Read Part 1 – Intentional Separation (Us-vs-Them Mentality)

The three reasons I think INFPs are lonely are:

1. We separate ourselves.
2. We exclude ourselves.
3. We refuse to be compared to others.

Part One was about how we separate ourselves. Part Two is about exclusion.

In my early 20′s, I was looking for Us people who thought our problems were what made us individuals. What I attracted were depressed, angry and angsty people who blamed society for our woes. I saw myself in them and realized this wasn’t who I wanted to be. I felt more alienated and alone than ever.

My attitude changed when I started dancing. By some fluke, I was good and people would say hi. Over time it became easier to talk to people who I would have avoided before. In talking to Them, I realized that they weren’t that amorphous blob of shallow and compromise that I had invented Them to be. They were individuals going through their own problems and dealing the best they knew how.

That’s when I became “accepting” of other people or so I’d thought. I kept my eye out for potential friends. My friendship was an exclusive club and only the like-minded need apply.

A boy goes to his mom and says, “I’m bored.” The mom replies, “Then you should stop being boring.”

This lesson applies in different variations. If I’m lonely, then I stop being alone.

In my early 20′s, I thought loneliness stemmed from feeling disconnected, and that disconnection was caused by having no people in my life who really understood me. So fixing my loneliness was about fixing the disconnection. I spent years finding people who understood me. However, when I did find a handful of people who I felt really got me, I still felt lonely.

It took me a decade before I realized that we don’t feel lonely because we’re disconnected. We feel lonely because we’ve made a habit of being alone. We can stand alone amongst other people. However, standing alone keeps us from connecting to those around us.

I was trying to fix the wrong problem. I was working on the disconnection when I should have been working on what kept me alone.

Almost every Friday for the last 13 years, I’ve gone dancing at the same dance club. Last Friday, I met a guy name Ryan. I wouldn’t have noticed him if my friend Rebecca hadn’t pointed him out as someone she thought was cute. I asked her why she didn’t go over and say hi, but she’s a shy ENFJ. It’s hard to put yourself out there when you’re single and a corner mouse. I use to be that shy. But since I’m not anymore, I decided that by the end of that night, I’d meet him and introduce him to her.

I told Ryan how Rebecca and I noticed that he was a good dancer. I asked him how often he went to this club. He said he’d been dancing for years, but he kept to himself. I proceeded to introduce him to all the regulars who are hubs (i.e. people that others flocked around). Ryan does SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), graduated from one of the top engineering colleges in the country (School of Mines) and use to play D&D. I use to go swing dancing with a guy who did SCA so I know little about it. My sister went to School of Mines and I use to play a ton of D&D. So I kept my small talk to those three topics.

This is how I met Rebecca 3 years ago. She was a dance club regular and sitting in the corner. I said hi and introduced her to all the hubs. I found out she was a teacher and we talked about teaching and school districts. Three years later, she’s one of my strong ties.

I wrote in my first post on friendship about how I decided to stop having friends. Because of that I have more people in my life now than I did before.

I’m special. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator told me so. As an INFP, I’m 1-5% of the total population. On the days I want to be more special, I quote the 1% number from Keirsey’s Please Understand Me instead of the 5% number from CAPT.org. Luckily, I don’t believe everything I read.

Being 1-5% just makes me different not special. I haven’t done anything particularly special. As an INFP, I’m aware of our need to feel special in a world that just recognizes us as different. However, instead of doing things that make me feel special, I waste time telling people I’m special in various subtle ways like quoting Myers-Briggs stats. It’s like being the guy who tells you he’s going to be famous and then has to move back in with parents because he couldn’t find a job that wasn’t beneath his sense of specialness.

People admire Olympic athletes and entrepreneurs for a reason. People don’t admire the natural inborn talent. We’ve all heard stories about the valedictorian that ends up working at a bookstore or the kooky genius that never made it out of his parent’s house. We admire Olympic athletes and entrepreneurs because they’ve proved it. They dedicated years to athletic training or risked everything to invest in their company. These people become recognized as special because they’ve done something special.

My friend Sam messaged me last Monday and asked if I wanted to go see Nine Inch Nails. I’m a Trent fan. I like Trent’s business models but the last time I loved his music, Def Leppard was still getting airplay. Also, I’m broke.

Sam promptly replied that he asked me if I wanted to go, not whether I had money. Because apparently, that’s what friends do. It suddenly hit me that I have friends. It was bound to happen after spending years of free time with the same people.

I don’t like the word friend. I decided to stop having friends in my mid-20′s. Without friends, it’s easier to people fit into two categories: People I like being around and the people I avoided. INFPs idealize friendship. The word friend has subtext.

When I said that a person was my friend, I meant they were my close friend who I could tell about the body secrets to. Everyone else wandered this vast limbo of acquaintance-hood outside the door of my secret club of friends.