Advice for an INTP in a friendship with an INFJ?

[Mithrandir]

I recently met and am becoming good friends with an INFJ, and am wondering what kind of advice a group of INFJs would have for this INTP in regard to things I should do or avoid in our friendship. We are both males in our 30s if that makes a difference.

We share a lot of interests and have great conversations, but sometimes I feel like I struggle with reassuring his thoughts, ideas, and excitement, since I typically extravert humor and ideas instead of emotion or expression. I don't find the idea of myself practicing extroverted feeling to be very fruitful since it just tends to come out childish, unnatural, and generally awkward. It's not in my toolkit so to speak. Should I make more of an effort to plainly state my enthusiasm? Is that even necessary? If so, should it be on a regular basis or is a one-time blanket statement enough? I hate the idea of inadvertently discouraging him with my lack of expressive feedback.

Other than that, any advice from your personal experience with INTPs would be helpful. You know, things that irk you, you like about them, or what you wish they did, etc... Furthermore, what are some things about INFJs that I should be aware of or watch out for.

Thanks for any and all advice. I find good friendships are rare and take a lot of work.

(and just so you have an idea of what kinda crazy you're dealing with here, I originally put a smiley at the end of that last sentence but deleted it because it felt disingenuous......yep)

 

[ineffectivelyliterate]

I am an INFJ and I dated an INFP for three years, while we felt that we were very intimate and understood each other, the P and J clashed. Throughout the relationship, he opened me up while I protected him or gave him stability with my Judging preference. Like in any relationship, you need similarities and reassurance, but also you don't want to be so similar that neither of you grow. And that is the key: growth. The key for a relationship is for both of you to respect your similarities and grow from them, but also to respect and love each other for your differences because you can learn and grow from these differences. In my case, my boyfriend at-the-time opened me and accept that sometimes it is okay to not plan things, that it is okay to be spontaneous with no blueprint in mind.

 

[Mithrandir]

Thanks for the advice. I'm familiar with the J/P dynamic between my wife and me and haven't encountered much of that in this friendship yet. However, if it does manifest at some point I feel somewhat equipped to deal with it or accommodate if necessary. My biggest concerns currently are the differences in our F/T approaches and perspectives. Despite their complimentary nature, I foresee potential points of contention or misunderstanding in this realm, and with my extroverted feeling being in the inferior, feel less confident in noticing, interpreting, or dealing with such matters.

 

[Alomoes]

INFP = INFJ shadow filtered through understandable functions, and vice versa. I would be quite interested how an introvert-introvert relation works though. I mean, who initiated the relation? The introvert? :S

And an INFP - INFJ relationship? That's even worse. The fights ought to be bloody in that one.

Also, foresight is Ni. Nice try plastic. And that extroverted feeling should be replaced with introverted feeling. You'll likely want reasoning. Meh. Not going to dig up the reasoning why.

You know, maybe people would give me more respect if I were a T. That might work.

 

[drummergirlbk]

my dad is an INTP and I'm an INFJ. A lot of times we get along just fine, but other times, not so much. IDK if all INTP-INFJ friendships are like this, but I'm very good at reading people and being able to distinguish who I can trust with certain parts of me and to be quite frank there is a lot of me that I won't share with my father, especially the emotional side of me. My adivce concerning that is to just be patient and realize that it takes a lot of time for us INFJs to crawl out of our shell, and this is definately the case for me. Sometimes I think my shell is a little too closed in. I feel like the best way for someone to get to know me is to just spend time with me and actively take a role in wanting to get to know me. There have been too many times in my life that I've dropped a friendship because I sensed that the other person wasn't being sincere/was my friend out of obligation/didn't really care about me just cared about the fact that I had a car/was too busy to care about me and never tried to spend time with me. Friendship is a two-way street and if the other person isn't putting any effort into it I see no point in it at all.