Hi
@ShadowedWords. Have you moved anything forward yet? PM me on it if you would like. You know I like hearing it.
I don't think ISFJ would work for me. I need N talk. S talk rarely stimulates my intellect. However, lets make sure to look at the individual. Plus, what if some people are "jumpers" and rely on their third function if their third function is Ni or Ne.
The ISFJ male who I dated was very strong on his Si and Ti, and then lovely in his Fe... but it all came across as controlling and controlling will never work! NEVER work! for an ENFP no matter what the type is. In DaveSuperPowers speak, I guess he would have been ISFJ MF Sleep/Blast/Play/Consume, yes that makes him a jumper. Oh boy... now that I can talk about it in those DaveSuperPowers terms... this was SO not going to work. That being said, I am attracted to Sleep functions together I'm discovering and Enneagram 1s seem very attracted to me, interestingly.
The ISFJ I dated was mostly long-distance and then when we got together in person I think he wanted me to be a certain consistent way, you know? I was not like the other girls he had dated. He was used to women who cared about practical stuff. Immediately he started criticizing things about me. I worried right away that he just wasn't attracted to me in person, but that wasn't the case. It really was all this stuff about "What kind of girl doesn't wear a watch? You don't have a purse? This is the only bag you packed?" I guess this is Si + Ti. I kind of pride myself in packing light. He became very controlling in my opinion. He was holding my hand which was lovely, but feeling like I couldn't communicate was awful. My Ne completely shut down. I knew I couldn't conjecture or explore philosophy with him. I had brought my roommate with me when we met and she was an ENFJ and wanted to talk about all the philosophy and conjecture I usually talk about and tried to bring me out. It wouldn't work. I felt so stupid talking my Ne, I just couldn't. Our silence was deafening to me. We had really connected Fe and Ti to Fi to Te long distance. In fact, we were talking marriage long distance, but that connection in person meant one night of passionate making out, both of us knowing it was over and still caring about each other, knowing that was it. The stony silences and what felt like criticism to me meant that was it for me and whatever he had expected did not happen.
Oh... oh yeah. INFJ men can come off with that controlling Ni-Ti thing too. I think it's just like my Fi can get punchy morally and want the person I'm trying to get to know to agree and accept my Fi, which they are going to have to do. So I think INFJs can also do the same with their Ti… like "I like things THIS way." But my experience with INFJs is that if they decide to care about me, then this melts as... what? I'm not sure why it melts. Maybe that means they are losing interest lol. Maybe it melts as they realize they cannot control me and wouldn't want to? I'm unsure. Do you have an answer on that?
I believe... but I don't know... that there is actually an ISFJ man Enneagram type 1 who is kind of infatuated with me right now and I'm ignoring his interest as is right and I'm surprised and a bit flattered of course. Anyway, interested or not, he seems kind of forceful too. He assumes a lot about how I feel about things. He was talking to me about how he was handling his messy son and thought I would take the same line of thought "I can't stand the idea that he would leave this for his future wife to clean up. I don't want to raise him to not care about others." I said "Pick your battles" and I thought "Dude, you have no idea but you would go nuts being with me." Anyway, I talk my talk and he seems to find it fun to follow along and does respond back somewhat. He is really intelligent (and extremely talented musically too) and I'm not sure that I can say that about the ISFJ who I dated before. This might sound crazy, but I just flat out have to have intelligence in whoever I'm with regardless of type. I have to have intelligence at least equal to mine and caring. If that is the whole package then I demand the whole package. In friendships too. However, that is just conjecturing of what it would be like. This guy will realize soon that nothing will happen and I don't know how he will deal with that. He's kind of a forceful kind of guy! He is used to making things happen, anyway. Eek! Hopefully he gets the idea out of his head on his own. I am ignoring it although it is impossible for me to not spend a spare second on "what if?" and I did talk to my husband about it. The "What if" isn't good imo like he might think it might be! Oh gosh, I've deleted this once already.
I don't know.. I'm kind of sensitive to when and where my Ne type of talking is going to work and when it's not.
And I just realized a friend who I thought was INFJ is ISFJ in the last few months and what we clash on makes so much more sense. Usually it's when I'm asking her to see an alternate possibility from whatever story she is telling. She takes people's stories at face value even if what they are saying is a sob story that seems melodramatic to me. Protagonist and villain kind of stories that I feel I see other sides of the story. I don't know if every ISFJ does that.
I think ISFJs are more varied than we are. The neuroscience says so... that whatever profession an ISFJ chooses or whatever interests they take that this creates very different brains in Si doms. Their repetition in whatever it is fine-tunes those brains to those activities.
Anyway.... I need someone who can handle my Ne, which my INFP husband is glad to do and his Si doesn't want to limit me like my INFP sister's does.