Okay so I have few friends who are ISFJs and I am having trouble dealing with them sometimes. I noticed that one in particular likes to gossip A LOT about people who I don't know and about people I will never know, yet she still tells me all her drama as if I actually care, but I know that if I said that I didn't care it would be socially unacceptable to her and she would get mad at me. Another thing: Some of the ISFJs I know get annoyed at people who tag a long if they weren't 'invited'. I also noticed that she intentionally doesn't invite me to outings sometimes that I would normally be invited to (this is a recent thing, she used to not go anywhere without me). The only thing I can assume from this is that she wants to talk about me. I don't know what I did, the only thing I can think of is that I don't care enough about my appearance for her- she is really into clothes and fashion, My style is way more laid back and somewhat careless- but that doesn't seem fair for someone to talk about that behind someone's back.... anyways, it doesn't matter what it is. I am tired of this drama/gossip/talking behind my back crap and I want to end the friendship if this is going to continue. I know ISFJs who have done this to me and to other people I know: they would pretend to be their friend to someone's face and then talk crap about the the second they left the room. I see a pattern. What is it with SFJs and gossip? Why does this happen?
This came up a little bit in this thread (about halfway down, starting with the post by the member SoulSauce:
http://personalitycafe.com/esfj-forum-caregivers/19334-differences-between-isfj-esfj.html
So it appears that it's possible to pop up among ISFJ's, whether we deem to be "unhealthy" or whatever you want to call them. I don't know any other ISFJ's in real life, only myself and ones I've talked to on PerC. Based on my experience, I wouldn't say it's necessarily a trademark of an ISFJ, but it looks like it's certainly possible to pop up.
I can explain part of it, I think, and that's a negative attribute of Fe. One could even call it social cowardice...it's the inability to hurt other people's feelings or create conflict. I know that it's big with me, I get really uncomfortable in conflict situations and do everything I can to avoid them.
So it's possible for an ISFJ to have a lot of pent up frustrations and thoughts about someone, but not feel comfortable telling that person because they don't want a negative reaction. An ISFJ likes to be liked by everyone and appear to be perfect. But, if they harbor these negative thoughts, they either have to bury them inside or....tell someone else.
So that's where the gossip comes from, I believe.
For me, I've actually been guilty of doing this myself sometimes...it's not really gossip, exactly, but it was talking about someone behind their back. It happens at my job amongst me and my coworkers...we'll talk about other coworkers outside of our group of friends. Though in my cases, I'm not the one starting it usually, I'll just go along with it and contribute. So in that regard, it's not a type thing...there are people of other types who start it. However, we're all still essentially guilty of doing the same thing...we don't want to be rude to someone's face, but we're all thinking the same thoughts and sometimes they come out. In our case, it's about someone outside of our group, and its' usually either really annoying behavior or aren't doing a good job with things we believe they should.
It's kind of our way to blow off steam, especially because we're so stressed out so often. I'm not excusing our behavior or saying it's right, I'm just saying that we're human, and to be honest, we don't really mean anything serious by it.
But here's the other difference in our situation compared to yours: No one in our group has ever said they had a problem with it, and we don't talk about ourselves behind each others' backs. If anyone in our group ever objected to it, I know I immediately would stop and wouldn't say anything anymore.
So I think in your case, you should just be blunt with these ISFJ's and say that you don't want to hear them gossip. You can say you find it offensive or inappropriate in your situation, and that you have a problem with it. If they are ISFJ and aren't messed up, they'll adhere to your wishes. If they don't, then they're probably not worth your time anyway, they're just rude and obnoxious people. If an ISFJ doesn't care about someone else, then something's probably wrong with them and they probably have their own personal issues.
So that's all I can say...I really think it goes beyond type. If someone doesn't respect your wish to not gossip in your presence, then really there's no reason to think of them as a friend or spend any time with them. That's just common decency and it applies to anyone, regardless of type.
Namaste said:
Also, recently she has been saying mean, rude, hurtful things to me but in a 'joking' manner (which she never used to do). I can't tell if she really is joking or if she is disguising the truth, but joking or truth, it usually hurts.
Same as what I said before...ISFJ's are usually very sensitive about avoiding hurting other people's feelings, so if you're honest about ti and she doesn't care, then either (a) she's not ISFJ, or (b) she probably has some deep person issues that are messing her up. Usually ISFJ's are the ones who are sensitive to being teased and get hurt by other people's jokes, particularly NT's who don't find them to be offensive or hurtful. If she's doing this and doesn't care about your feelings, then there's probably something deeply wrong with her, and like I said before, if she doesn't care about you enough to take your feelings into consideration, then you don't need her as a friend anyway, no matter what type she is.
My best friend is an INTJ and has a very biting sense of humor where he teases me a lot, but if I ever told him that something he said hurt me, he would immediately apologize and never say it again. If an INTJ can do that, then an ISFJ sure as hell should be able to.