Your ESTP experience!

So I want to start a line of threads that focus on our thoughts, feelings, and experiences dealing with a single type. What may be terribly interesting to hear is everyone's experience with ESTPs specifically. Being general is a given around here I suspect, but don't be afraid to be specific either!

So my experience with ESTPs has been terribly interesting to say the least, and though they look wrought with conflict on the surface, ultimately they are pretty satisfying and I am happy to be close friends with one, and I'll dive deep into the positives later on... So, to me, ESTPs are definately the SUPER-spazz type. They bounce from one bit of information to the next shallowly in order to fulfill some goal that doesn't include being consistent or responsible for anything that comes flying out of their mouths. Really, information to them is just there to be used to promote some self-serving goal, always.

So, to me it's clear that there is a line that divides good arguments and bad arguments. Good arguments are there for two parties to co-operate to find the best perspective and to sort of compare information to see who's angle has the most validity and weight, and to then cradle the other party's perspective into the new information. ESTPs to me have a natural lust to turn arguments into a game of who-can-be-the-most-dominating and are not afraid to use any sort of fallacy. I want to stress that they are there to dominate in any way that they will be allowed to.

A big source of agitation with me on ESTPs has to also be their sort of automatic sence of entitlement. Now this is difficult to word, but I think that many of us, as INFJs, tend to automatically place many things on our own shoulders and don't assume that sort of entitlement, that we have to have to earn it in a loud and certain way to even begin to approach the style of grabby and greedy of ESTPs. As an example, I have a terribly difficult time buying used games largely due to guilt for not supporting the developers, and also due to OCD and a collector/perfectionist bent. I really need to feel like I'm supporting the people that made the various products and services even possible, and of course the people behind them, and then refuse to "trade them in" for much the same reason. Now, I understand that there is a million arguments with that statement as it stands(I have learned to use many qualifying statements like this because of ESTPs), but the point is, ESTPs are pretty extreme "wheeler deelers".



So, that leads right into one of my biggest reasons to fuss about ESTPs... they're lust to EXPLOIT. If there is a vulnerability exposed, the ESTP is the one who is on auto-pilot to grab onto it and exploit it in some way... This of course, is a FARCRY from the nature of an INFJ, and is sometimes really really hard for me to swallow. They just can't help themselves. It doesn't even seem like they even have a concern for any notion of general welfare or co-operation. For the ESTPs I've known, it's always about being ahead of the curve, and biting right into the jugular.

Now, I know that all sounds profoundly negative, and, I guess it really is, but I understand that the animal-like ways of ESTPs are basically necessary. Perhaps at least because it is an animal world that assumes competition, in spite of the downtrodden that it creates. I mean, if the animal ways of people are about resources and necessary phsyical progress to keep up, lest we be drown-out by whatever competing force, than maybe the wild cannonball-like ESTP is one of our strongest forces... Nevertheless, the ugly "animal" part of the world as it is difficult to cope with is loud and clear with the ESTP...

Continuing with the positives, ESTPs seem like a necessary ingrediant in the satisfaction of life, regardless of how spazzy and combatitive they are. The ESTP I'm close to is a rewarding relationship because of how willing he is to be the one who sort of grabs hold and dotes over the relationship in a much more exposed way. My ESTP really likes me, and has never been afraid of being the one to pick up the phone and build plans excitedly. My ESTP, even though a lot of it is misguided, also really seems to be invested in me in a convincing way, even so far as wanting badly to get me into various relationships with the opposite sex and to guide me into being a "normal" person to hilarious results, and I do mean hilarious.

It is more fun being an INFJ around an ESTP, espeically one who dotes over you, because they want to tear apart viciously every thing you say, at which point it's terribly satisfying to sort of continue exposing my "crazy" reasoning all while probably laughing. They need to be so in touch with "normal" and the various indicators of status, and just all of the flighty bits of our culture, that our seeming total detachment from all of those various worldy things can intrigue them and then drive them insane! I think that's how I first got the attention of the ESTP I know, the way I confidently devalue and detach from nearly every worldly element of our lives.

I've always loved explaining SPs in general as the cannonball personality, and it really works. Everywhere they go and everything they do is efficient and sure, but leaving an inevitable wake of destruction... This is so terribly true of ESTPs. My ESTP friend can hardly be in a room without somehow altering it or leaving some kind of mark. Which is INSANITY inducing for me...

Anyway, I can surely write a lot more, but, for the sake of this actually being read I better halt it here for now. I want your thoughts, feelings, and experiences!

 

So another observation I've had with ESTPs is their crazy unfounded need to be fast or the fastest. So, envision children at an elementary school who always have to be the fastest and the first. The first in line, the first to turn in their test, the first to be done eating, and if they don't come close to matching the speed of others maybe they think it's some reason to be insecure. Well, of course, especially with matters of school, speed will not get you much. They should spend more time on tests, more time really understanding what they are speeding through studying, it doesn't matter where they are in line, and that generalizes into life pretty well. Their speed really is a waiste in most cases. I always imagine that people that post "FIRST!" on other internet forums are probably some spazzy ESTP.

The ESTP I'm close to loves to play co-op videogames with me, but, playing games with them is just another exhausting and pointless race. Even playing games turns into an irrational need to be crazy fast. I want ENJOY this game, not explode through it without experiencing it thoroughly! I mean, the very act of playing videogames is not efficient, and yet these ESTPs can hardly stand to stand themselves long enough to really dive in. They have to explode on through it and then into the next thing that they will likely fly through just as shallowly. I mean, in a lot of cases, where in the world do they think they are going!?! Soak a little ESTPs!

I mean, in the realistic and competitve world, maybe having the best control of resources requires the ESTP bouncing off the walls like a spazz, but in most cases, their lust for speed and perfect efficiency is wasteful and often does more to detract from a lot of areas. Some of this may sound like I'm describing an ESTJ, who are also crazy industrious and efficient, but with my ESTP experience, their spazz-attacks are decidedly different.

 

Yeah, I also have seen this possessiveness. It's very strange. Though sometimes my close ESTP friend will say things like "maybe that's why I haven't grown bored of you yet...". He seems to take pride in being able to sell anything to anyone, and then, in a weighty way, admits that he can sell anyone on anything except for me, this very alien INFJ experience he has found. I don't know if it's attachment that we have, but the fact that his worldly little perspective doesn't shift me I think has made it hard for him to "let me go" as he would put it...