LIIs/INTjs social skills, meeting new people, shyness and leadership

[jason_m]

From personal experience, I find that I have two usual responses to initiating contact. I either am about to do it, and then shrink away when I doubt myself and try to consider my “worthiness” or closeness to the person in successfully communicating with them, or I kinda rush in with no plan and then feel awkward and embarrassed afterward.

I definitely think this is tied to Fi. I know myself that when I want to approach someone or (re-)start a conversation, I often try to “read” whether or not I have the right standing with the person to do so. Sometimes I think I’m too harsh with myself in this area, but I find being completely natural in social situations is very hard and kinda confusing.

I agree with everything written here.

[electric sheep]

Patience is golden. I can't really develop a connection on the spot, I try to wait for a good opportunity. Making blunders is one of those things you just gotta work through, no ones perfect. The way I try and develop a connection with someone can seem really awkward and mechanical, so I usually get along better with people who don't care about connection making and just want to talk about fun and interesting things.

[Currere]

I don’t think I fully processed the thread title. My post was talking more about approaching people I already knew, even if I’ve only been introduced to them in the past. It’s much easier to approach my friends, but people who I think are neutral with me are where I have the main problem. At least with people who I’m pretty sure don’t like me, I can just avoid interaction (probably just like they’re doing). People that I’m not sure about are what my Fi has trouble with most. Reading those relationships probably takes a lot more attention to subtle clues (:S).

As for meeting people, I can remember an experience at a camp in the Fall. The first year I went wasn’t too bad, because an ILE friend of mine went, and I mostly stuck with him, though I made efforts to not be a parasite. The second year was what I remember more. My ESE friend was there, just like the year before, but he was, quite understandably, everywhere at once with a whole lot of people. As a result, I also didn’t want to appear a desperate tag-a-long, so I wasn’t with him very much. During the camps, I remember barely speaking a word. I was probably rather reserved, but not because I wanted to be.

I described my interaction to another ILE and LII shortly after: “The problem is I'm either incredibly quiet and uninvolved, or I'm awkward/poorly timed and overdo something or step on some kind of toe (at least from my POV).”

If this is likewise for a lot of LIIs, how are we gonna stay afloat in a new social arena without it seeming like a pool full of piranhas?

[tcaudilllg]

There are two positions towards friendship:

• someone is giving you their friendship
• you are giving someone else yours

Which position do you prefer to take when meeting new (potential) friends?


In addition to this inquiry, I'd like to mention the role of the shadow in LII friend selection. I believe that an accurate interpretation of Model B implies that the shadow is one's superego partner. For LIIs, this is ESI. When I'm in my shadow "state", I make new friends very easily with some people, but completely alienate others without even meaning to.

Generally PoLR contact gives me the initiative to transition over to the shadow state.

[krieger]

I believe that an accurate interpretation of Model B implies that the shadow is one's superego partner.

Why is the concept of a shadow necessary when it is the same thing as the superego partner?

[Serious Name]

The alternative is to go ahead and act without a strategy anyway. It's called being ENTp and it only works 1/16 of the time.

This.

Most times I just go head first into a social situation without any forethought as to how to appropriately handle shit. Social blunders abound, but I don't really care if I break any as long as nobody is offended.

[tcaudilllg]

Why is the concept of a shadow necessary when it is the same thing as the superego partner?

Well I think the superego relation works as it does is because the partners contain each others' shadows. When the shadow appears, the superego partner rebukes its criminal tendencies and assures the individual that their PoLR is safe. I believe the shadow has two purposes: to defend the suggestive and the PoLR. In general, attacking either of the 1d functions stimulates the shadow.

Two things bring my shadow to the fore:

• arguments about limited access to vital commodities (equal access to food, abortion, education)
• disagreements about the situation

The second these break out, my ISFj side takes over. I experience threats of limited access as injurious to my friends -- these threats are mental hits; arguments over my ideas are injurious to me, and are vital hits. The shadow appropriates either FiSe or SiFe depending on the track hit.

[Zed]

Greetings!

I am in desperate need of help. I'm a LII, and my social skills are pathetic. I think my is to blame, always getting in the way of my . I am quite terrified of stepping on people's toes, since I seem to be so talented at it.

I generally have no problem being a loner, except...

1. Girls. ESE girls. No more explanation needed.

2. I had a male ESE buddy a while ago, but he moved somewhere far away It was the most Freakin' Awesome friendship I've ever had. MOAR!!!

My inability to start new friendships is getting to me big time. The friends I do have and my cousins seem to think my social skills are fine, only I keep thinking it's just because they've adapted to the way I am and can't see otherwise.

Help me Electric-sheep kenobi, you are my only hope. Or anyone else.

[MatthewZ]

The trick is finding people with as bad social skills as your own.

[jason_m]

The trick is finding people with as bad social skills as your own.

Unfortunately, those are probably not ESEs, SEIs, etc.

From what I've experienced, Gammas and perhaps IEEs will judge you because you are not socially graceful. Fe-valuers generally judge you because you aren't nice.

[MatthewZ]

Unfortunately, those are probably not ESEs, SEIs, etc.

From what I've experienced, Gammas and perhaps IEEs will judge you because you are not socially graceful. Fe-valuers generally judge you because you aren't nice.

INFjs it is.

[jason_m]

INFjs it is.

From what I've experienced, Gammas and perhaps IEEs will judge you because you are not socially graceful. Fe-valuers generally judge you because you aren't nice.

Is this what you are referring to about INFjs?

[MatthewZ]

Is this what you are referring to about INFjs?

Yes. I would have included Delta STs, but I thought an Ethical type might be more suiting than a Logical type.

[jason_m]

Yes. I would have included Delta STs, but I thought an Ethical type might be more suiting than a Logical type.

Although my original point contradicts this to some extent, I basically agree with you, because it seems to have something to do with Fi...

[Trevor]

I am quite terrified of stepping on people's toes, since I seem to be so talented at it.

Yeah, the talents one has can sometimes be terrifying. Anyway, it's Se-PoLR.

[electric sheep]

Panic is your brain telling you you're in danger. Ask yourself, what's endangering you? The answer is probably not very much. It's not like you're at a watering hole in the African savanna, getting the stare from a pack of lions.

So for some reason your brain has associated a fight or flight response with asking out a girl. You must learn to break this association. If you repeatedly subject yourself to situations that generate a panic response, the association in your brain only becomes stronger and destroys your resolve. You have to nudge yourself into situations that are less stressful than asking out a girl. Observe yourself and break the cycle that leads to a stress/panic response. Maybe you have a certain thought pattern that you psyche yourself out with. Break that pattern. Don't let it start.

Above all, be patient with yourself. Don't get mad at yourself when you fall into old habits. You're a human and you have the same human frailties as everyone else. Learn to forgive yourself when you make mistakes. Some of the stress you feel might actually come from fear of your own internal critic. Tell that motherfucker to step off.

Anyway, that's what worked for me.

[electric sheep]

I'd suggest reading this book. It gives a very scientific perspective on social connections:
Amazon.com: Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (9780393335286): John T. Cacioppo, William Patrick: Books

[Zed]

Thank you, electric sheep, I really appreciate your help. Sorry about disappearing like that, I had to sort out my Varsity registration.

The trick is finding people with as bad social skills as your own.

Haha, and where am I going to find such ESEs?

Yeah, the talents one has can sometimes be terrifying. Anyway, it's Se-PoLR.

Hmmm... this is probably very relevant - my lack of willpower in other areas just goes to show. So how do you suggest I fix it? I've been reading about what can be done about PoLR, but most of it flew right over my head - I'm still a little green when it comes to socionics.

[3RainbowSprinkles]

I have this LII friend who is trying to get with this girl. He was able to hang out with her a few times, but I see him feverishly texting her several times a day. I don't think is effort isn't good, but he's directing it in the wrong direction. Always texting a girl isn't going to do it, you have to go out and make the effort to meet her. Want to get to know a girl better? Take her out on a date. Want to play dirty games with a girl (merow)? Touch her arms and if well received, move further ;]. Actions speak louder than words in the world of people and making more friends.

There are so many interesting things about my LII friend that I would love to get to know more about, but instead he is always talking about the things he's the best at, even if it was something that happened when he was 10 years old. He also seems scared of showing 'weakness' or flaws in himself. Perhaps a case of not being able to laugh at himself? I'm not sure, but maybe if you were to laugh more at yourself around others they and you would feel more at ease in social situations.

I'm sorry to hear you're so lonely. I hope you find a good friend/hottie girlfriend very, very soon!

[electric sheep]

There are so many interesting things about my LII friend that I would love to get to know more about, but instead he is always talking about the things he's the best at, even if it was something that happened when he was 10 years old. He also seems scared of showing 'weakness' or flaws in himself. Perhaps a case of not being able to laugh at himself? I'm not sure, but maybe if you were to laugh more at yourself around others they and you would feel more at ease in social situations.

Another 3w2, that's awesome. If he's anything like me, he probably assumes no one wants to know the boring details of his life. Dropping my facade makes me feel really vulnerable and it's not something I do easily. I generally keep everyone at a safe distance. My last girlfriend commented how different I am at a close distance. That made me feel really happy.

[Zed]

I used to text girls and write letters. I guess it made me feel like I had better control over what they thought of me then, thinking very carefully what I said in each message rather than communicating in person and having to do things on-the-fly.

Thanks Sprinkles

[krieger]

INTjs mostly lack social initiative. Their social skills themselves aren't all that bad. It's very easy for an INTj to be polite and accomodative. Keeping conversations going is where we go wrong. We tend to assume too much that others hold the degree to which topics of conversation are "interesting" to as high standards as we do ourselves. The result is a silence that feels good to us, but not to the person across from us.

[electric sheep]

INTjs mostly lack social initiative. Their social skills themselves aren't all that bad. It's very easy for an INTj to be polite and accomodative. Keeping conversations going is where we go wrong. We tend to assume too much that others hold the degree to which topics of conversation are "interesting" to as high standards as we do ourselves. The result is a silence that feels good to us, but not to the person across from us.

This does not apply to me. Silence does not feel good. If I get silence from the other person, that means I'm not doing a good job, and I try to find a subject that interests them.

[krieger]

This does not apply to me. Silence does not feel good. If I get silence from the other person, that means I'm not doing a good job, and I try to find a subject that interests them.

I would say the silence would not feel good to me if I was already in a situation in which I was expected to socialize. The thing is, I'm not exactly jumping up and down to get into such a situation and would feel perfectly content to stay out of of one most of the time. The kind of anxiety that I feel when I am unduely silent in a social setting is that of being expected to be like a type of person that I am not.

[1981slater]

Greetings!

I am in desperate need of help. I'm a LII, and my social skills are pathetic. I think my is to blame, always getting in the way of my . I am quite terrified of stepping on people's toes, since I seem to be so talented at it.

I generally have no problem being a loner, except...

1. Girls. ESE girls. No more explanation needed.

2. I had a male ESE buddy a while ago, but he moved somewhere far away It was the most Freakin' Awesome friendship I've ever had. MOAR!!!

My inability to start new friendships is getting to me big time. The friends I do have and my cousins seem to think my social skills are fine, only I keep thinking it's just because they've adapted to the way I am and can't see otherwise.

Help me Electric-sheep kenobi, you are my only hope. Or anyone else.

You know what?, you can't befriend someone who has NOTHING to do with you. Go find people who shares similar tastes/background/goals/IQ/hobbies. You are not the problem.

[krieger]

I generally consider myself to have good social skills. My most valuable social talent is the ability to judge degrees of relevance. This allows me not to bother people with boring details and pointless anecdotes about my everyday life that the average stereotype ESxx type barrages people with. I hate this assumption that social behavior in order to be good needs to be the way the perfect social indoctrinee manifests it. There isn't just one road to Rome.

[Marie84]

Unfortunately, those are probably not ESEs, SEIs, etc.

From what I've experienced, Gammas and perhaps IEEs will judge you because you are not socially graceful. Fe-valuers generally judge you because you aren't nice.

Having grown-up with an Fi-PoLR mother who nags insensitively about table manners and "social graces" I'd say this is not accurate in my own experience.
I also don't agree that Fe="nice" or Fi for that matter; what we consider "nice" may be more dependent on how we value displaying niceness, and so the Te/Fi vs Fe/Ti divide continues...

[GapMinding]

Hi, I am trying to get a better understanding of this subject, and to try to find ways to be less shy. I know I am going to touch a key point of the social behavior of the LII/INTj, and maybe it should only be discussed between LIIs, but I am at a point where I want to know more. So I am going to start with my understanding of the subject.

I don't like speaking about my internal emotions and feelings because they are often misunderstood (even by myself). I would need to explain everything. But it is very difficult because it would require to go very deep, as I have a very different way of thinking than the other people. I find it easier to stay mysterious rather than having to manage relations where the other is mistaken about my motivations or tries to manipulate my emotions and feelings.

Now it is easy to deduce which situations would allow me to open more. But I cannot expect every social situation to suit my wishes. Still, I want to try to be more open about myself.

- Why is it so hard to be understood ?
- I identified our shyness with the fear of being manipulated. But I think there is also the wish to keep relations simple, whereas once I start to express emotions and feelings, the relation becomes more complex and draining, especially if the other seems to have behavior expectations. As for myself, I don't know which is the most important factor. Do you know of any other factor ?
- What are your solutions for coping with your shyness ?

PS: a thought that crossed my mind when I read my text: it seems to me that sometimes I feel constrained by what I have told others about myself. Like once I said something, I must act accordingly and constrain my behavior so that it makes sense to the others. I like to be coherent and to be seen as someone reliable, but ultimately it can interfere with my independency and my will to follow new possibilities.

[Creepy-Snaps]

Hey GapMinding, welcome to the forum!

Being shy isn't necessarily type related, although it seems more typical of introverts. I know a couple LII's who are self-confident and 'outgoing', enough to socialize and be liked, despite not being chatterboxes.

The great thing about social 'skills' is that they can be learned. And now that you know what you want, you can work towards achieving it.

Also, keep in mind that relationships, even friendships, don't have to be perfect. It's ok to make mistakes. You don't need to understand your own feelings perfectly, and the good thing is, with over 7 billion people in the world, someone somewhere is bound to feel the same way about things as you do, and understand you. Truth is not everyone is going to understand you, and the good thing is they don't need to.

I'll leave you with a video from Vanae, a 'life and dating coach' who I think has some helpful tips for overcoming shyness:

[nickelslick]

I could have written that post myself. Welcome to the forum, GapMinding.

Mountain Dew, I don't think it's so much about lacking social skills. Superficial relationships for pragmatic purposes are easy enough to maintain (although I'll admit I often have problems there too - sometimes people misjudge my intentions and try to get closer to me and then feel hurt when I resist). I'd say it's more of a need for people to understand us if they are going to truly be able to form a connection with us. For an LII, a good grasp of reality is critical for success in anything we do - if anyone wants to form a relationship with us they need some understanding of who we are to make it work, and vice versa.

[GapMinding]

Hey Mountain Dew, thanks for your answer. You are right, shyness is not specific to LIIs. But maybe the reasons for shyness are different depending on the type, and thus the means to overcome it

Hi nickelslick, I think I know what you are talking about: with a person of the opposite sex who seems to be interested in myself too much whereas I am not interested in her. That is a difficult situation for me. I often end up avoiding her until she doesn't seem interested in me.

I am not a chatterbox myself. I can be at a family evening and speak maybe 5 sentences during the whole dinner. With other people I am now getting more confident with not speaking when I have nothing to say, even at work. Though for some people it can be very perplexing, after a time they understand me better.

I should also say that my job is social worker. I work with children and youth with disabilities. People often expect us to be extraverted/enthusiastic, even though there are obviously introverts in these jobs too. I can be outgoing. I know a few tactics that I use to be more outgoing (I will write them at the end of this post). But now I would like to find a behavior that corresponds better to my true self.

What I understand now is that it takes time for other people to know me. But I am not good at explaining/describing myself, and I often found that it pays more to wait, because then people see my qualities and they begin to trust me, and then we can begin to build the relationship little by little. But this requires time. And it is not very good if you want to find a job or want to build a network. So I wonder if I could help it, and how I should do it.

Tactics I use to be more outgoing:
- Copying. I try to copy other's approaches that I have seen before either from my family, my friends or other people. I can copy their mood, their sentences, their intonations, their gestures, how they move their eyes and their face. The larger your repertory, the better you can adapt to different situations, mix the approaches and even come up with new ways. The most important point is that it allows you to experiment and see what works with who and what is better suited to convey what you want to say.
- Having a goal. Choose a goal before going to a social event. It can be anything: getting a better understanding of social relations, trying to find the Socionics types, trying to make people laugh, trying to subtly control the subject of conversation directing it to a predefined subject or preventing a popular subject to be discussed, trying to modify how you come across to other people, trying to get new answers to a question you are asking yourself, …
- Use an extrovert. Either you take your own friend or you go to conversations where there is already one. You don't want to speak to him directly (at least not at the beginning), but try to introduce new ideas or to ask a few questions about the discussion while not becoming the center of attention.

[Esaman]

Piece of information I found interesting is that LIIs are classified as "merry" in Reinin dichotomies. Which among other things means:

"2.'Getting to know someone' happens naturally, and they are well aware of the purpose(s) for which they are meeting. The proper emotional distance is easily established, adapted/regulated, and manipulated, and they easily decrease distance through their emotional 'brilliance'. A person's name (and other formalities) are peripheral to their relation with and interest in them, and thus they don't care much about formal introductions.."

While that ability may not be especially strong in LIIs and is strongly conditional on confidence, dualisation and so on, I found it comforting to realize that it is actually there.

[GapMinding]

Yes, that's true about the person's name. It takes some time and effort for me to remember the names, and I tend to pay no attention to formal introductions and to disregard formal informations. In fact I notice that I tend to forget the informations I get from someone at the beginning of a relationship. So usually all the questions that I ask at the beginning of a relationship, I will need to ask them again at a later time. Though I try to be more careful nowadays. It is as if as long as I don't have a global understanding of someone, it is hard for me to memorize new informations.

But as for regulating the emotional distance, I am a bit lost. I never really considered that before, and I am not sure how it can manifest… But it is true that I can change my displayed mood and behavior depending on whether I want to talk to someone, and it seems to work.