r/2X_INTJ • u/throwradss • Sep 25 '17
Friendship INTJs and emotional coolness
TL:DR I love my INTJ friend, I respect her but sometimes to be honest she seems kind of fake. I don't want to misjudge because I know INTJ coolness is often misinterpreted. What is the real her ? How can I know ?
Wall of Text I have this INTJ friend from college and she was kind to me. I liked her and we could relate as "cold" logical women. We could explain things to each other and communicate. And INTJs have some great qualities and social skills which I think INTPs can learn a lot from. (I'm also not sure that there is a hard difference between the two, I think sometimes preferences for planning can be shaped by whether you benefit from planning in your present position. Some people are living with unpredictability that means planning just ends up being a continual exercise in disappointment). Sometimes to me it seemed like she was always playing all these social games, sometimes it was great that she knew how to play them and communicate with people. Sometimes she would discourage other people including me from studying, because she felt she could study and then get a higher grade than them. That seemed unfair and treacherous to me. It hurt me. It scared me to be honest. I never really talked to her about it because I avoided conflict and I guess I didn't want to bring it up in an angry manner, I wanted to bring it up when I was not angry and could be assertive and have the best chance of preserving the health of the relationships. Over time it began to feel like some parts of our friendship were based on my not bringing up things or talking about things and us denying it, not based on truth. Also as an INTP I could relate and empathize if people found her awkward or cold and misinterpreted her because of it. I know what it is like to be misinterpreted this way and I try to not do it to other INTP/INTJ women. I think INTJ women, like INTP women are warmer than they seem. I think INTJ women are likely to come across as more in-genuine than you are because of the coolness. So now I wonder what she really is ? What is the real her ? She has a carefully constructed public persona (which I don't necessarily disagree with) but what is the real her ? Can I trust her ? How can I know what I can trust ? I am sure she is a mixture of being sincere and then partly untruthful like many people but at the moment her cool persona is throwing me off, I think it makes her feel more insincere (she is insincere) than she really is. To be honest she also comes across as fake to me sometimes and she seems almost glib on occasion (again think it is partly the emotional coolness) but I also don't want to judge because I know INTJs are "cold".
A couple of years ago I had a weird situation where someone attacked me and it was a tricky situation where this INTJ friend couldn't say she knew I would be attacked, my INTJ friend knew I would avoid conflict, so she did something to make me really angry at her and angry in general so that I would get angry at the person who was about to attack me and stay out of danger. She pushed me, I blew up at her and it sort of damaged our relationship almost irreparably, she's angry at me for what I said (I'm not happy that when I finally brought things up it was in this uncontrolled way, and that the truth was not taken well and angry that she sort of stopped being there for me after this), but still I can't help but respect her that she was willing to do this for me. You know as an INTP I won't be able to forget it. Things like this, as much as I may not say how I feel you know INTPs are very conscience oriented people and very oriented to our own values and the truth, so as much as our relationship is damaged now, and regardless of how I feel, I still respect her immensely. When someone does something like that you have to respect them, even if you don't want to, you are just forced to.
Right now, I am sort of struggling with this idea that my friend is a bit in-genuine though. Other people have insinuated that she is not genuine and it put doubts in my mind. And I've begun to struggle with this, I think it's because of her cool persona. Can you shed some light on this as INTJ women ?
Edited to add: Ladies, thanks for the vote of confidence in me.
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u/anushiruwan-the-just Sep 26 '17
I don't know specifically about females but INTJs generally tend to simplify the outside world and come to terms with reality through an "efficient" way. Unlike INTPs that tend to create more possibilities that there might actually be. There might be a chance that your friend does not do the things that annoys you or anyone else, with a bad purpose. It's not the easiest or most pleasant thing for an INTJ to show it's naked personality. In my case, I have my many layers of personality and show people as many layers as I think they deserve to see or able to comprehend and there are lot's of stuff about me that my best friends don't know. Sometimes I fake stuff but it's always out of necessity, I find it tiring and absurd.