Gentle Reader,
I’m not good at friendship.
Myers-Briggs tells me that I’m an INTJ, which is a fancy way of saying, “Doesn’t play well with others.” While I certainly don’t hate people, I don’t always understand them. Half the time I don’t even understand myself. Give me the world of the mind, the place of concepts and dreaming, not the confusion of humanity.
That retreat into headspace? It’s not all just how I’m wired. Wounding plays a role, much as I’m loathe to admit it. More than once my friend picker has been broken and I’ve ended up investing in unsafe people. Perhaps inevitably, this has led to lasting hurt. And so I’ve erected walls…
I’m hanging out at the Mudroom today. Head on over for the rest. Be sure to take some time to check out the other great featured authors.
Okay so now I get why I identify with your writing so much! I am an INFJ, another really rare type (and also not so good at friendship). In fact, I wrote a post called “Friendship Fail” a number of years ago on my blog,
https://adarkershadeofblue.wordpress.com.
I’m very analytical too, so I live in my head a lot as well. However, I tend to trust the wrong people in spite of myself, and I have been burned more times than I care to remember. I have just been scorched really badly by someone who is now spreading terrible distorted untrue things about me, stuff that I either never said or did, or things I said taken completely out of context. Sigh! Yet despite my introverted, analytical and cynical side, I know darn well I am liable to do it all again, because I have this mushy, idealistic “Feeling” side to me that overemphasizes with people and wants everyone to be my best friend. (I’m already imagining how you and I could be best buds if we met in the non-virtual world.) I am a whole big bundle of contradictions. Despite all my warm fuzziness, I can’t seem to stop psychoanalyzing others and spouting weird trivia.
One time when I was in a social situation, and when somebody I barely knew was telling me about their new kitten, to which they had given a trendy girl’s name, I blurted out some factoid about how the greatest percentage of pets are given human names. That person gave me the strangest look, then avoided me for the rest of the evening. That is an all too typical example of my awkward social skills.
Anyway, thanks for sharing so honestly yet again…although you and I hardly have any choice but be brutally honest, do we? It seems to be part of our hardwiring. Thank heaven we believe in a God who made us unique for a reason!
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