INFJs are the deep, empathetic intellectuals of the MBTI world. Making up less than 1% of the population, this type is hard to come by and they are often profoundly misunderstood as a result. This week, I surveyed INFJs on my Facebook page to see what they wish other types understood about them. Here’s what they had to say.
1. “We aren’t the gods of over-feeling. We have strengths when it comes to empathy, but that doesn’t mean we’re the best. Also, INFJs can be influential in the arts… and the sciences.”
2. “Even though I may give off an intense vibe, I’m really easy to talk to. As long as one is being genuine and honest with me, I will greatly appreciate them for trusting me to show me their vulnerability.”
3. “I understand you because I can strongly empathize with you, but that doesn’t mean that how you feel or think is necessarily how I feel and think.”
4. “No matter how I come off, my actions are usually carried out with good intentions to help or provide insight… but I can be intense… and misunderstood.”
5. “Intuition isn’t magic, or assuming, or guessing. Stop rolling your eyes for a second and I’ll absolutely try to translate what made me think something in a more linear way. It’ll be messy because it’s probably something about people, and people are complicated, but I’ll keep trying as long as you’re patient with me.”
6. “It’s not like we want to be special, hypersensitive and misunderstood. The order of our cognitive functions makes us very exhausted and a lot of us wish they were another type. We have to accept ourselves and it’s not always that easy.”
7. “I’m really tired of people telling me I’m too sensitive. Especially when I’m usually their biggest advocate. And also, my strong sense of right and wrong, and attention to detail doesn’t make me a snob.”
8. “Don’t be so willing to let us shut you out. We can be difficult, but encourage us to let you into our strange, spectacular inner world.”
9. “I really don’t have an ulterior motive of personal gain; I really do just want you/the situation’s potential to be realized.”
10. “Our need for peace and harmony can make it difficult to understand our own feelings because we want the other person to be happy. Give the INFJ time to sift through and decide how they really feel about issues.”
11. “There’s more to me than being sweet or my resting bitch face exterior.”
12. “My passion and feelings are not a negative, they are just different from the thinkers ways. It takes time and energy to live in middle, but we do want to live that way… it just takes more energy to do so than others have to expend.”
13. “Though we may appear outwardly confident and self-assured, we are often crippled with self-doubt internally. More than anything we just want someone to understand us the way we seem to understand everyone else. Even having someone sincerely make the effort would feel like enough.”
14. “We get stressed and sometimes it’s best to give us our space.”
15. “We may look dreamy and mysterious but we are super perceptive about situations and have clarity regarding how other person’s core personality is. The only one able to fool/delude ourselves is us and don’t lie to us unless you want to get cold shouldered.”
16. “I would always rather spend time individually with each person at a time, than be in a large group where people are competing to talk.”
17. “Don’t treat us like we’re crazy if we do happen to actually let you in, Especially if we’re not as confident in our intuition just yet. It took a lot to trust you and if you take that for granted, you would’ve been kinder to just set us on fire.”
18. “We’re not psychic. We’re not. We are constantly aware of how we imagine people to be feeling, and we treat them as such, and very often we’re right (because of those killer intuitive instincts), but sometimes we’re wrong. It’s not a foolproof thing.”
19. “I’m not actually an extrovert who wants to singlehandedly save all the orphans and bring down corrupt governments. I just cry about not being an extrovert who had enough energy to save all the orphans and bring down corrupt governments.”
20. “I judge myself as harshly as I judge you.”
21. “I am NOT perfect. I just don’t like broadcasting my problems to the world. If I have told you about them, then that means I really trust you, so congratulations to you for getting me to open up.”
22. “We have problems with working out our own emotions from what we perceive everyone else’s emotional state may be. We value truth and genuineness over anything else. The thing is, if we for any reason begin doubting our gut or intuition in terms of relationships because of something you did that broke our trust, things tend to fall apart. We retreat into our heads and obsess over, question, and relieve every event until we are so worked up that the relationship crashes.””
23. “Don’t take it personally if we are really into you one week and totally closed off and hermit-y the next. We still really like you; we just need alone time.”
24. “I sometimes know you better than you do but I’m still always working on finding myself.”
Heidi Priebe explains how to manage the ups, downs and inside-outs of everyday life as an ENFP in her new book available here.
