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.
[Reply]
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
[Reply]
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.
[Reply]
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!!
[Reply]
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.
[Reply]
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.
[Reply]
Glenda
Apr 30, 2010
7:15 pm
Good lord, its like youve known me my entire life…
[Reply]
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.
[Reply]
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.
[Reply]
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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