Are These Extroverted Traits?

I do so much better when I have someone else to do something with me. For instance, I have trouble getting to the gym unless I have someone to go with me, or even more commonly, someone that wants me to take them. I don't like to go out to eat unless I have someone to go with me, and will even bribe people with free food when I'm craving something so I won't have to go alone.


Without the motivation of other people, I'll just sit around, mope, ponder, and do nothing, and goof off on the internet all day. The problem is, it doesn't seem like it 'charges me' to do this so much as it just lets me meander on auto pilot. Being around close friends and seeing them happy is what charges me the most. When they're enthusiastic about something, that charges me up. When I want to be charged up about something, my first move is usually to try to get the people close to me charged up about it. If I can't do that, I usually feel like the thing I wanted to get charged up about is a lost cause, even if I really like it.



I also do a lot better when I am able to talk things out, as opposed to keeping them bottled up. I never really resolve anything important on my own. It just festers and eats at me, and does nothing but loop inside my head and heart. Give me an hour to bounce my concerns off of someone who can keep up with me intellectually and follow my perspective, and I'm usually much better. Even my initial creative process (the big picture or outline of it...) is usually better with someone to springboard off of, rather than sit around and tinker my way through something. Granted once I'm finally on board with a project, I very much prefer to hammer out the details alone.


Do these traits sound anything like you, fellow INFJs? Is this a manifestation of secondary Fe, or am I actually an Extrovert?

 

I don't mind being in public at all. What I'm saying is I have no motivation to go work out unless I have someone with me. I could care less if there are people there. I need someone else's desire to do something in order to motivate me to actually get off my ass and do it. Group activities and helping people motivate me to action.

I like small groups, and large crowds make me kinda overwhelmed because there are so many people to pay attention to and care about... if that makes any sense. I like to deal with strangers in small groups, and I like harmony. Big crowds often have no harmony. When they do, I'm very comfortable in them, and even being the center of their attention.

I'm a minister, and teach at conferences all over the nation, sometimes at stadiums. I've never had a problem speaking in front of people, and have less stage fright the bigger the crowd is. It's exhilarating. I like meeting people afterward too. But the chaos of a bunch of people going all over the place and jumping around, like at a rock concert or such makes me nuts. It's all about whether or not it is a harmonious gathering for me. Size doesn't matter, really.

I'm not talking about shying away from people. I definitely don't do that. I also suffer from chronic flapping syndrome... as in I will talk someone's ear off if given half a chance, and often realize somewhere in the middle of it that they're only listening to me to be polite. Embarrassing, really.

I'm talking about not wanting to bother doing things if no one else is involved.

 

That's cool. I really appreciate your input.

 

That's actually interesting that you mention this... I usually don't have a problem being where the people are. I have my hang outs and haunts and feel lost without them.

Unfortunately, I currently don't really have one, and my core group of friends has scattered more or less by moving away, or getting very preoccupied with careers and families. I'm currently in a phase where I don't have access to these things, and it's leaving me to have to seek people out to do things.

I've also been rather depressed since I lost my wife, so I've pulled away for a while, which makes me think it's possible that my 'introversion' is more a side effect of my depression than my nature.

 

Unless very depressed?

I've noticed that when I'm happy, I'm pretty darned extroverted. When I'm depressed, I withdraw and just want to be around one other person I know well... but I never really want to be 'alone'. Even when I'm on the internet, I keep my social programs open, and to be honest, the main reason I get on the internet is to interact with people.

 

I have no doubt that I'm an ambivert. I just want to figure out which side of the fence I originate.

That's an extroverted trait, and I share it.

Honestly, I believe my my initial development was Fe. I remember having a love for people when I was very young, and would talk to anyone, no matter where we went. Everyone in my family described me as having "never met a stranger".

However, around age 6 or so, when my Fe should have started to truly develop, I started getting emotionally and physically abused, and I remember that making me pull into my imagination a lot more. This went on well into my teen years, and I had to come up with a lot of mechanisms to defend myself against becoming too withdrawn. I was at my healthiest and happiest when I was around people who liked me, especially when meeting others who I found out later to be intuitives like myself.

This means you're actually an ENTP, and therefore you're more energized by social interaction, use your Ti to help people, your Fe to be playful, and your Si to support all of your functions. It's very likely you have a very strong Ti, which is why you're an ambivert. The reason it's important to know which type you actually are is to calibrate what purpose the functions actually serve in you as an individual. I'm trying to figure out which I am so I can avoid stunting myself by making assumptions about how to best be healthy.

I like this point. My Se gets amped when I Fe. My Ti gets amped when I Ni. Clearly there is a relationship between the sets.

Funny you should mention that. I just realized (less than 24 hours before you posted this) that I'm better with Se than I am Ti, which surprised me. Ti takes effort for me. Se just comes flying out of me, often whether I want it to or not. According to Beebe's model of the roles that functions perform based on the preference we have for them, the tertiary function is a 'playful' and 'a little miscevious' function. I used to think this was my Ti because I like to be nerdy. But now I'm seeing how I am quite an Se person when I'm playful. I goof off, am competitive, cuss, tell raunchy jokes, and am an all around funny jackass. It's the part of me that I wish wasn't there a lot of the time because it's in direct opposition to my Fe when it starts 'acting up'. None of my INFJ friends really have this penchant, and have only occasionally tried to keep up with me in this regard.

I'm terrible at a lot of Ti things, and have had to work really hard and focus on them in order to develop them. I have an instinct to do so, and am fascinated by them, but I'm inherently not so good at them. My ISTP friends are profoundly better at the Ti things than I am, but we kinda keep the same pace with Se. And yes, I marvel at kids who can Ti well, especially when they are better than me at it. When I see children who have strong Se, my reaction is that they need to tone that down, lest it turn into the kind of issue I have with it - and they become unruly bad people (again my Fe vs Se).

Agreed here. INTJs are always a step ahead of me, but this wasn't always the case. They used to be so far ahead of me I couldn't keep up. I've had to learn how to understand them. I'm very glad that I have, but it took a lot of effort. I think this might be due to me being Ni secondary, and developed my Ni more fully later in life. Also, according to Beebe's model Te seems like 'evil' to an ENFJ... which is very true for me. I have two very close INTJ friends now, who I used to think were 'evil'. Sometimes I still do kinda. For an INFJ the 'evil' function would be Si... and to be honest, Si is much more like a ball and chain than 'evil' to me.

As mentioned above, the reason I'm trying to discern this is to better maintain my psychological health by better understanding not only which functions I use, but how I use them. Other than this personal quest for wellness, I believe you are perfectly correct, and being a well developed NFJ is more than a good enough description of who I am.

At one point you were just as convinced that I was an ENFJ.

*holds up a Taurus sign*

 

That's not surprising at all. You and I are a lot alike cognitively, and are both clearly very ambiverted.

Actually, not according to what I've seen. INFJs are pretty introverted, just chatty.I'd think that ISFPs are the least introverted of the introverts.
However according to ...
http://www.personalitypage.com/ENFJ.html
...ENFJs are the most introspective of the Extroverts.