Hi
@EMocoaster and welcome to the forum
. It would be useful to know a little more about you, because it's hard to reply easily otherwise. Maybe you could say something more about yourself in the Introductions area?:
https://www.infjs.com/forums/introductions.7/
In my experience, all us INFJs become overwhelmed by intensive social situations and have to withdraw to recharge our batteries. This happens to other introverts too, but for us it's as much to do with inferior extraverted sensing overload as it is about the people interactions. I have the same sort of problem if I spend too long shopping on a busy, noisy high street, or if I spend too long looking at the covers in a book store, or if I drive for more than an hour or so on very busy roads. What I find helps in unavoidable social situations is to accept we are going to listen far more than drive the session, unless we are leading a meeting or know the people very well and can relax with them. Back that up if you can with good excuses for regular escapes for a few minutes at a time - the loo, an urgent message, the coffee machine, etc. That doesn't have to mean being a wallflower - we can get very positive response by listening to people and acknowledging what they say. It tells them that someone is listening and cares. You can build on this outside the noisy meeting context by getting to know better the individuals you are more comfortable with. As time goes by, you will find that many of the people in the meetings are ones you are friendly with and that will help you to relax. I find that I feel like an intruder at first in most new social situations, but I've learned to persist, stay as cool as possible, let things settle for a few weeks, or even months - and that makes a very big difference to my comfort levels eventually.
Do try and turn down the sensitivity of your Ni/Fe antenna if you can. There is no obligation on us to listen and be aware of every little emotional flutter, still less to bother about other peoples' deep problems that are showing up indirectly in the way they express themselves. It's a bit like shutting your eyes when you are facing the sun, or like putting sunglasses on - there's a knack to it, but it's well worthwhile to filter out a lot of the noise. It's so easy for us to pick these things up that folks express in their tone of voice and body language, or in their particular turns of phrase, and take them personally, but they are rarely anything to do with us, and often the others don't realise they are broadcasting that way.
Of course, I'm assuming that you aren't a lone introverted intuitive in a business full mainly of sensors
- I had to travel internationally to a conference many years ago with a group of in-your-face extraverted computer salesman and I think I earned 500 years remission from Purgatory on the back of it
. They were great guys but not people I could cope with day to day, long term. If you are in a job like that, then seriously consider getting out if you value your health because you would be in their shadows and they are in yours - we can adapt to this (clumsily) for a while but it takes a huge amount of our emotional and nervous energy to do it and it drains us very rapidly.
