INFJ - perpetual loner?

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So I have been feeling very lonely for awhile now. Which of course isn't a new feeling for an INFJ but I'm in sort of a funk right now friendship wise. My husband is an ISTJ and our relationship is odd but works. A lot of times, I seem to be annoyed with his mannerisms but I also value his strengths. His loyalty, his work ethic, his rationality, etc. I think a lot of my annoyance comes from not having another outlet for my emotions and thoughts.

I've had a best friend for 14 years. We've known each other since high school. When we were in high school together, we seemed to be two in the same person. We were inseparable and seemed like long lost soulmates. Starting at around age 18 (4 years into friendship), she got into a relationship and I started noticing traits about her that I didn't find myself aligning with. I had brushed them off for the most part but it seems like every year we've been friends, more and more distance separates me from her mentally and emotionally. She, on the other hand, still thinks of me as her soulmate and as she said "the most important person in her life". Trust me when I say actions speak louder than words, because she definitely does not treat me how she expresses to feel.

She took the MBTI test and got INFJ. Well, I took the test too and also got INFJ. This made sense to me because I figured we'd been best friends for a reason. As time went on and I got more into typing, I joined another forum and narrowed down on functions and took some questionnaires and really solidified my personality as INFJ. As I started interacting with other types though, I noticed that my best friend was NOT INFJ. Our behaviors are starkly different. Our reactions to think are different. And the biggest one, is that she is not intuitive AT ALL. She is a total sensor. So I had mentioned that maybe she should retake the test. She became re-interested in typing after she heard about my forum shenanigans. She got INFJ, again. I knew this was inaccurate because she makes the worst decisions. She tries to follow her gut and it just doesn't work. She has been bad relationship after bad relationship, cannot read people at all, has moved around to different places because she says she's following her gut and then it ends up being a disaster. I don't know, my gut has never led me wrong, so that always frustrated me.

I finally told her that I didn't think she was an INFJ, but actually an ISTJ. I have plenty of experience with my husband and though they're not really alike per se, their interactions and understanding of their environment are the same. She was denying up and down that she was ISTJ and I was like "Ok, maybe I'm wrong." She finally wanted to do a questionnaire on the forum I had been interacting on to prove that she was INFJ. Well...EVERYONE said ISTJ. Even after that, she was in denial and kept saying "I think I have a lot of INFJ qualities". Either way, the point of this long winded explanation is that I feel like I have no one who understands me. I feel like I'm constantly sulking and overthinking my life and the choices I've made. This person who has been my "best" friend for 14 years couldn't be further away from me emotionally and she seems completely fulfilled by our friendship and I'm left feeling drained and misunderstood.

Has anyone felt like this? What have you done? I am on an antidepressant currently (low dose) and though I have some days where I feel like I can take a deep breath and make it through the day, there's other days (like today) where I want to run away in search of more meaningful life experiences. I know that my depression is coming from my lack of deep connection with another human. My husband tells me that he is so happy with me, my best friend tells me she is so happy with me, but why I am so alone?
 
This is something I can relate to a lot. My latest video I posted on my YouTube channel is sort of my... I had this low point this week where I realized a lot about myself. I actually have a video coming up this week where I am going to deal with this topic more in depth because it's been one that's plagued me all of my life and I feel, in a sense, that I've discovered the answers. Or a formula, per say, for maintaining a healthy level of intimacy with others without the intense expectations I may often have, but also knowing when to let certain relationships go. I'll send you the link when I post it. Probably Tuesday or Wednesday. I really like the INFJ community I've found on YouTube and have found it so healing, that I just looked up this forum. This is my first post! Excited to connect with some others here. It really helps to find others who relate.
 
I don't know if the easier/safer route is perhaps to just lower your expectations... I know it sounds really harsh.

I have over time come to suspect (and try to accept) the possibility that I am never going to have the kind of deep connection that I have been craving for all my life, but have only gotten a few tastes of up till now.

There is joy and fulfillment to be found with someone that is not that person for you, I have found. I just need to remind myself to not expect something unrealistic from the relationship, and appreciate the beauty of what is there :)
 
Reckoning said:
I don't know if the easier/safer route is perhaps to just lower your expectations... I know it sounds really harsh.

I have over time come to suspect (and try to accept) the possibility that I am never going to have the kind of deep connection that I have been craving for all my life, but have only gotten a few tastes of up till now.

There is joy and fulfillment to be found with someone that is not that person for you, I have found. I just need to remind myself to not expect something unrealistic from the relationship, and appreciate the beauty of what is there :)
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I think you're right. There are many days when I try to remind myself that it's a blessing to even have a friend of 14 years in my life. I think today I feel a little more optimistic. Though I expect that wont last forever, but I maybe need to practice positive thought. It's so easy to get stuck in my head and become too idealistic about what life should look like rather than appreciating what it is. Thanks for the response!
 
I can totally relate but like you can't find much of a permanent solution to it. I do agree that finding what makes your current relationships incredible is a good start. But it still doesn't completely fill the proverbial deep connection shoes. I've been trying to find ways to fulfill it on my own, but I'm starting to realize I might need more actual IRL people with similar tastes to share with. Just keep looking, I'm positive it'll happen...both for you and me.
 
Hi @selcouth

Typing takes introspection, humility, and a big dose of reality to view oneself accurately. If you perceive yourself as having certain qualities you may not have, you're more likely to mistype. So, your friend either sees herself as having, or wants to have certain qualities, so she is mistyping as INFJ.

I understand that... hollowness... but I'm comfortable with feeling like nobody gets me. I do crave connection, but I don't feel lonely or sad that it is so hard to find a connection. You may need to work at getting to this point. Learn to see the beauty of it. Try to accept friendships at face value, and find an outlet for thoughts and feelings you have trouble expressing to others.

Jacque Lacan wrote a bit about how everyone feels this way... how nobody sees who we really are on the inside and it causes a certain kind of loneliness and dissatisfaction with relationships. It may be worth it to study Lacan.
 
AshleyStone said:
This is something I can relate to a lot. My latest video I posted on my YouTube channel is sort of my... I had this low point this week where I realized a lot about myself. I actually have a video coming up this week where I am going to deal with this topic more in depth because it's been one that's plagued me all of my life and I feel, in a sense, that I've discovered the answers. Or a formula, per say, for maintaining a healthy level of intimacy with others without the intense expectations I may often have, but also knowing when to let certain relationships go. I'll send you the link when I post it. Probably Tuesday or Wednesday. I really like the INFJ community I've found on YouTube and have found it so healing, that I just looked up this forum. This is my first post! Excited to connect with some others here. It really helps to find others who relate.
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Hi Ashley, I have just watched your YouTube video The Beauty of an INFJ. Brilliant :)
 
AshleyStone said:
This is something I can relate to a lot. My latest video I posted on my YouTube channel is sort of my... I had this low point this week where I realized a lot about myself. I actually have a video coming up this week where I am going to deal with this topic more in depth because it's been one that's plagued me all of my life and I feel, in a sense, that I've discovered the answers. Or a formula, per say, for maintaining a healthy level of intimacy with others without the intense expectations I may often have, but also knowing when to let certain relationships go. I'll send you the link when I post it. Probably Tuesday or Wednesday. I really like the INFJ community I've found on YouTube and have found it so healing, that I just looked up this forum. This is my first post! Excited to connect with some others here. It really helps to find others who relate.
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I just went through and watched your videos and subscribed to your channel. So many similarities between the two of us. And I love your random English accent because I find myself doing that too (in private). Lol
 
I should give an update on my "best friend" for anyone who cares to know. But this past weekend was my husband's birthday luncheon and also my daughter's 1st birthday fell on Mother's Day. I had invited this "best friend" of 14 years who has known me before my husband, was my maid of honor and someone who I expected would be like an aunt to my children one day.

Well, she came into town with her new boyfriend on Saturday and showed up 2 hours late to my husband's birthday lunch. We literally were wrapping up and paying the bill when she strolled in. Then, afterwards, she was basically treating me as though I didn't have a child and out of town guests because she wanted me to run around town with her and her BF to show him all the touristy things. First of all, if she wants to show off the touristy things, then move here. (She lives 2 hours away). She was texting me complaining about restaurant waits and traffic because I needed to go home and put my daughter to bed before I could go do stuff with her. She then proceeds to get impatient and basically say that her BF needs to go home and spend Mother's Day with his mom and it would be too much for him to come back and pick her up the next day. They drove in the same car. Why? I don't know. So she decided to go back home with him and miss my daughter's 1st birthday because of a guy she's been dating for 3 months. And is already living with. This is exactly the pattern of all of her previous relationships. This woman has always put men ahead of everything and everyone. Especially me. I'm so tired of being there for her at every turn, every monumental moment in her life and she can't do the same for me. She missed my baby shower. She came a month after my daughter was born to meet her. I think this weekend finalized what I knew was inevitable. I am going to distance myself from this person. Once I do this, I will have no one but my husband and my daughter. But I'm ok with that. When I originally wrote this post, I was feeling especially lonely and desperate for friendship but at the moment, I feel like Friends are the last thing I should care about. I want to take the time to invest more effort in loving and accepting myself and also being the most present mother and wife I can be. I have sacrificed time with my family for this person. I feel like such a fool.
 
INFJs are always alone.

surrounded, but always alone, this is what an INFJ is in this world.


I believe that there are many of us INFJs that are surrounds by good people, but they dont truly understand us, and more so they do not love us they way we love them. there are many one way streets in the life of an INFJ, if you ever find a one that goes both ways, dont let it go.
 
highlighter said:
INFJs are always alone.

surrounded, but always alone, this is what an INFJ is in this world.


I believe that there are many of us INFJs that are surrounds by good people, but they dont truly understand us, and more so they do not love us they way we love them. there are many one way streets in the life of an INFJ, if you ever find a one that goes both ways, dont let it go.
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Sage advice indeed.
 
I used to be like this. A martyr, sacrificing myself for others and putting myself last like the Piscean archetype. Longing for a "connection". Then after several years, I craved a change, so I researched ways to reduce empathy. It worked phenomenally well. I stopped saying words like we, us, and our. I began speaking more objectively and briefly. I abandoned my previous value system, began listening to different music, and developed new interests of a more mundane nature. I'm a lot happier now, but also seemingly rude on a surface level, but no matter how much of a selfish asshole I may appear today, I would never choose to go back to being a melancholy wallflower. You can change if you want to. The ingredient is courage.
 
Wait, are you saying you're those things or assuming I am? My Sun is in Scorpio, but I do have my Moon in Pisces. I'm also not INFJ, but I might have maybe seemed like one a couple of years ago.
 
Have you ever had an honest discussion with your friend about your judgements about her behaviour and your perception that she always makes poor decisions? Does she know you you don't respect her decision making or her beliefs about herself and whether or not she has intuition? Furthermore have you ever told her that you also feel disrespected by her and that you have specific expectations for how you want things to be between you in your friendship? If you haven't had those types of Come to Jesus conversations then I think most of your updates in this thread are going to look a lot like more complaints about your friends behaviour and how much more distance is between you than there ever has been before. Sorry to say it, but unless that type of confrontation happens it'll never get better.

I think at some point loneliness becomes a choice. It's easy to stay within a specific range of comfort waiting for people to show up in life for us to connect to. Having genuine "cosmic" bonds with people is rare. I didn't start finding those things in any real way until the last couple years but up until that point had convinced myself that I was just a loner and I didn't like people that much or there was just no one "on my level." It was extremely arrogant of me to start thinking that way and for me to essentially martyr myself in my friendships and then build resentment over time towards the people in my life. It's completely absurd looking back on it - but I know the headspace that I was in was being affected by severe anxiety and depression. Hard to get out into the world and really connect with people on that level if you never seek out those experiences.

I wonder if it's time to accept that you and your friend have different perspectives and priorities right now and that it might be time to venture out and find other people that you can bond with to fulfill that loneliness? I think Loneliness is just there to tell us to broaden our horizons and experience more people and things in the world so we can have a more enriched and fulfilling human experience.
 
SpecialEdition said:
Have you ever had an honest discussion with your friend about your judgements about her behaviour and your perception that she always makes poor decisions? Does she know you you don't respect her decision making or her beliefs about herself and whether or not she has intuition? Furthermore have you ever told her that you also feel disrespected by her and that you have specific expectations for how you want things to be between you in your friendship? If you haven't had those types of Come to Jesus conversations then I think most of your updates in this thread are going to look a lot like more complaints about your friends behaviour and how much more distance is between you than there ever has been before. Sorry to say it, but unless that type of confrontation happens it'll never get better.

I think at some point loneliness becomes a choice. It's easy to stay within a specific range of comfort waiting for people to show up in life for us to connect to. Having genuine "cosmic" bonds with people is rare. I didn't start finding those things in any real way until the last couple years but up until that point had convinced myself that I was just a loner and I didn't like people that much or there was just no one "on my level." It was extremely arrogant of me to start thinking that way and for me to essentially martyr myself in my friendships and then build resentment over time towards the people in my life. It's completely absurd looking back on it - but I know the headspace that I was in was being affected by severe anxiety and depression. Hard to get out into the world and really connect with people on that level if you never seek out those experiences.

I wonder if it's time to accept that you and your friend have different perspectives and priorities right now and that it might be time to venture out and find other people that you can bond with to fulfill that loneliness? I think Loneliness is just there to tell us to broaden our horizons and experience more people and things in the world so we can have a more enriched and fulfilling human experience.
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Thank you for your insight. I actually have had these confrontations with her in the past and just a few days ago regarding the things I've mentioned above. It's strange because she has acknowledged how she's disappointed me but also in the same sentence can make me feel as if I'm wrong for being disappointed. As an INFJ it's easy for people to turn things around and pin it back on me and I accept it as truth sometimes. I'm trying to keep my head on straight and stick by the fact that she should have been there for me like I have been for her many times. At this point, I told her that I felt our lives were in stark contrast at the moment and that maybe focusing on our own individual lives would be best. She accused me of not valuing the friendship and that I was willing to throw away a good thing. I don't know. Maybe she's right. But it doesn't feel like a "good thing" when it's felt one sided.

She also said she didn't believe that she was co-dependent on men and that she has made bad choices before, but isn't now. I honestly feel so drained that I don't have enough fight left in me to really keep dedicating to this. I think we decided to stay in one another's lives but on different terms. She is going to focus on her career and boyfriend and I'm going to focus on being a mother and an entrepreneur. I wanted to end the relationship cold turkey because I don't like lingering "unresolved" issues in my life, but I feel like the easier route is to give in and do the above mentioned.

We live 2.5 hours apart and so it's not like I need to see her all the time. I told her that expectation is going to have to go - for both of us. I'm focusing on finding other moms in my area because I think what it all comes down to, is not even necessarily finding that deep connection that you only read about in Nicolas Sparks books, but just a connection of similar interests or livelihoods. This long term friend of mine has nothing in common with me anymore. I feel like her fight for the friendship is really based on obligation due to the amount of time she feels she's invested in being in my life. This is a similar pattern for her because she stayed in an abusive relationship with a man for a long time because she kept saying "it's been X amount of years. He was nice in the beginning, I know he's still in there".

I, on the other hand, can see that there's not much substance left in the friendship. It feels like the last 10 years have survived on the fun and nostalgia of the first 4 years. Either way, I suppose I was just looking to see if any other INFJs had experienced similar scenarios. How they overcame it and their advice. I also suppose it was maybe a bit of a rant too, considering my only listening ear in real life, is a forum of strangers. I think I have a plan of action in place and I am going to follow through with that. Meeting other moms locally and letting go of the expectation that I will find someone who thoroughly understands my complicated nature.
 
selcouth said:
Thank you for your insight. I actually have had these confrontations with her in the past and just a few days ago regarding the things I've mentioned above. It's strange because she has acknowledged how she's disappointed me but also in the same sentence can make me feel as if I'm wrong for being disappointed. As an INFJ it's easy for people to turn things around and pin it back on me and I accept it as truth sometimes. I'm trying to keep my head on straight and stick by the fact that she should have been there for me like I have been for her many times. At this point, I told her that I felt our lives were in stark contrast at the moment and that maybe focusing on our own individual lives would be best. She accused me of not valuing the friendship and that I was willing to throw away a good thing. I don't know. Maybe she's right. But it doesn't feel like a "good thing" when it's felt one sided.

She also said she didn't believe that she was co-dependent on men and that she has made bad choices before, but isn't now. I honestly feel so drained that I don't have enough fight left in me to really keep dedicating to this. I think we decided to stay in one another's lives but on different terms. She is going to focus on her career and boyfriend and I'm going to focus on being a mother and an entrepreneur. I wanted to end the relationship cold turkey because I don't like lingering "unresolved" issues in my life, but I feel like the easier route is to give in and do the above mentioned.

We live 2.5 hours apart and so it's not like I need to see her all the time. I told her that expectation is going to have to go - for both of us. I'm focusing on finding other moms in my area because I think what it all comes down to, is not even necessarily finding that deep connection that you only read about in Nicolas Sparks books, but just a connection of similar interests or livelihoods. This long term friend of mine has nothing in common with me anymore. I feel like her fight for the friendship is really based on obligation due to the amount of time she feels she's invested in being in my life. This is a similar pattern for her because she stayed in an abusive relationship with a man for a long time because she kept saying "it's been X amount of years. He was nice in the beginning, I know he's still in there".

I, on the other hand, can see that there's not much substance left in the friendship. It feels like the last 10 years have survived on the fun and nostalgia of the first 4 years. Either way, I suppose I was just looking to see if any other INFJs had experienced similar scenarios. How they overcame it and their advice. I also suppose it was maybe a bit of a rant too, considering my only listening ear in real life, is a forum of strangers. I think I have a plan of action in place and I am going to follow through with that. Meeting other moms locally and letting go of the expectation that I will find someone who thoroughly understands my complicated nature.
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Sounds like the relationship has run its course. I know people personally who have tried to force relationships or friendships and the conflicts within never resolved for exactly the reasons you're describing - simply having grown into different people than you were during the "golden years" of the friendship and in some fundamental ways no longer being compatible.

Your friend seems like a lost woman. Maybe one day you can be close again but it sounds to me like it's just time for YOU to move on from her and reclaim your own time and energy. No problems with that even if she gets a bit bent out of shape about it.
 
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