14 iNtuitive Feeling Men Explain What They Wish The World Understood About NF Males
"People have this erroneous belief that pushing emotion down makes them strong. Ironically, it's this repression that leaves them a slave to their unconscious feelings and weaker for it."
By 
Heidi Priebe
When it comes to the distribution of Myers-Briggs personality types, the breakdown of introversion and extroversion, iNtuition and sensing and perceiving and judging is relatively equal across gender. However, 65.5% of men identify as Thinking types in the MBTI system. While intuitive personality types are already significantly rarer than sensing types, intuitive feeling personality types are particularly rare in men – with NF males making up only 10.5% of the population. This week, I asked iNtuitive feeling men what they wished the rest of the world understood about male NF personalities. Here’s what they had to say.
1. “I am an NF man and I do not just cry and write poetry all the time! I have intense emotions about the causes I care about, but am otherwise a very private person. My NF shows through in my interest in abstract intellectual topics, not necessarily in art.” -INFP, 19
2. “Although emotional in nature, a great number of male feelers also like being in-charge and decision makers. Additionally, many can provide intellectual stimulation so long as their partner is sensitive and doesn’t resort to trolling to gain the upper hand in a debate.” -ENFJ, 26
3. “NF men need to be very clear about their romantic situation – we don’t date casually and we need a partner who is very loyal. We can make the first move but it a little more difficult for NF men because we always want to be respectful.” -INFP, 30
4. “I genuinely love having female friends. I’m not inboxing you expecting to get nudes.” -INFP, 30
5. “I do not conform to conventional ideas of masculinity. For this reason, I think I have always had a really hard time fitting in (which, I guess, is the INFJ condition). I have managed to successfully navigate years of social ostracism, but picked up a strong tendency towards self-criticism and negative self-worth. I try my best to combat this tendency, but honestly, it’s a daily struggle; I so often condemn myself for lacking the proverbial strength and qualities that society expects from a typical man. But there is a valuable lesson that I have learned, and one that all members of society should remember about NF men: sensitivity is not a weakness, and neither is idealism; a man can be emotional, without having his validity questioned.” -INFJ, 25
6. “NF men are not wimps. We have a quiet strength that is caring and protective of others.” -ENFP, 52
7. “Most of the time I’m normally mistaken as gay or too girly but I don’t thing being in touch with my emotions has anything to do with sexuality (I’m straight) or has anything to do with my masculinity. I find that we seem to be quickly placed into the friends zone when it comes to most of our female relationships. In general though I find that my friendships in general end up being more about emotional support for our friends. As with my experience the only place we get this from our friends is through other NF males. This may be due to the awkwardness this may cause other types. Not sure. Through to be honest I don’t normally feel that most people don’t understand us well. Especially in societies like Australia (where I am from) were there is this social understanding that men have to be tough as and don’t talk about their emotions. This makes things slightly weird and uncomfortable when conversing with people with that mentality.” -ENFP, 24
8. “We are honest and caring. But we are not unconfident or weak.” -ENFJ, 26
9. “Understanding ourselves and our emotions makes us very strong. People have this erroneous belief that pushing emotion down makes them strong. Ironically, it’s this repression that leaves them a slave to their unconscious feelings and weaker for it. Experiencing emotion and exploring it’s many textures is what makes you a master of that realm – not avoiding it. It takes courage to be vulnerable, open and authentic – it’s something that scares most men to death. Standing against the crowd as an individual is about as masculine as it gets. It can be hard being an INFP male in a world that dismisses our primary function, but ultimately it teaches us enormous inner strength. I don’t wish to be anyone but myself and an INFP. I love the cognitive functions I’ve been given. I can’t think of a stack that is better for deep, meaningful creativity and understanding people. I am so grateful for the many gifts my type affords me!” -INFP, 47
10. “Our strength lies in our emotional intelligence, thus we are taken for granted when it comes to friendship, whereas SJ types think emotion is redundant.” -INFP, 18
11. “I think as an NF male, it gives me a bit of an advantage in some social situations. Most people expect me to be more logical and calculating, so if I am, it’s no different. But when they find that I am more emotionally in tune with myself and them, it sets me apart from most other men. It allows me the opportunity to make an unexpected difference in their life, should the chance arise. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” -INFJ, 24
12. “That gender stereotypes are out of date. And they were always wrong for a lot of people.” -ENFP, 49
13. “Don’t marginalize us because we don’t fit into your ‘usual’ roles.” -ENFP, 35
14. “I am not weak. I am just hopeful and patient but when hope and patience run out, watch out!” -INFP, 46 
