[7legion77]

I find that I can mold others' impressions of me. Usually I just don't bother, and I am seen as very aloof. When intent on charming someone, I can be very attractive and entertaining, using the 4's intuition (to read people's mind and be very sensitive to their reactions) and the 3's social confidence (to please and delight)... but here's the catch. The person who happens to like me because I put on such a good show, will always be kept at an arm's length, so while I can amaze and impress, I will never actually get close to people. The curtains close, and I return to my addictive loneliness. As a true 4 I am much more comfortable in my own head being my natural self-indulgent self, and the social persona I construct runs on a limited battery.

 

[7legion77]

Just the kind of answer I hope for. What skill it must take to mold how others see you. I'm powerless there. Teach me! lol But really, I'm good with it. By the sound of how closeness, for you, doesn't seem to register between you and your interested listener, it appears you don't have an interest in developing a "selfless" relationship? Regrettably, that's the only word that would come to me. But it's like you said, you'll thrill and excite someone, but your energy doesn't always linger with the person for long. It flows wherever your yearning takes you, right? I think I know someone like that who is also a 4w3.

I wasn't always that way. Through acting on a stage a lot when I was young, being a musician, and now working daily in customer service I've developed a way to turn my self-consciousness inside out. I am so aware of every nuance of impression I make on someone, that my fine attention to these details helps me surf the wave, so to speak.
When I'm in that mode, I won't stutter or miss a beat and I feel untouchable.
But it is always objective-oriented; I do it as a job so I can get rid of all the fourish sentiments; as I tap into this pure focus on performing. My true thoughts and feelings are left to fester and mutate on their own, concealed perfectly inside the world that I always escape into come night.

The ability to be selfless and form close relationships with others is badly underdeveloped in me. The self-preservation instinct runs strong.

 

[7legion77]

That's fascinating, making me wonder about something. What you did was adaptation that anyone could do, but you also have a strength that helps you to move in rhythm with how you desire to act, or with what goes on around you. I can adapt, but the meaning of that strength you have, in regard to my differing strength, escapes me. I do wish I could do that, but I use my 4w3 energy differently. Yeah, it could be the adaptability of the instinctual variants for all I know. So, one way in which you use your awareness of yourself and others is to play any role that benefits you the most? And when you're not "performing," you return to that painfully self-indulgent fantasy world where you reflectively peel off your dead skin, so to speak?

And tell me about your aloof side, as people may see it. Are you seen by your peers as difficult, in any respect? Do you have a "reputation" (one assigned to you by people)?

Well I took awhile to check up on these forums again... anyways. Here's the deal:

My lifestyle has to do with limitations in perception. I selectively expose myself only to that which is comfortable yet risky... must have an element of untouchable beauty... it must be familiar, but it CANNOT be mundane... and herein its represented in the fact that I don't have the patience to read all the posts in this thread, only to reply with MY idea and MY opinion and then run away to some frivolous self-indulgent distraction with a hidden fear: trying to avoid how people might react to my brazen verbosity.

The 4w3 will put on a fabulous show, then when night descends he runs away terrified of his own misguided second-guessing. The conflict of the 4w3 is perhaps more jarring than any other combo, but what do I know.

My mind is fixated on a tunnel-vision one track path and I ignorantly brush aside anyone's important/irrelevant observations in favor of MY burning bright vision that lights my own sole singular way... because I'm always horrified that I might be judged and my vaunted self-esteem can suddenly evaporate.

Self-preservation is as holy as it is paralyzing. And it takes a 4's self-loathing/obsession/awareness to really witness how this manifests in oneself.