Joined
·
65 Posts
Hey guys, I'm having trouble an INTJ roommate and want to know if you guys can offer any help as to how I can better understand him/tolerate his tendencies.
So some (super long) background, feel free to skim this--we're both guys, and have been friends since the first year of college. I'm entering my third year now, and rooming with him for the summer. Prior to this he lived alone last year, and the year before got stuck with a guy that, at least among my friends, was universally intolerable. In the past he has been prone to isolation, not seeing or talking to anybody for extended periods of time, and with the stress of school, bad weather, and lack of social interaction I think he has enjoyed having me around as someone to talk to and hang out with. But here's the thing. He's the only person I interact with outside of work on a daily basis, and we pretty much run on the same schedule, doing everything together. This hasn't really been the case before this summer, and I'm finding that spending so much time with him has become tiring. As an INTJ he loves talking about his own interests, usually technology, but often our conversations tend towards bigger social issues. Because of his strong T preference, however, every time we talk about anything he speaks with pure logic and reason (he's thought through a lot of these things), and me, well the opposite I guess. This style of conversation, which usually leads to a debate of some sort, is tiring for me, and, because of his advantage, makes me feel inferior and overly defensive for a casual conversation, so I've shied away from my normal form of conversation, in which I ask a lot of questions, simply because I don't enjoy being logical all the time, if ever. He's somewhat arrogant in his beliefs, and just from the way he talks and makes statements it seems like whenever he says anything, his perspective on the matter is always correct, and he'll often criticize people and call them stupid from a "high and mighty" perspective, as if he is immune to making similar choices. I've found myself shutting him out more and more because I'm a terrible conversationalist to begin with, and conversations he starts always end up being in his style, which kills my already unstable moods.
So now that I've bored you with this essay, here's the real issue. After I leave school to go home for a couple weeks before school starts, he's going to join me there, leaving me with a week or so to myself at home. This is time that I really cherish, being at home, comfortable in my room with my family and friends from home, before the stress of school sets in. I originally offered early in the summer, and he booked tickets to be at my place for most of our break, in part because he doesn't like to be at home around his parents. I agreed to this time frame just because he immediately proposed it without asking how long he could stay, and now I'm afraid of being unable to enjoy myself because I'm going to have to entertain him for another week an a half while he uses my house for refuge. How can I better deal with this situation, and deal with him better? After the past two months I have to say that he's become an emotional liability for me, and while I wouldn't like for that to be our relationship I feel that we think on such a fundamentally different level that we'll never have the more enjoyable, relaxed, and carefree conversations that I share with my other friends. Ugh...
So some (super long) background, feel free to skim this--we're both guys, and have been friends since the first year of college. I'm entering my third year now, and rooming with him for the summer. Prior to this he lived alone last year, and the year before got stuck with a guy that, at least among my friends, was universally intolerable. In the past he has been prone to isolation, not seeing or talking to anybody for extended periods of time, and with the stress of school, bad weather, and lack of social interaction I think he has enjoyed having me around as someone to talk to and hang out with. But here's the thing. He's the only person I interact with outside of work on a daily basis, and we pretty much run on the same schedule, doing everything together. This hasn't really been the case before this summer, and I'm finding that spending so much time with him has become tiring. As an INTJ he loves talking about his own interests, usually technology, but often our conversations tend towards bigger social issues. Because of his strong T preference, however, every time we talk about anything he speaks with pure logic and reason (he's thought through a lot of these things), and me, well the opposite I guess. This style of conversation, which usually leads to a debate of some sort, is tiring for me, and, because of his advantage, makes me feel inferior and overly defensive for a casual conversation, so I've shied away from my normal form of conversation, in which I ask a lot of questions, simply because I don't enjoy being logical all the time, if ever. He's somewhat arrogant in his beliefs, and just from the way he talks and makes statements it seems like whenever he says anything, his perspective on the matter is always correct, and he'll often criticize people and call them stupid from a "high and mighty" perspective, as if he is immune to making similar choices. I've found myself shutting him out more and more because I'm a terrible conversationalist to begin with, and conversations he starts always end up being in his style, which kills my already unstable moods.
So now that I've bored you with this essay, here's the real issue. After I leave school to go home for a couple weeks before school starts, he's going to join me there, leaving me with a week or so to myself at home. This is time that I really cherish, being at home, comfortable in my room with my family and friends from home, before the stress of school sets in. I originally offered early in the summer, and he booked tickets to be at my place for most of our break, in part because he doesn't like to be at home around his parents. I agreed to this time frame just because he immediately proposed it without asking how long he could stay, and now I'm afraid of being unable to enjoy myself because I'm going to have to entertain him for another week an a half while he uses my house for refuge. How can I better deal with this situation, and deal with him better? After the past two months I have to say that he's become an emotional liability for me, and while I wouldn't like for that to be our relationship I feel that we think on such a fundamentally different level that we'll never have the more enjoyable, relaxed, and carefree conversations that I share with my other friends. Ugh...