means To Be An INFJ
Among the many eccentric interests I have in common with no one is my interest personality typing. Now, don’t go running yet — I swear this shit is for real, not just your run-of-the-mill, so-vague-as-to-apply-to-anybody Barnum effect astrology-type shit. My interest in personality typing is driven by my lifelong goal of better understanding the others in my life, as well as a desire to improve my communication with others by learning the language that they speak (so that I can speak to them).
The most well-known system of personality typing is the MBTI, or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which you should read about. My type is INFJ — (I)ntroverted, I(N)tuitive, (F)eeling, (J)udging — and I consider my INFJness to be central to my identity. For the past 12 years I’ve more or less consistently tested as INFJ — the two exceptions being an ENFJ result in my less reclusive drinking days, and INFP in 2015.
Also known as “The Counselor” — kinda ironic considering my dream of being a psychotherapist someday — INFJ’s auxiliary function of extraverted feeling means they are one of the types who are most genuinely interested in other people. So, it should probably come as no surprise that this shit is fucking fascinating to me.
Above all else, being an INFJ means feeling misunderstood. The rarest of the 16 types, at 1–2% of the population we are not just strange people, but certifiable weirdos from an objective, statistical perspective. Feeling misunderstood plagues the INFJ with a permeating sense of isolation in this great big world. We do not readily connect with others, reserving our innermost selves for the very few we are close to. We will only show you who we are if we are sure you will care; we will only speak freely and honestly if we are sure you will listen.
This can be considered a form of self-sabotage, because our difficulty in forming the deep, genuine connections we crave is partially our own doing. We wander about the world closed off in our little shells, among but never truly “with” the people who surround us. Even in a room full of people we feel alone. We have an extraordinarily low tolerance for the smalltalk and surface-level bullshit required to get others to even notice we exist, then get angry when nobody takes the time to penetrate our hardened exteriors and get to know the real “us.” Our lively imaginations cultivate rich inner worlds that we want nothing more than to share with another. Being denied that opportunity is the greatest pain we know.
When by some miracle we happen to find those rare souls who WILL bother to get to know us, we hold onto them. I recently noted that there are just three (three!) people in this world I feel 100% comfortable being myself around — they accept and embrace me and celebrate all the quirks that make me “me” but that are most often a source of torment rather than celebration. Tirelessly authentic INFJs so want to show their true selves, but are almost never comfortable enough around others to do so. Everyone puts on a public face to some extent, but for the INFJ, having to do this without having a “soft place to fall” where we can be true to ourselves is particularly exhausting. It’s a lot of work to pretend to be someone else all the time.
Needless to say, having so few people one feels comfortable really talking to or not putting up a front around can be a depressing state of affairs. We watch others form connections with others, seemingly effortlessly, and wonder what is so defective about us that prevents us from enjoying the same social ease they do. We are prone to envy, and if rejected for long enough, our envy manifests as resentment toward society as a whole. In an attempt at self-soothing, we shift the blame from our perceived defects to entire societal constructs or what we’ve concluded must be the inherent evil of humanity — all because they can find happiness and we can’t. We feel as if we are “wrong” for not being like others.
The absence of close relationships will send the INFJ into a state of intolerable chaos and #despair if it goes on for long enough. Self-defeating and naturally inclined to turn inward to explain our failures in relationships, we do not recover easily from the loss of love. I’ve always felt that if my relationships are in good shape, then I am basically okay in life, even if I am poor as shit or every other aspect of my life is blowing up. But if I have everything else a person could want to achieve, like a good job and whatever material possessions people are supposed to care about, yet nobody to share it with, I feel empty — without purpose.
Dating is far from “fun” to the INFJ, who wants to skip all the needless game-playing and dive right into the real meat of a partnership. We are decidedly intense people and can come off very strong, possibly intimidating to some. We will not hesitate to let you know when we like you (unless of course we don’t think you reciprocate, in which case we will resign ourselves to infinite longing and incurable dissatisfaction). And in expressing our opinions and world views, we can be stubborn and uncompromising. Nonetheless, we need partners who can challenge those views, because otherwise we quickly grow bored.
Going along with the theme of deep, genuine connections is INFJ’s tendency to be a “partnered” type. “Playing the field” doesn’t appeal to us in the least. Like the strength of our dedication to our values and beliefs, we are loyal to the ones we love, sometimes to a fault. To be loved by an INFJ is to know a warmth and depth like you haven’t known before. Unconditional love is easy for us. We are sometimes guilty of holding onto bad relationships, misled by our idealistic nature to see the best in others to the exclusion of (obvious) transgressions. I have stayed in relationships that would be classified as “abusive” by any psychologist’s definition, far past the point of needing to call it quits. It’s just that when we find someone we actually feel connected with, we will work tirelessly to fix the relationship instead of simply walking away. (But if they walk away first, we won’t argue. As determined as we can be to keep relationships, our J allows us to accept finality and move onto the search for closure.) We cannot stand it when others give up on us and so we try to live lives in which we “do unto others as we would have them do to us.”
Second to feeling understood and connected with others is our need for authenticity. We are seekers of hidden meanings and overlooked beauty, able to look beyond the exteriors to see the truths that lie within. We can spot a liar from a mile away. (I would not recommend lying to an INFJ. We will cut a bitch.) This isn’t to say that we always — or even usually — pay attention to the red flags we see, but we are gifted with an acuity to the subtle signs and symptoms of inauthenticity. I like to think this allows me to weed out anyone who won’t be worth my time — but, it isn’t impossible to fool us either, as our idealism can manifest as gullibility. We so badly WANT to believe that people are good that sometimes we get caught up in the comfort of a fantasy world in which we deny obvious signs that all is not well. We cannot tolerate disharmony; when faced with harsh truths we do not want to accept, living in a fantasy world is how we manage to get through the day.
We need to believe you are who you say you are so that we don’t feel stupid for sharing who we are. We are not at all uncomfortable with vulnerability once we get to the point of letting you in, but we also feel like if we grant you the privilege our vulnerability, you owe us the courtesy of being genuine in your motives and intentions with us.
INFJ’s natural partner is the ENFP — (E)xtroverted, I(N)tuitive, (F)eeling, (P)erceiving. INFJ will find immediate kismet and effortless connection the ENFP, and surprise! — both of my long-term relationships were with ENFPs. As if I weren’t already convinced that the MBTI was more than mere mysticism and pseudoscience, that’s a hard coincidence to deny. 8 out of my 10 years in the dating game have been spent with “The Performer.” These two men looked quite different externally, but it’s easy to see the qualities they shared that attracted me to them with what can only be described as magnetism: Charming, hilarious, at ease in social situations (their higher levels of extroversion serving as an important complement to get me out of my occasional shell), with an ability to talk endlessly about any topic I could think of, from the origins of the universe to the depths of their hearts, in a way meaningful enough to keep me engaged. I’m never bored with an ENFP. I need a partner with whom I never run out of things to talk about. That is the kind of person I can see myself growing old with. Simply put: The ENFP is, for me, hard not to fall in love with.
Other types I’ve found myself repeatedly drawn to are INFP and INTJ, but relationships have not come as naturally with them as with ENFPs. INFJ does not have a single function in common with INFP despite just one letter separating the types, e.g. INFJ’s extraverted feeling vs. INFP’s introverted feeling. This explains why after initial fascination with INFP’s different perspectives, ultimately our differences present challenges in communication about the relationship itself. As for INTJs, they are weirdos like INFJs (think mad scientist types), but my overall sense from them is that they are dead inside, and I simply cannot deal with people who refuse to get in touch with their emotions.
Another gift of INFJ’s highly developed intuition — primary function of introverted intuition, making up about half of who we are, alongside an auxiliary function of extraverted feeling — is borderline psychic abilities. Many psychics are in fact INFJs, though of course not every INFJ is necessarily “psychic.” I actually tried to make money off my psychic powers once upon a time. I’ve predicted accidents hours or moments before they occurred, I’ve had lucid dreams of places I wouldn’t know until months later, and I share very real telepathy with my mother (fellow INFJ). She always knows when I’ll call and vice versa. Really eerie. Problem is, these senses I get about people and situations are not useful to anyone but me. They’re also not based on anything I can really explain, and so I usually can’t rationalize altering my course of action because of these premonitions of disaster. Nonetheless, it’s hard for INFJs to ignore the strong feelings we get about people and things. Even if we don’t know why we feel that way, we know we’re right. I feel blessed that I can rely on my intuition to provide me with clues about what the future holds (even if I ultimately ignore that internal voice).
The final thing I feel is core to my INFJness is a sense of empathy so strong as to be detrimental at times. Moreso than most we are prone to taking on the emotions or “vibes” of those around us. We will always be able to sense if something is wrong. If someone we love is anxious, we will feel anxious by proxy. I do not feel like I have much control over my own emotions because I am so influenced by the health of the relationships I’m in and the mental states of those around me. For this reason, INFJs especially must resist the urge to get involved with troubled or unhealthy individuals, as this is a sure recipe for inner turmoil that will slowly but surely permeate our outside worlds as well, causing everything to fall apart before our eyes. And stability — but not boredom — is important to us. We need to feel like we can count on you, and if you’re unhealthy, you take more than you give, resulting in a palpable drain on our emotional health. We have a tendency to overextend ourselves, genuinely happy to help other people — this is one key way we show our love, always extended without conditions or strings attached — but we must be careful not to deplete ourselves at the cost of another.
In conclusion: We’re pretty good people, us INFJs, but we can also be so disinterested in the more mundane aspects of life that we make things harder for ourselves than they have to be. Life is not easy for the INFJ. Nonetheless, if you can call an INFJ a friend or a lover, you will experience many gifts you will not find in 98–99% of the population. If you’re willing to take the time to get to know us, you’ll find many things to love about us, and after we are sufficiently convinced that you are genuine, we will love you for giving us the opportunity to share the beautiful inner world that only you are special enough to know.
*I typically score 60/40 on Judging/Perceiving but certain times I test closer to 50/50. However, despite this result coming up recently, there remains no doubt in my mind about my J preference. I can be very spontaneous and go-with-the-flow, leaving plans open and preferring to play things by ear, but my communication style that gives me away: I employ a directing style of communication characteristic of J types, which contrasts with the informing style P types prefer. This is one of the best insights I’ve learned for speedreading others in my life as either J or P. To illustrate the difference, imagine a situation where the light is green, the driver doesn’t notice it’s no longer red, and the passenger needs to tell the driver that it’s time to drive now that the light is green.
A Judger passenger will simply say, “Go.” A Perceiver will be more roundabout about it, saying, “The light is green,” a.k.a. “Go.” Judgers are more straightforward and more comfortable giving directives/commands, whereas Perceivers prefer to make people aware of information and then let them come to their own conclusions.
