Monday, 25 February 2013

INFP is not alpha

Default User compared the alphaness of the Myers-Briggs personality types. I'm not surprised INFP came in last. This is his take on INFPs:
INFP
These are the poets of the world. Quiet, deep, and a bit other-worldly. They may be hard to get to know, but will care for all those they meet. Although a reserved type they will be appreciated for their quiet warmth.
Males: INFP is most definitely a female type. INFP males may have a hard time (especially in their youth and teens). However, with their warm hearts and caring nature they just might sneak up on you. Perhaps even more than other introverted types may find it difficult to put themselves forward.
Females: Their deep and introspective natures may make them hard to fathom. Their reserve means they may be overlooked. This will be as much the other person’s loss as the INFP’s.
General: They are the most idealistic of the NF idealists. They may have an ideal for love and the other person that they cannot quite describe. They are probably the type that is least comfortable in a standard dating setting with its focus on glib charm and sometimes-cynical attitudes. The world may run on E/I STJ but it would a much worse place without INFP.
Default User says more in the comments, all of it on target and depressing. While an extraordinary surplus of selective qualities such as physical attractiveness, power, wealth, and fame can compensate (JFK Jr is said to have been an INFP), the discouraging reality is the INFP personality does not attract women and, worse, is off-putting. An INFP woman is relatively better off because a woman can cross the first barrier to love by being noticed and receptive to romantic pursuit. An INFP man, on the other hand, is required like all men to extrovertedly and aggressively pursue a woman's acceptance by actively qualifying himself to her. There, the INFP dilemma is worse than superficial disattraction; the INFP personality is also the least intrinsically capable of practicing the "seductive arts". INFP men discover to their deep dismay that their basic personality is the greatest impediment to gaining their heart's fulfillment.

In the rare instances he crosses the first barrier, an INFP man is not home free. He is handicapped in the follow-up, too. As has been often said in the Manosphere, a woman continually qualifies and judges the man she is with. When a woman tentatively agrees to a test run on a relationship with a smitten INFP man and induces him to open his inner self to her, he is in danger of making her uneasy (or view him as "intimidating"). More often than not, he induces her in short order to eject from the nascent coupling.

Even a short-lived romance exacts a high cost from an INFP man, though. He has pulled his heart open to bring her inside and transforms in order to bond with her as soulmates. When she pulls away, the wound she rips in his heart lingers.

My favorite example of frustrated INFP romantic idealism (besides my own) is canonical poet William Butler Yeats's decades-long quest for transcendent love with Maud Gonne, who repeatedly put off Yeats's entreaties while at the same time accepting lovers who were ordinary men in comparison.

PS: Hooking Up Smart has a link-heavy post on MB types and their relationship compatibilities.

Eric

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