At first, it was great.
In freshman year of high school, I had a class with a guy who I would find out was a very pronounced ENFJ 3 years later. Every girl had a crush on him, so I decided that I wouldn't. I found him annoying and invasive of my space.
One day, I had to give an oral book report. I memorized my little speech although we were allowed to use note cards. I began sobbing in the middle of my speech -- not planned at all. And I cried until I was done speaking and sitting in my seat. The teacher and my entire class couldn't tell if I had planned on crying either. Some thought I was just plain emotional, others thought it was a realistic, expressive, and moving performance.
From this point forward, ENFJ-guy decided that we would be best friends, and he didn't tell me this until 3 years later, around the time he made me take the mbti test. I scored INFP then, but he insisted that I was an INFJ. We chatted online late into the night and I'd listen to him for hours over the phone. I lived far away from our high school so he'd ask his parents to drive him to my house to hang out.
I loved the attention, I loved his outward affection, I loved the romance, I loved the excitement he brought to my deeply locked emotions.
He told me so many things that I never knew about his life from the moment he decided we'd be best friends. On the outside, he had the perfect life along with the perfect family. He was popular at school, his parents were fairly well-known as well, he excelled at everything, girls swooned over him, he was charming and intelligent and cultured, and he was very attractive, to top it off.
Despite these things, he would laugh all day at school, then go home and cry every single day. He didn't know why. He saw a psychotherapist, along with the rest of his family. He didn't really know what his purpose in life was, and he mixed up his feelings with those of everyone around him. But when he met me, he thought he might have found his soul mate, and learn more about himself. And so he did.
One of the best memories I had of him was when we were talking online. He made some claim I thought was silly, then I tried to explain his behavior to him. He said, "OMG, you're a genius!" And then, "I love you!" It was the first time someone said they had loved me. And he said it a few months before we started dating.
Then we dated. He began to question my silence, not wanting to answer phone calls, wanting to be alone. He took it personally. And I blew up at him for taking it the wrong way, and a slew of misunderstandings went back and forth between us. One day, I saw him parked outside of where I worked -- we hadn't planned on meeting. I pretended not to see him (a mistake, looking back). I went with my co-workers to a restaurant for lunch. He followed us. I never brought up that incident with him, but the more he pushed, the more I pulled away.
Finally, I broke up with him after 3 or 4 months of dating, and 4 years of being best friends. Later, he told me that he knew I was going to break up with him and he was making it easier for me to do it. I grew furious. At the same time, I wanted him back. And so, for the next FOUR years, there was a constant push and pull in our relationship.
One year, we would be close to intimacy and he would stay over in my dorm at college for a week, or send me a long email out of the blue, the next I would bring up getting back together. I was annoyed at him once when we went shopping. He wanted me to help him pick out clothes. After stacking his arms high with shirts and jeans, he went to the dressing room while I waited in the seating area. A minute later, he came back out, and grabbed my hand, and marched me into his dressing room, two years after the breakup.
We never did get back together. I felt constantly rejected and used by him because he couldn't make up his mind, or he did make up his mind but felt that it would be too painful to be explicit about it.
Over time, as I reflected more on this relationship, and as I met people who had more sense than him to draw clear boundaries and have the insight to immediately know how to nurture my sensitivity, I cast him into my past and left him there. I forgave him, but chose not to hold more than small-talk type conversations with him, or to meet with him. There were better people for me, as lovers and as friends.
I learned that I loved excitement at the beginning of relationships, but don't like it much after a month. I feel like myself and more at ease in -- how shall I say it? -- boring relationships where there isn't much talk or action. Or where things happen very slowly. I hated prescriptive behaviors. I hated how he told me how to dress, how to interact with people, how to be better than who I was. Improving oneself is great -- but one must also acknowledge one's own -- and others' -- limits. Or when limits expand over time. He was both long- and short-sighted, but he took offense when I pointed it out. I learned much more, but perhaps those lessons are more fitting for other posts.
Who would have thought that I'd find my soul mate in someone who is very much like me? He gets me. He gets my problems. He's boring at times, but we can imagine ourselves in rocking chairs and holding hands when we're 85, watching a sunrise in complete silence.