The Three Stages of Belief in Socionics

[Raver]

There are three stages you go through with Socionics.

Stage 1 - Honeymoon Stage: Socionics is this incredible psychological theory that you feel so lucky to have discovered. Everyone around you makes so much sense. It is intoxicating knowing your own personality and others around you. You use this knowledge to your own advantage frequently.

Stage 2 - Despair Stage: Socionics no longer has that exciting quality to it anymore. It's become almost boring because you've extracted all you can from it knowledge and experience wise. You get disappointed when you realize that it's flawed, it's no longer this perfect system to describe people. You begin to question if it is even real.

Stage 3 - Acceptance Stage: You have taken long breaks from Socionics at this point. Probably even forgot about it for months at a time without even using it. However, it lingers in your mind as some kind of basic knowledge that is useful or useless depending on the situation. You feel at ease with Socionics now. You know what it is good for and you know what it is bad for. You are content with using it from time to time, but are not heavily invested in it and this brings you peace.

This forum has forum posters in all three stages. Most of the regulars like myself are in stage 3, at ease with Socionics. There are many newbies that are still in stage 1, enamored with Socionics. There are many in betweens in this forum or left the forum that got to stage 2. Some never came out of this stage, they just left this forum and/or forgot about Socionics.

[Hope]

I'm in the "Acceptance Stage" since the very first beginning, or maybe I should call mine "Cynical" stage . Also I've noticed that there are people who never left the "Honey Moon" stage.

[Bertrand]

stage 1 pride

[Chae]

Isn't 2 also denial? Or hm. Let's add all the 5 stages of grief in there since the last phase of 1 includes what I call the "death of socionics".

[Chae]

stage 1 pride

A thought: I think it's called Honeymoon stage because you find out about duality. Opinions?

[Bertrand]

A thought: I think it's called Honeymoon stage because you find out about duality. Opinions?

the idea of duality brings me sincere joy

[Nanooka]

I'm in the "Acceptance Stage" since the very first beginning, or maybe I should call mine "Cynical" stage . Also I've noticed that there are people who never left the "Honey Moon" stage.

Cynical stage 4 lyfe.

I wonder what our curve looks like, if we have one. People who come to Socionics usually after being well-versed in some other form of typology, or who are otherwise prone to poking holes for whatever reason. Who are already skeptical of attempts at rigidly applying it, and of non-recognition that it's a model as flawed as any other.

[Grendel]

[Lao Tzunami]

HAHAHAHA WHAT!? I find "belief" and "faith" in socionics baffling. When people talk about "believing" in socionics, that is like asking if you "believe" in the Bohr model of the atom. Is it a useful concept for learning about election orbitals and bonds, but it would be a terrible model for predicting bond angles.

Besides, what is socionics asking you to do? Faith requires action. Does socionics preach marrying your dual? I can't think of a single source that tell you to do that directly. It is an interesting concept and I do think compatibility factors very much into marital happiness. You know what is also important? Financial security. You need money to raise a family. But if you marry the first rich asshole you come across so you can have his money, you deserve what is coming to you. On the flip side, if you ignore this and marry a stoner who can't hold down a job because he is too busy playing video games, you are also stupid. Socionics is wisdom as long as you do not become unbalanced.

Not that I don't find you post humorous, just that I never experienced anything like this. I'm with Jung when he talked about typology as his indispensable compass for navigating people. I guess a compass gets boring if all you do is let it collect dust on your mantle, but when you are using it to live your life, it is a great tool. Imagine trying to travel to a new country with out a map? But staring at the map is totally not the same thing as actually going on that vacation.

My "stages" were 1. intense skepticism, 2. learning the theory enough to try applying it to myself and other people, 3. realizing it works pretty well and using it to see a new sides of life and appreciate my friends at a much deeper level. I've never cared about the textbook descriptions you read on the internet, and now, I have gotten to know ~20 people well enough to have them in my heart where I can reflect on their perspective when ever I need to. People are all so difference, I could never imagine getting tired of meeting new people. Quite the opposite, there is such a massive diversity in life, it is overwhelming.

If you are bored with socionics, learn Jung's broader psychology and you will have a life full of meaningful work ahead of you.

[Myst]

A thought: I think it's called Honeymoon stage because you find out about duality. Opinions?

Pretty sure that's what makes Socionics a not neutral theory for many people yeah.

HAHAHAHA WHAT!? I find "belief" and "faith" in socionics baffling. When people talk about "believing" in socionics, that is like asking if you "believe" in the Bohr model of the atom. Is it a useful concept for learning about election orbitals and bonds, but it would be a terrible model for predicting bond angles.

Exactly.

If you are bored with socionics, learn Jung's broader psychology and you will have a life full of meaningful work ahead of you.

Why just Jung, there are a LOT of other psychology models out there that can even be used actually.

[Raver]

HAHAHAHA WHAT!? I find "belief" and "faith" in socionics baffling. When people talk about "believing" in socionics, that is like asking if you "believe" in the Bohr model of the atom. Is it a useful concept for learning about election orbitals and bonds, but it would be a terrible model for predicting bond angles.

Besides, what is socionics asking you to do? Faith requires action. Does socionics preach marrying your dual? I can't think of a single source that tell you to do that directly. It is an interesting concept and I do think compatibility factors very much into marital happiness. You know what is also important? Financial security. You need money to raise a family. But if you marry the first rich asshole you come across so you can have his money, you deserve what is coming to you. On the flip side, if you ignore this and marry a stoner who can't hold down a job because he is too busy playing video games, you are also stupid. Socionics is wisdom as long as you do not become unbalanced.

Not that I don't find you post humorous, just that I never experienced anything like this. I'm with Jung when he talked about typology as his indispensable compass for navigating people. I guess a compass gets boring if all you do is let it collect dust on your mantle, but when you are using it to live your life, it is a great tool. Imagine trying to travel to a new country with out a map? But staring at the map is totally not the same thing as actually going on that vacation.

My "stages" were 1. intense skepticism, 2. learning the theory enough to try applying it to myself and other people, 3. realizing it works pretty well and using it to see a new sides of life and appreciate my friends at a much deeper level. I've never cared about the textbook descriptions you read on the internet, and now, I have gotten to know ~20 people well enough to have them in my heart where I can reflect on their perspective when ever I need to. People are all so difference, I could never imagine getting tired of meeting new people. Quite the opposite, there is such a massive diversity in life, it is overwhelming.

If you are bored with socionics, learn Jung's broader psychology and you will have a life full of meaningful work ahead of you.

You may have had different stages than the ones I posted, but nonetheless, the message of this thread coincides with your thoughts on the fact that Socionics is merely a tool that should not be over or underestimated in its usefulness.

[Myst]

My stages:

Stage 1. I forced myself to check out the theory (long story as to why but otherwise I would never have done so), picked up some definitions that seemed to match my experience surprisingly well (incl. mental observations of myself). I went really deep analyzing some of my stuff with those (because of also studying Jung). But I didn't go deep in the model itself, duality made no sense as an assumption, etc. I didn't really pick up much meaningful understanding of myself either at this point despite the analyzing, just bits.
Stage 2. Later I did accept the duality idea as an assumption to be checked out. Found ways to practice application of the theory to check things and gained better understanding of the model, checking out a bit of the more speculative stuff too but rejecting what still seemed bs (I still reject those things and I'm done with checking them out).
Stage 3. Finally figured out my correct typing (after typing as a type that was similar enough but it was still "off") and I was able to actually apply some of the theory on people around me from then on, of course only on a very general level, like, ability to type them and somehow better orient myself in terms of how I am, relative to how others are. Until then I made little progress with that. This btw to me means there is validity in the theory, it's not just Forer effect and the like. And I learned a lot more about myself, more than before. Extracted a lot of what is/was useful to me from Socionics.
Stage 4. Got annoyed with how the model was not specifying limits of itself properly, got annoyed about how on the whole it's such a mentally inefficient way to think about people, and tried to figure out what exactly was wrong beyond the obvious (that it's a speculative model without real scientific research or confirmation). Mind you I didn't at all have a way to think about people before so even this was better as a start.
Stage 5. Figured out what exactly is wrong with the Socionics models while working on how to extract and keep things that I found validity in while moving beyond/away from the Socionics model. Building my own understanding from a lot of analysis of experience, mental observations and other psychological ideas/models. This does not follow Socionics's function model, not a "copy" of it but is based in different ideas for its fundamental organization. This is the only way I can feel good, Socionics's standard function model just isn't truly compatible with me so to speak, let alone the extensions that just go down a rabbithole lol


So I don't really fit the original three stages idea, I came from disinterest and skepticism until I forced myself through checking out all of it to get what's useful to me from the ideas then I finally wanted out of it and I'll be glad once the phasing out stage is complete having moved on to a framework that doesn't model things in the same way Socionics does. Even tho' some Socionics ideas were very helpful to me and I will keep those (outside the standard Socionics model), it was never truly enjoyable in that intoxicating way or whatever and never offered the experience of "oh people all make so much sense now", that seems exaggerated or something from my pov. Yes it offered some insight to the minds of some people when I did talk to them but if I didn't deeply "interview" them then nope not at all. (For the deep talking tho' some Jungian/Socionics ideas are an okay guide and I like that kinda but also am skeptical always.) I just can't and won't assume invisible motives. So to have people make sense more at this point, for that I prefer to just keep common sense (no Socionics) and learning other ideas from psychology that are valid enough in practice.


Quick summary for the TLDR people. Not fitting the three stages because: instead of honeymoon it was a difficult initial stage even though followed by very decent rewards, then instead of despair it was more like annoyance, then instead of acceptance of it as is, an end of it by upgrading from it tho' you could say I'll never leave it fully behind because of keeping good ideas. Unless I find a way to rework even those ideas to be better but that'll require a paradigm shift of sorts.

[The Reality Denialist]

My first reaction for @Chae's post was protein's primary, secondary, tertiary stages in folding but there is also quaternary

Take care of not to using your base IE too much or it becomes dysfunctional. So you shouldy keep your physiological pH () at acceptable level.
See socionics is just like biochemistry.

[darya]

A thought: I think it's called Honeymoon stage because you find out about duality. Opinions?

It's amazing how many people romanticize and "believe" in duality. I'll get flack for this from the believers, but to me duality has always been and still is total delusion resulting from childish naivete and idealism, kind of desperate search for a magical cure for unhappiness (in love). Similar to any good old religion believe, really.

[Adam Strange]

It's amazing how many people romanticize and "believe" in duality. I'll get flack for this from the believers, but to me duality has always been and still is total delusion resulting from childish naivete and idealism, kind of desperate search for a magical cure for unhappiness (in love). Similar to any good old religion believe, really.

I believe duality is a major good among many other goods, but it is not sufficient by itself to make a bad relationship into a perfect one.

I happen to believe that health and maturity levels matter most, then shared values, then common purpose, then duality. It is also nice to share an enneagram type in your tri-types, or to share an integration-disintegration line, or an enneagram Harmonic group (http://www.fitzel.ca/enneagram/patterns.html), and for at least one partner to have a Secure attachment style. All the rest are probably noise.

[niffer]

It's amazing how many people romanticize and "believe" in duality. I'll get flack for this from the believers, but to me duality has always been and still is total delusion resulting from childish naivete and idealism, kind of desperate search for a magical cure for unhappiness (in love). Similar to any good old religion believe, really.

Aren't you in a relationship with your dual?

[darya]

Aren't you in a relationship with your dual?

No, since I'm not ILI : ) My parents are in a dual relationship and they've had a successfull marriage, but also nothing out of the ordinary - still many problems and misundersatndings between them, the usual really. I do understand that in theory everything should work great, but reality is much different (from observing many couples there are so many other factors whether a relationship will work out or not, it's more or less blind luck. There are the most incompatible people on paper in great relationships and socionic-wise great matches that go down in flames. Theory just desn't match reality ime.

[darya]

I happen to believe that health and maturity levels matter most, then shared values, then common purpose, then duality. It is also nice to share an enneagram type in your tri-types, or to share an integration-disintegration line, or an enneagram Harmonic group (http://www.fitzel.ca/enneagram/patterns.html), and for at least one partner to have a Secure attachment style. All the rest are probably noise.

Yeah, I agree that all those things matter more than duality or socionics ITR. Health, maturity, chemistry, values, same goals in life, similar lifestyle and background and preferably both having a secure attachment style.

[niffer]

No, since I'm not ILI : ) My parents are in a dual relationship and they've had a successfull marriage, but also nothing out of the ordinary - still many problems and misundersatndings between them, the usual really. I do understand that in theory everything should work great, but reality is much different (from observing many couples there are so many other factors whether a relationship will work out or not, it's more or less blind luck. There are the most incompatible people on paper in great relationships and socionic-wise great matches that go down in flames. Theory just desn't match reality ime.

Thanks for the response. I must have had you confused with someone else on here.

In my opinion, duality does kind of represent the idea of an "ideal love" relationship (provided people have matching imagos or subtypes and values otherwise, are healthy and all that), but as a bare minimum baseline for creating the potential for that rather than the sole determining factor. It's like how squares can be considered rectangles, but rectangles can't be considered square. Factoring in the truth that not everybody is interested in entering a relationship mainly for a spiritual love connection like what duality promises to offer, as well as my previous point, I feel that reality does actually match the theory in my experience, at least when it comes to longer term romantic relationships like ones involving marriage.

[Olimpia]

Since hanging out with "normal" people yesterday I am in the "Too much typology talk is kind of annoying" phase. I can be infatuated with the theory itself, but it is just a past time activity at the end of the day. I don't get much out of it when interacting with other people. Doing other things with them is more fun. Most people don't know about Socionics, so talking about it with them is kind of pointless (and I'd feel like a weirdo doing so). Those who do know about the theory are way too rigid or too condescending about it. They have all kinds of beliefs on how certain things ought to work or not, what someone's type is or not, and it is starting to annoy me a bit. I am the same way, so it is not like I am only pointing the finger at others, I am also pointing it at myself. I'd rather have fun with the theory, get more insight, and possibly help people with that. Endless discussions about someone's type are rather draining to me, though. Etc.

Don't get me wrong, I still find the theory rather solid. It does work. But yes, reality can be more dynamic than that. Opposite Quadra relations can get along fine (under specific circumstances – mostly when you focus on a shared hobby or interest and remain on a platonic surface level with the person; I still think opposite quadra romantic relationships are doomed though, based on my observations). Duality is not the magic bullet, and you can have fairly satisfying romantic relationships with other types.

My very first stage with Socionics was also skepticism. I thought the ITR theory was bs or overly simplistic. I thought "No way is it possible that those ITRs can describe every kind of dynamic between two people". However, as I started to also consider the ITR between people I've typed, I realized that the theory was not that bad. The overall dynamic could be summarized by the theory more or less, once people start to get "closer", what is usually described as "closing the interpersonal distance" or the "psychological distance". Basically, when people try to reach greater or deeper emotional intimacy with someone, ITR will rather reliably predict how great, close, or deep that intimacy is able to be (not taking into account attachment style issues; avoidant attachment greatly reduces the general ability to develop great emotional intimacy).

So yeah, I guess I am starting to get acquainted with the other stages. However, I don't think I'll ever despair over or forget the theory. The theory is what it is. And so far, it has proven to be rather accurate and to some extent be useful. I thought it could help me with getting closer to people – a very So/Sx desire, I suppose. But it has not really helped me with that much at all. I'd probably be better off with forgetting about it and focusing more on the world "outside" and creating better bonds with people, opposed to philosophizing or theorizing about it all day.

[niffer]

I'd probably be better off with forgetting about it and focusing more on the world "outside" and creating better bonds with people, opposed to philosophizing or theorizing about it all day.

Yeah, I can definitely relate to having thoughts like this too, at least some of the time...

[Chae]

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between and creative Of course, amino acids are healthy coping mechanisms for the passing of a beloved one. In this case, Socionics.

[Chae]

It's amazing how many people romanticize and "believe" in duality. I'll get flack for this from the believers, but to me duality has always been and still is total delusion resulting from childish naivete and idealism, kind of desperate search for a magical cure for unhappiness (in love). Similar to any good old religion believe, really.

Ok you are in Stage 2 currently.
Tip: Transition to the "idgaf"-stage where people think duality is just another intertype relationship and ditch the "believing" or "not believing"

Stage 3, as I see it, helps to meet halfway.

[Chae]

Really, I think the whole process relies on going from one unhealthy extreme to the other. Complete obsession -> utter rejection. And then you settle in the middle realistically.

[niffer]

Really, I think the whole process relies on going from one unhealthy extreme to the other. Complete obsession -> utter rejection. And then you settle in the middle realistically.

Lol. I was like:

MBTI (Rejection/Skepticism of it) -> Consideration of Socionics -> Acceptance (and going Utterly batshit along with it) -> Settling back into reality

[Chae]

Pretty sure that's what makes Socionics a not neutral theory for many people yeah.

YES!! Finally, someone put it into words. We do seem quite biased with the concept of having people on a scale of "good for you... mediocre... not good for you".

I think originial theory was misleading there. It went from saying the communication isn't so optimal with some types to implying one should avoid associating with them in the first place, along with the quadra exclusion and other deterministic attitudes, which is pretty stupid. Given that we all use the same set of functions we're merely different versions of each other, nothing more, nothing less.

[Chae]

Lol. I was like:

MBTI (Rejection/Skepticism of it) -> Consideration of Socionics -> Acceptance -> Utterly batshit -> Settling back into reality

I swear if we bring MBTI into this, this thread will blow up completely.

[niffer]

I swear if we bring MBTI into this, this thread will blow up completely.

[Chae]

[The Reality Denialist]

MBTI = complicated roundabout mush. Keirsey. Bring back Keirsey!

[Myst]

Yeah, I agree that all those things matter more than duality or socionics ITR. Health, maturity, chemistry, values, same goals in life, similar lifestyle and background and preferably both having a secure attachment style.

This depends on the person too. I wouldn't say that for me "Health, maturity, chemistry, values, same goals in life" matter more or less than being dual types. Matters to the same extent to me, that is, all of them are required for long term relationship with final commitment. OK, maybe I could do Activity relations with IEI-Fe but unlikely.

And, the theory doesn't say that duality is perfect. This is some misconception floating around on forums for some reason but it's stated nowhere in the actual function models

No, it's just an aspect of psychological compatibility, nothing more, nothing less. There is nothing mystical about it. Many people attaching desires to the concept is what makes things confusing. That's not the concept's fault however.

Mind you, in my case it's a pretty big aspect of compatibility because we are talking about the closest types of relationships with my 1D Fe and being sx-first on top of all that. You having stronger Ethics functions would not need help there in such a relationship. And I imagine that Ti stuff you can take care of by getting it from other sources so yeah for you duality may not be all that important. With friendship, even for close friendship, I also don't need duality.

So yes, it's possible to view duality in a way that's not about romanticizing it. How I view it is, I know from experience what works for me in relationships and what doesn't and how some of that is explained by ideas I took from Socionics. This is all "cold" analysis, dissecting things, zero romance in the concept itself. I'd rather keep the romance for the relationship

[The Reality Denialist]

easy to handle: activity, dual, mirage, semi dual
medium OKish: benefit relations
way too complicated: kindred, supervising relations, quasi identity, identical, extinguish, super ego (best in opposite quadra)
hard but deceptive in some cases: conflict

There's plenty of options outside of duality.

[Myst]

It's amazing how many people romanticize and "believe" in duality. I'll get flack for this from the believers, but to me duality has always been and still is total delusion resulting from childish naivete and idealism, kind of desperate search for a magical cure for unhappiness (in love). Similar to any good old religion believe, really.

More on this. Did you ever have such idealism? Or did you just see it in some other people? If I can ask. Just since this is definitely a perspective too but I find it interesting that this is the one you view the whole issue through. I agree of course that it's not a magical cure for unhappiness - for that the cure is in yourself. (Lol and I'm not trying to talk in some NF way about this)

No, since I'm not ILI : ) My parents are in a dual relationship and they've had a successfull marriage, but also nothing out of the ordinary - still many problems and misundersatndings between them, the usual really. I do understand that in theory everything should work great, but reality is much different (from observing many couples there are so many other factors whether a relationship will work out or not, it's more or less blind luck. There are the most incompatible people on paper in great relationships and socionic-wise great matches that go down in flames. Theory just desn't match reality ime.

Blind luck sounds like a bit of an extreme take. I believe one can filter people to a degree before going into things deeper with someone. Tricky question is, how much to filter. With your parents: sure, I guess life issues and such? My parents as duals (with matching subtypes...) also had problems when life issues were too great. They did stay together though and then connected deeper eventually than ever before. But that was much later and as a kid I used to think that my parents's marriage sucked. They did have debates and whatnot and it was a Gamma relationship so yah that also added to how I saw it lol

Thanks for the response. I must have had you confused with someone else on here.

In my opinion, duality does kind of represent the idea of an "ideal love" relationship (provided people have matching imagos or subtypes and values otherwise, are healthy and all that), but as a bare minimum baseline for creating the potential for that rather than the sole determining factor. It's like how squares can be considered rectangles, but rectangles can't be considered square. Factoring in the truth that not everybody is interested in entering a relationship mainly for a spiritual love connection like what duality promises to offer, as well as my previous point, I feel that reality does actually match the theory in my experience, at least when it comes to longer term romantic relationships like ones involving marriage.

I think it may be a Ni bias to seek a spiritual love connection there. (I do definitely very much like this idea of yours tho', ofc.) But if that's the case and if it's really very important for you personally then I would agree that you would want a duality relationship.

Since hanging out with "normal" people yesterday I am in the "Too much typology talk is kind of annoying" phase. (...) But it has not really helped me with that much at all. I'd probably be better off with forgetting about it and focusing more on the world "outside" and creating better bonds with people, opposed to philosophizing or theorizing about it all day.

Well how come you managed to start focusing on this more? Cool btw!

My very first stage with Socionics was also skepticism. I thought the ITR theory was bs or overly simplistic. I thought "No way is it possible that those ITRs can describe every kind of dynamic between two people". However, as I started to also consider the ITR between people I've typed, I realized that the theory was not that bad. The overall dynamic could be summarized by the theory more or less, once people start to get "closer", what is usually described as "closing the interpersonal distance" or the "psychological distance". Basically, when people try to reach greater or deeper emotional intimacy with someone, ITR will rather reliably predict how great, close, or deep that intimacy is able to be (not taking into account attachment style issues; avoidant attachment greatly reduces the general ability to develop great emotional intimacy).

And your skepticism was good. Yes ITR theory if put that nuanced as Socionics sources do is bullshit. Way way way too many other factors affecting things and even the functions/IEs as factors are not as simple as ITR theory would like to make it appear. So this latter issue is where any kind of nuanced ITR theory is truly going to crash and burn. But your summary of overall ITR dynamics as a very high level generalized trend is OK. On this very general level: "there is duality, there are other favourable ITRs, there are less favourable ITRs, there are bad ITRs". And this only with all other factors controlled for, of course.

Really, I think the whole process relies on going from one unhealthy extreme to the other. Complete obsession -> utter rejection. And then you settle in the middle realistically.

Maybe for some people. I have never had that. Might help that I prefer the "scientific approach" of sorts.

[Myst]

easy to handle: activity, dual, mirage, semi dual
medium OKish: benefit relations
way too complicated: kindred, supervising relations, quasi identity, identical, extinguish, super ego (best in opposite quadra)
hard but deceptive in some cases: conflict

There's plenty of options outside of duality.

This categorizing of yours is meant for very close (romantic) relationships only? Where are you putting mirror and business?

[Lao Tzunami]

Why just Jung, there are a LOT of other psychology models out there that can even be used actually.

Sure, if you are interested in psychology in general, there is LOTS to learn. Jung in unique because his psychology already incorporates typology into it.

[The Reality Denialist]

This categorizing of yours is meant for very close (romantic) relationships only? Where are you putting mirror and business?

Serves as good starting point, I think when you consider with anybody compatibility for any close friendship.

Business relations: it really depends what you are doing.

mirror: complicated but good friend. You try to teach or avoid but eventually end up in same place. Let's say: infantile+infantile, caregiver+caregiver, aggressor+aggressor, victim+victim. It's a mess eventually in romance. Complicated.
look-a-like: complicated on close distances. If you are on the same field I think it is good business. You probably start to show frustration towards other's suggestive in different circumstances.

[Myst]

Serves as good starting point, I think when you consider with anybody compatibility for any close friendship.

Business relations: it really depends what you are doing.

mirror: complicated but good friend. You try to teach or avoid but eventually end up in same place. Let's say: infantile+infantile, caregiver+caregiver, aggressor+aggressor, victim+victim. It's a mess eventually in romance. Complicated.
look-a-like: complicated on close distances. If you are on the same field I think it is good business. You probably start to show frustration towards other's suggestive in different circumstances.

I personally find Mirror is very good for friendship. I was never frustrated with ESI's suggestive in any serious way. I just don't even notice it. I don't really find it easy to handle Mirage beyond a point, the suggestive functions do show incompatibility there. My Supervisor and Kindred have been OK for friendship.

So for me, I just really simplify it without bothering about nuances that possibly don't even actually depend on type at all and it's more like for close relationships regarding the potential based on experiences so far:

Potential to be optimal/near optimal: Dual, sometimes Activity
Can be OK: Mirror, Business, Semi-dual, Supervision, Benefit, Identical, Mirage, sometimes Superego a bit, sometimes Quasi-identity, maybe Extinguishment (little experience for this one)
Crap: often Superego, Conflict

[Raver]

I am going to go into more detail from the original post, which was simplified. I should elaborate that the three stages represent the main/primary stages of experiencing Socionics.

However, they do not represent everything that goes on with someone's experience with Socionics. There are many minor stages that you could add prior, during or after the three main stages.

Also, not everyone will experience the three stages in the same way if at all, but rather the majority will. There will always be a minority that experiences the stages differently like anything else.

To delve into the OP further. The process of change among the three main stages can be thought of as this:

Overvaluing (Honeymoon Stage) -> Undervaluing (Despair Stage) -> Realisitic valuing (Acceptance Stage)

This is the crux of the meaning of this thread. Generally speaking, beginners/newbies overvalue Socionics and put it on a pedestal. This is due to naivety caused by not having enough life experience to highlight Socionics foibles, while also possessing limited Socionics knowledge.

Most of the time, intermediates undervalue Socionics after accurring a moderate amount of Socionics knowledge and treat it as if it's a scam or useless due to bad experiences that contradict Socionics claims, which are inevitable with a limited personality system.

Finally, the majority of long term members have enough real life experience in conjunction with sufficient Socionics knowledge to roughly accurately judge Socionics and recognize where it is useful and meaningful and where it is useless and without value.

I have said this before, but Socionics is the piece of the puzzle to human personality, it is not the entire puzzle. Also, the entire puzzle itself is just the map to the human personality, it is not the territory.

Once you understand what this means fully, you can recognize Socionics for what it is: a tool to analyze an aspect of human personalities and how they can relate to an aspect of each other. Nothing more and nothing less IMO.

[Bertrand]

its ok, I think most people understood your meaning. one of the typewriters just took "belief" a little too literally and made a sandcastle out of it

[nyessss]

I just use it as a system of predictions and I realize the predictions are not always accurate. But it has been useful at times, even though it's mostly just for fun.