EIEs/ENFjs and playing roles for others

[Cuddly McFluffles]

I read on Wikisocion that EIEs can play a role for parents but still be themselves elsewhere. Have any EIEs on here had experience with this?

[unefille]

Role-playing, yes. For my parents - not so much. Which is probably why our relationship, especially between my mother and I, has not always been entirely smooth and free of conflict, yet it's closer than I would imagine otherwise.

Role-playing is something I do with Other people. Implicitly, if I'm assuming a role/a facade, then I'm not being entirely honest with them; I'm keeping them at an arms length (or at the length of a projection, anyway). Something is telling me that our relationship will be better as long as I keep my guard up, whether for them, me, or both of us. Sometimes I try - I drop the facade a little bit - but often their reactions just make me throw it back up again, twice as fortified as before.

As for being absolutely myself, I am to my parents mostly (having a language barrier that obstructs perfect communication actually helps, I suspect, though I'm not yet certain how), and with my very closest friends. Maybe only two or three. And only one knows everything about me, unfiltered.

Ultimately, role-playing (and I don't like that word: more like, selective presentation of self) allows me to remain a very private person, whilst seeming much more accommodating on the surface.

[Ezra]

My best friend Leon will do this. If he wants to push an image with others, he will do so. Obviously, for me, standing right next to him, it's hilarious to watch.

[Kristiina]

HAAA! I knew Leon was EIE!

But on topic - yes and no. I'm a different person with nearly everyone. I don't think I am exactly myself with my LSE and SEI parents. I feel most free with my hubby and I am quite myself (but different) with my LSI best friend. But the LSI thinks too well of me and I'm afraid of changing that, so I don't show my negative sides much.

[machintruc]

EIE's may play role even for other people than their parents. When they're in company of badasses, they play badasses.

[unefille]

But the LSI thinks too well of me and I'm afraid of changing that, so I don't show my negative sides much.

I know that feeling so well. So often I want to disarm and charm people and impress them in someway because I really like them and want them to like me as well, but then the moment they start responding to that and thinking well of me, I feel all this pressure begin to build up.

Eventually there comes a point when it just gets too much. If I really want them to keep thinking what they do of me, then I have to make sure there is some sort of 'distance' (time, space, psychological) so I don't exhaust myself. Or, if I want to 'move closer', I'll deliberately screw up a few times around them, just to see their reactions. If their reactions are bad though (I test the waters), I behave again.

I always thought it was also the sp/sx (sx/sp?) instinct thing - one part pushing forward to connect, the sp holding me in check). I've a met 3w4 sp/so (but he's Ni-LIE, strangely enough) and his image is so much smoother than mine; he has a lot less volatility. With me, sometimes there comes a point when the internal compulsion to 'connect' and 'reveal myself' comes forward - and then afterward, most of the time, I'm just freaking out about momentarily losing control over the image - although I was just thinking that over time, to an outward observer, that moment of 'self' kind of blends in to everything else and they see it as much as my identity (or they wonder if they saw it at all, since it's 'blink-and-you'll miss it' anyway).

It's not even as though I WANT to be the 'real' inner me, all the time anyway, mostly because she's pretty elusive as far as I'm concerned; I can't even be certain the 'confessional me' is a real me at all (since sometimes I 'perform' her) or if its just part of my 'image' - one fine-tuned with flaws and 'real self' and all. I say that because I'm thinking about people who I don't 'role-play' for - and it's not so much that I'm 'one' person around them, but rather they're not an audience, so whatever 'role' I put on is for my own benefit. So when I say, idolatrie gets the unfiltered self, what I mean is 'I no longer care about what she thinks about me AT ALL' and she clearly barely registers as I role-play different personalities/images. I'm not one constant, unchanging person with her, but I feel as though I am, simply because instead of looking to someone else for direction on who to be, I feel free to be whoever I want to be at the moment.

[Ezra]

HAAA! I knew Leon was EIE!

After a while it became blindingly obvious to me, so that any other suggestion seemed totally ridiculous.

[Kaze]

Very strange.. even my voice and inflection changes around parents. It's gotten slightly more neutral over time... But it really was weird while growing up and if I didn't catch myself, outsiders would see the role I had with them.

I had this whole paragraph here on my different personas, but I won't bore anyone with that.

[Kaze]

Not sure how much this applies, but I always dug this quote..

"Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is." -Jim Morrison

[Aiss]

Anyways, I'd like to think everyone does this roleplaying at times, but then, I see people who don't and are more or less themselves everywhere.. and I wonder if I'm kind of fucked up. And without talking about myself, I can tell there are conflicting impressions out there just from comments that others say about me.. like a psychologist once told me how I can't help but make people smile (a boss told me this once too.. that I lit up the room), otoh, I've had someone once tell me I was an "Eeyore", I've had some people think I'm some "badass" (i.e. dickhead), some think I'm introverted and shy.. some think i'm vapid.. some cultured and educated.. and the saddesst thing of all: I have maybe 3 friends I'd like to think know me better than others - but I don't even let them say that. "I know you dude". No,you don't. :frown:

I totally relate to it, and there's no way I'm EIE.

[Aiss]

I had this whole paragraph here on my different personas, but I won't bore anyone with that.

Too late .

[Kaze]

lol it's cool

nice that you can relate though.

[Gilly]

This is definitely true for me. All through school, my parents were convinced I was a good kid, and that I just hung around a bunch of crazies; similarly, my friends' parents were always glad that I hung around their kids, because they loved me and assumed I was a good influence on them.

Of course in reality, I was the one teaching them all to make pipe bombs and molotov cocktails.

[Kaze]

Are you saying you want to recoil and shut in (be a hikkikomori)? Not grow up basically? I mean, that's pretty understandable, especially at your age.