The Care and Feeding of INFPs, part 2
Speaking INFP
INFPs can be great communicators when they want to be. That’s the big catch: when they want to be.
By default, INFPs do two things that cause great frustration to other types.
1. Moving from point A to D while skipping points B and C.
Conversations with INFPs at times seems like a string of completely unrelated topics. I know I do that. I could be talking about Ethan Hawke and the next second, I could be talking about locus of control theory. The connecting thoughts are: Ethan Hawke was in Hamlet –> famous Hamlet quote “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” –> your thoughts are one of the few things you can control –> amount of happiness is proportional to how much control you feel you have in your life –> locus of control theory.
INFPs don’t vocalize those connecting thoughts. Conversations may seem like random jumps from topic to topic but those topics are related in the INFP’s head.
Most of the time, those connecting thoughts aren’t important in general conversation with friends. However, INFPs get so use to not vocalizing connecting thoughts that it’s a cause of problems in relationships. You could be discussing how the toilet isn’t fixed yet and then your INFP could end up mad at you about their birthday dinner next week.
The connecting points could be: The toilet is broken –> you promised to fix it –> you promised a lot of things but forgot about it because you’re too busy –> you promised to take your significant other to a fancy restaurant for their birthday –> now your INFP is mad at you because that dinner might not happen.
It’s at times like these you have to slow your INFP down and make them go through Points B and Point C with you.
2. Not realizing that sometimes Point D isn’t really the point.
Let’s break down the previous broken toilet to mad about dinner plans scenario.
a. toilet is broken
b. you promised to fix it
c. you promised a lot of things but forgot about it because you’re too busy
d. you promised to take your significant other to a fancy restaurant for their birthday
e. now your INFP is mad at you because that dinner might not happen
So here you are assuring your INFP that you’re not going to forget out their birthday dinner, and your INFP is still mad at you. Even worse, they don’t know why they’re still mad. Maybe the birthday dinner isn’t the issue.
Perhaps the issue is really Point C: you’re too busy. Being mad at you about dinner was only a symptom of a deeper issue. So why doesn’t your INFP come right out and say, you need to spend more time with me? Mostly likely, the INFP might not understand that’s the real issue. INFPs are great at understanding themselves, but not so great at understanding themselves in relation to another person.
That’s where the slow things down approach helps. Getting your INFP to slow down and go through their thought process not only clarifies things for you, but it also clarifies things for them.
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Ann
Jan 2, 2010
10:02 am
More than once I have had the following two differing responses to my unedited speaking style (I am an INFP on Keirsey):
“N” (intuitive): finishes my sentences, because they have followed my intuitive leaps, “gets” exactly what I am trying to say before I even finish.
“S” (sensing–a more literal 1+2=3 linear thinking style, doesn’t read between the lines) “Please explain what you are talking about, I can’t follow you at all.”
I have learned to adjust, particularly when I am in a business setting, such as training a newer employee. S types want you to tell them your topic first, then explain. They need a process broken down in a linear fashion, just what to do first, then next, because they won’t figure it out intuitively. They generally don’t have a burning need to know why something is done a particular way, and the lack of that knowledge does not stop them in their tracks before they can go further in learning. Why explanations are actually irritating to them many times.
Therefore, the way I naturally begin explaining something, by giving context and background, is an utter failure with extremely fact/linear based thinkers.
In mixed rooms of trainees, which is generally the norm, I have had to redirect the ones who want “why” or more complex answers that satisfy their curiosity, offering to talk to them on a break. I may enjoy that sort of thing myself, but with time limits, it becomes a distraction.
My “S” spouse, who receives my unedited style, often tells me he needs me to stop and concentrate on one line of thought, not combine them. He also needs me to describe over and over again processes like “copy/paste” on the computer. He asks me how to do things that I can’t explain in words without going back and doing them physically, then noting what I am doing.
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ockhamdesign Reply:
January 15th, 2010 at 1:44 am
I think that’s why I learned the MBTI in the first place. It was a guideline to how to interact with other people. I was an extreme introvert for so long which didn’t matter in high school. It’s a big deal when you move out and can’t interact with people.
The MBTI made it easier. I talk to S’s differently than I talk to N’s.
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Corra McFeydon
Jan 9, 2010
4:12 am
Oh, that’s why I do that!
I skip around all over the place and generally can’t remember where a conversation started. It makes me crazy when people can’t keep up or question my conversation technique. It all makes sense in my head.
Of course I could go from shovels to the meaning of life in two seconds – hello? It totally relates!
Great blog.
~ Corra
from the desk of a writer
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ockhamdesign Reply:
January 11th, 2010 at 10:45 am
That’s where the MBTI typing comes in handy. I can pick out most people’s type from various cues like how they describe events or situations. I usually adjust my conversation style to fit the few STs that I know. Most of the NTs and NFs I know don’t mind the jumping around.
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Jeanine
Feb 2, 2010
8:30 pm
I skip around like that all the time. The biggest problem is that after a while, I forget where I started or what point I was trying to make.
And usually my partner is just watching the conversational butterfly fly and doesn’t remember either!
Great blog!!
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D
Mar 5, 2010
1:08 am
I’ve just turned 30 an have just started getting interested in my personality since I’ve started dating about 8 months ago. About three months into dating I was thinking about all kinds of crazyness
an a thought came to me about understanding myself to better my relationship with my Girlfriend which is a INTJ( after I’ve took’n the test an told her a few weeks laterwords an she told me that she had taken one years ago but took it again to see if it’s change , but hasn’t.) , so I googled personality and found you could take a test was “WoWed” that they had tests to find out what, who a person was, At first it said I was a INTP but after reading more about that personality an taking another test found out I was/am a INFP, So far the more I read about it (here in the last week or two) the more it fits me (sadly enough. lol) an after reading thist her..it pretty much comfirms it, cause when I try an tell a store tor try to explane something that has happened I all over the place jumping from point A to F back to C than to partially B an so on to where I myself is even lost in the story that “I” was try’n to tell.
Very interesting to read how others deal with it and not just what INFP “are”, This is all a learning process for me after 30 years an just now finding a little of myself.
yer do’n a good job.
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ockhamdesign Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 1:28 am
INTJs are a good match for INFPs. Someone has to pay the electric bill on time. I’ve been happily married to an INTJ for 13 years now.
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Glenda
Apr 30, 2010
7:15 pm
Good lord, its like youve known me my entire life…
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ockhamdesign Reply:
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:35 am
All INFPs have commonality that binds us. Even though INFPs may differ in belief systems, we go about externalizing those beliefs in the same way, especially in the way we communicate to others.
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Morgain
Jul 5, 2010
12:31 pm
I had an amazing conversation like that with a person I was dating. We jumped around from topic to topic all night long. It was really crazy. We never finished a topic because we jumped to a relating but totaly different topic before the first topic was finished. We both did it, we both could follow the line of thoughts and we both didn’t mind or tried to get the conversation back to the first topic. I had never done the topic hoping before.
Are there other MBTI types that are really good in it and really like doing it or could I presume that the guy was INFP too?
beside that: great blog!!!!
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Corin Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
It’s not so much an INFP thing as it is an N and P thing. I find N’s usually less linear than S’s. I find it non-linear conversations easier with P’s because J’s usually have a point where for P’s, the conversation is the point.
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Yvonne Reply:
October 10th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Very well put! I’m dating an INTJ as well. I agree that INTJs and INFPs could be a good match but one thing I get very frustrated with is that, like you said, they always “need to make a point”. There have been many times that I have been excited to share something that I had experienced and everytime i attempted to share the story, he always said that I wasn’t sharing ALL the facts and would continually stop me throughout my sharing to ask questions. This has always bothered me because I’m just excited to share my experience. As I reexperience it while sharing, he interrupts the experience with his necessary questions that are necessary for him to ask in order to form his understanding. Slowly, my excitement fades throughout this process. I always ask him to listen and save any questions I may not have answered for the end but he’s not capable of remembering and it’s difficult for him to best process and understand that way. WHAT TO DO?
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Dmd Reply:
November 4th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
I’m dating an INTJ as well and know exactly what you mean! The worst is when he asks me something, I start to answer and he interrupts me, mad, because he thinks I’m not answering the question. My brain doesn’t see things as so linear and he’s trying to get better at waiting til I’m through before assuming that I’m not answering. He does similar things with stories, too, and he’ll even accuse me of not being totally honest just because I didn’t specify the whole timeline from the start or something.
Anyway, I know what you mean and would love to know how your INFP-INTJ relationship works out.
I love mine, we connect on a very deep level, but the surface level communication is where we’re really falling apart.
Rétromantique
Jul 26, 2010
11:42 am
I believe this is common to all INs (Introverted Intuitive) types, not only INFPs (like Corin says). I’m an INTJ and what’s going on in my head for thought process is pretty much the same.
Explanation:
1) Introversion makes one keep things inside, not expressing them, which explains why the communication is harder and that the person won’t express point B-C.
2) Intuition makes one’s thoughts more abstract than Sensing types. Therefore, they make links in their thoughts which are very “fluid”, if I can say.
The Feeling aspect only affects the nature of the thoughts the person process. I am not a 100% sure of Corin’s point with P vs J affecting this really, although I agree that ” J’s usually have a point where for P’s, the conversation is the point.”
That is my “Rational Mastermind” two-cents
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L.A.
Oct 1, 2010
11:52 pm
I’ve always wondered why I do that but most people I interact with don’t… Jumping around from topic to topic in conversations with others, or begining an explanation of some procedure or process or task at work by exlaining the reasons for the steps and the possible consequences of doing the thing differently that I’ll eventually get around to providing unless I forget… I’ve been told that I have a very circular way of thinking and that if I can’t think in a more linear fashion, that certain individuals will simply stop listening to me, and then realizing later, sometimes weeks later, that I never finished a particular sentence and the person I was talking to therefore probably got a very twisted — but possibly quite entertaining — picture…
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BoPeep
Dec 19, 2010
8:33 am
My husband is an N like me but my form of conversation drives him crazy. The best I can relate it to is if my final picture is a flock of sheep, in order to create that picture I have to herd all those escaping sheep into view, one or two at a time, positioning each one in relation to the other ones. Will you get to the point is my husband’s most frequent comment before he starts pacing! It all seems very logical to meeee .. Lol
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chex
Feb 6, 2011
8:48 pm
When I have a conversation with someone, I find that points B and C are too obvious to speak out to someone. As if that person I’m talking to knows about B and C already so I just skip all the way to D. By doing this, I cause some confusion for others because I’m not explaining enough to them. I want to stop thinking inside my head and express what I think verbally instead of internally. Is there anyway to practice how to do this?
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Corin Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 12:11 am
I think writing is one of the better ways to practice verbalizing what’s in our heads. I have a zillion thoughts in my head. Some of it is just random bits. But when I write thoughts down, especially for the purpose of communicating those thoughts to others, it forces to to be linear, to write in a way that makes sense outside my head.
Consider keeping a blog. Write for the purpose of communication, not expression. Expression is when you leave it to others to interpret. Communication is when you take the responsibility to make sure the others understand your point.
Eventually with enough practice with written communication, your verbal communication will follow suit.
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Dmd Reply:
November 4th, 2011 at 9:14 pm
I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel like it’s an insult to someone else’s intelligence to spell things out in such an average way. But, at the same time, I usually feel disappointed with people when they don’t jump straight from A to D with me, and then they get confused, and I’m left thinking in my own head again.
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Colleen
May 11, 2011
4:17 pm
You made me smile! My thoughts flow like water but they can be organized. My father was an engineer. My husband is a scientist. I am a teacher. I think you understand my challenge.
When speaking to another INFP, and I am, I don’t have to insert b and c. I know that you fully understand the issues without the detail.
So how did I meet the challenge, by imagining a vessel or structure for my thoughts, a check list of sorts for my linear-sequencial thinking love ones and students. Corin is correct writing helps so does reading. When we see how others structure communication for the masses, it helps to create a pattern for our own communications.
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Allison
Jun 9, 2011
2:17 pm
This was so totally helpful for me. And it made me laugh. Now I have a better understanding of what my husband must see from his side of the conversation. I’ll have to be a little more understanding when he acts as if my thoughts aren’t connected to each other.
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dana
Dec 1, 2011
2:17 pm
Love your article…..so true about the way we think….how it’s all connected like a spider web. I recently experienced a very short relationship with a person that ended abrubtly because of our communication styles. The person would not give me a chance to explain where I was coming from with my feelings. I think they could possibly be an ESTJ or ENTJ. I wanted to meet and explain myself, but they would not give me a chance. This really hurt because I like to be understood and maintain harmony, if possible, with others. Oh well….
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