[Zebedee]

"Isn't it strange some people make
You feel so tired inside,
Your thoughts begin to shrivel up
Like leaves all brown and dried!"
--Rachel Lyman Field

I've always thought of it somewhat of a curse to have no iNtuitives in my family. In a way it helped ground me (I guess), but when I do have the pleasure of interacting with other N's it just makes it harder to deal with my family. My mom and bro are SFPs and though I love them to pieces I can only listen to their conversations for so long until I start feeling "dumb". The stories they tell might vary a little, but the themes, content, even inflections are so predictable. It's like everything they say I've heard before. I feel bad about it, but what else can I do but try to avoid it?

 

[Acey]

My sister is an ESFP and I totally understand where you are coming from. I'm sure she thinks i'm probably the most boring person alive because i just cant...begin to start a conversation with her about anything that has meaning in my life. It's like we live in 2 different worlds.

 

[Playful Proxy]

I've really started to tune people out that I really could care less what they are saying. I guess the information cannot drain me if I cannot hear it. Even more odd, I may not even be thinking about anything, time will just sort of..jump.

 

[Lady Starbird]

"Isn't it strange some people make
You feel so tired inside,
Your thoughts begin to shrivel up
Like leaves all brown and dried!"
--Rachel Lyman Field

I've always thought of it somewhat of a curse to have no iNtuitives in my family. In a way it helped ground me (I guess), but when I do have the pleasure of interacting with other N's it just makes it harder to deal with my family. My mom and bro are SFPs and though I love them to pieces I can only listen to their conversations for so long until I start feeling "dumb". The stories they tell might vary a little, but the themes, content, even inflections are so predictable. It's like everything they say I've heard before. I feel bad about it, but what else can I do but try to avoid it?

Ha, well, some iNtuitive people can get to be trying, too. :\ I personally am one of them, and frankly, so is my mom (ENTJ).

People who tire me seem to be ESFX. They're sweet and often polite, but they just don't get it. You can't connect with them on that deeper level. There are those people who would talk the hind leg off a donkey, so to speak. I admit I can do my bit of talking once I get started, but never to the degree that these people do. Then there are those who only state the obvious. That really drains me of any desire to even talk to them.
Then there are those who don't drain me so much as frustrate and annoy me--being deliberately sassy to see what I make of it. Or showing contempt for people. Or making shallow assumptions. Or being prejudiced. Or mean. Or rude. Or...but the list goes on, and I'm sure you don't want to read it. So here I pause.

 

[The King Of Dreams]

People asking me millions of questions especially about details in my personal life drain me. I answer in vague responses because they don't deserve all of that information.

 

[Morpheus83]

I'm neither comfortable with detailed self-disclosure nor giving 'vivid', chronological recounts of past experiences. Since I tend to be guided by feelings, vague impressions and tangential ideas which are related to 'disparate' objects (and I struggle to articulate coherent thoughts in face-to-face interactions), it's not easy for me to talk about some things at length without being confusing or repetitive. For me, it's not really about blaming other people or types for making me 'uncomfortable' or 'drained'; it's more like me having difficulty focusing and adapting to other people's communication styles, subject interests, etc.. at times.

 

[Jayy Bird]

A lot of my friends really drain me. One, an ISFJ we talk constantly and I'd say we're closer than sisters, we also like to Roleplay together and once I asked if we could change it up a little cause the characters were getting too predictable for me, and she said "I don't get into that much, I just do it." Now whenever we roleplay I just get so worn out I have to leave cause I don't want to snap at her.

I guess what I've done to get over it is while they are static you have to be whatever the opposite of static is. They will automatically just change up so that they can be static with your un-static-ness. Also they will most likely love you for your changing and what-not (just make sure not to make the switch-up between their static-ness and your switcher-roo, they might not really welcome a change that comes that fast).

I hope I helped, I deal with a lot of boring, draining people daily.

 

[Jazz0101]

Yes..some people are more draining than others but I'd have to say just being an introvert makes it more likely to happen. Even people you get along with well, and family that you love, I always need time to myself to....feel like-myself!

 

[Pom87]

Sounds familiar, with my brother especially. I guess he could be an ESFP.

He is always loud and when he is around he is always there. He takes up the room with an overwhelming force and presence but he does not really produce anything meaningful. He gets attention by making jokes and being wild and when he does not get the attention, he tries harder until he succeeds. He makes up stories that are far-fetched and I know that they are untrue. He knows that I know, and so the stories only get weirder.

I am always calm and then I say something and he is shocked. I am always calm and then I am wild. And when I am wild I am far more wild than he will ever be and it is true and genuine. I think he is envious of me in that way and that is while he acts so hyperactive and loud.

It took me about 23 years of him draining me, until one day I told him the following:

"Keep your stories short, try to be quiet, be genuine."

I said it in a harsh and cold manner, but he finally seemed to have received the message. That was about 1.5 years ago when we last talked in real life. All is quiet on the western front.

 

[perfectcircle]

extroverts don't drain me
People with values I can't understand depress me and thus drain me, for example, overly materialistic, cruel people will just empty me out inside. Example, these girls mocking this less attractive girl in class and how she dresses, though they know she's poor. I think they take away a little of my faith. And I just "turn off". I can't relate to such people, and my Fi knows how to protect from invasive forces I guess; reject them.

 

[Zebedee]

He is always loud and when he is around he is always there. He takes up the room with an overwhelming force and presence but he does not really produce anything meaningful. He gets attention by making jokes and being wild and when he does not get the attention, he tries harder until he succeeds. He makes up stories that are far-fetched and I know that they are untrue. He knows that I know, and so the stories only get weirder.

LOL! He must be an ESFP because that sounds exactly like my brother! Even the envy part. He's more successful than I am but he's always feeling like he has to measure up.

I don't know if I'd have the heart to tell him what you told your brother, but good on ya'!

 

[ii V I]

 

[Mulberries]

I'd rather sit in an empty room with nothing other than my own thoughts than converse with 75% of people I know. Small talk is incredibly boring to me. I'm actually sick to death of reciting my life story. The follow-up questions are so predictable. Other boring topics include sports, machines, weight-loss, the weather, boring jobs, celebrity babies/marriages... *yawn*

It sounds narcisstic, but it's the truth. Ahh..introversion and intuition.

 

[ethylester]

I find that people who complain all the time are the most draining. And that can be anybody, any type. If all you do is complain when i'm around you, I will gradually start cutting our visits shorter and shorter, and my temper and compassion will also get shorter and shorter. I think it's because people who are always negative seem to want you to rescue them and be on their side. I am a nice person who wants to be on everyone's side. But when the only side you are offering me is the gloomy one, then I have to keep crushing down my sunny side, and that just feels like death.

There are people who call the crisis line where I volunteer every single day with a new complaint about life. I've been there over 6 years and there are people who I have been talking to for that long. Yes, many of them have very hard lives. But over half of the time they could be doing something to help themselves or looking at something from a positive standpoint instead of from a victim's point of view every time. This kind of victim attitude drives me crazy. Yes, sometimes we are truly victims. Sometimes shit happens to good people and their lives are set back for a long time. But when you can only see the bad in every little thing around you and this is all you talk about, for years and years, why in the world will anyone want to be in your company?

I hate the saying "nobody loves you when you're down and out" because it's so tragically true. But there is a limit to this. If you are down and out and still find the ability to pick yourself up and see the brighter side eventually, then HOORAY, you WIN! But if you are down and out and for 20 years all you do is grumble and complain, sorry, you lose. These kinds of people assume no control of their lives, they think the world is stacked against them and there is something wrong with every person who dares smile at them. that's no way to live and that is the prime example of SOMEONE WHO DRAINS ME.

the end.

 

[Marimeli]

I had a friend who was incredibly needy. She was in a codependent relationship and didn't want to leave her house much because of it so I was always having to go to her, and she always wanted to talk about her problems that she would never want to work out, and if I didn't call her at least three times a week she was terribly hurt even though she never called me unless she needed something. And she would want me to drive her places because she didn't LIKE to drive (not because she didn't have a car and couldn't) and I never would and then she would be all passive-aggressive about how she couldn't get this or that because she couldn't get around so much.

What was awful was, she was a REALLY nice person. She thought she was this self-sacrificing martyr, and with everyone else in her life she was. So she poured the fulfillment of all her needs onto my shoulders, so she could deny her own needs for everyone else's. I ended up ending the friendship entirely.

 

[Princess Purin]

People that talk about things in a "realistic" way. I wish they could could understand how rich their lives would be if they actually understood the word imagine. Knowing the definition and understanding it are two different things.

 

[Pom87]

LOL! He must be an ESFP because that sounds exactly like my brother! Even the envy part. He's more successful than I am but he's always feeling like he has to measure up.

I don't know if I'd have the heart to tell him what you told your brother, but good on ya'!

My brother is smarter than me in the traditional sense of the word, but he is not more succesful. People that don't know him very well often eat out of his hand, with the mad stories that he tells. It is just that I know they are not true.

He also does this to me, or about me, when telling a story, something that I did or what happened to me. He will twist the story into a super magnificent and heroic tale, praising me, cause in a way he is proud of envious of me I guess. I hate it if he tells such a story though, and he never understood.

What I told him was during a sort of bonding week, he stayed over at my place for about 5 days, he wasn't doing very well so eventually he calmed down, or he knew that his poker face didn't work with me, and so we got to talk. This is when I told him. I kicked him out at day 5 cause I need my space and alone time.

While he seems envious of me, I am envious of him in a way. He is smarter, and is very good in social situations, while social situations are basically my kryptonite. Still he wasted everything and he is what you would call a failure. Therefore, I am both sad for him, and mad at him.

Is this somewhat the same for you and your brother?

 

[Sily]

This is kind of a long story --but here goes....

I have been a member of TC forum for about 5 years. Never posted but I like checking out the *feel* of the INFPs over there, every Bluenow Moon. Well there is this one person who uses the following as their signature:

I am a fan of the door slam.

I love that.

So... for all people that *drain* me: the attention whores, the drama queens, the talkers, the energy vampires....please listen to this...

*slams door*

End of story.

 

[agreenbough]

My husband is an ESTJ and his conversational style is often like a game of 20 questions. I end up feeling interrogated instead of like we're having a regular conversaton. It doesn't bother me as much as it used to, because I understand it better now than I did in the past. Still kind of tiring at times, though.

I've known a couple of older ladies who were the epitome of tedium to me. They'd go on and on, talking AT me, never letting me add to the "conversation". It didn't matter who was there, as long as there was a warm body for them to talk at. They'd go into excruciatingly unnecessary details: "I couldn't wait to get my work clothes off so I went into the bedroom and changed into my red robe, the one my great granny Beulah gave me when I was 15, and then I went to the bathroom and while I was in there I noticed I was out of soap, you know, the kind of soap that blah blah blah and blah blah blah..." all of which had nothing to do with the point of their "story", which was usually something involving what they cooked for dinner. YAWN. Like they expected me (or whoever) to be enthralled by every last minute detail. I no longer subject myself to these people, so they think there's something wrong with ME - whatever, chuckleheads.

My mother-in-law is pathologically happy. I can't even make an observation about it being hot, or cold, or windy without getting a lecture about how blessed I am and how there are so many people worse off than me.

 

[OrangeAppled]

I find a lot of conversations in group settings very draining. They don't really engage me, so I keep zoning out & then getting shaken out of it when asked a question or expected to contribute somehow. I also realize my quietness can seem rude, so I sometimes force myself to converse when I have nothing to say to someone or about something, and that feels very tiring.

In group settings when the conversations amount to cutesy banter, it also just sounds like NOISE to me. It seems fluffy & insignificant, and the chatter just irritates me. I can't figure out what people are even talking about; it really just seems like NOTHING. I admit, I also feel some insecurity at my inability to join in these types of conversations, mainly because so many people's friendships are based on & amount to these kinds of interactions. I feel weird & intense for requiring more than that.

Over the years, I've learned how to have stimulating conversations with people of all types, but these are more likely to occur one-on-one. Whether or not we click can come down to things like interests, goals, lifestyles, values, etc, more so than type. I often find that if we cannot engage in "N style" communication, that many people are more than ready to delve a bit into their own emotional experiences, which is a conversation I can manage, as a Fi-dom.