My recent SLE-IEI duality experience
Hi All.
So I thought I'd post about my recent duality experience on here. It's quite a long story but hopefully you find it interesting nonetheless. Please let me know any thoughts, feelings or observations you have about the whole thing or any part of it.
It all started in November 2022. Met my dual on a dating app. He was a 20 year old Scandinavian backpacker taking a gap year in my country (I’m 36 for reference). Had messaged him about a dozen times without a response on the app (though he kept reading my messages and looking at my profile each time I sent a new message), before he finally replied one morning and suggested we meet up for breakfast which I gladly agreed to. Did not know he was my dual at this stage.
Breakfast was very enjoyable, the conversation flowed very easily and effortlessly for an hour and a half. I never tuned out and it was never predictable the way I find it often can be talking with other people. I hadn’t recognised him as a dual at this point, but I do remember when parting a thought escaped my subconscious, jumped up at me and gave me a feeling that said: “I don’t want to say goodbye to this person or don’t let this person out of your life” – the first stage of duality. On our second meeting for dinner, I studied him closely and observed certain gestures. By the way he talked and his other mannerisms, I became confident that he is indeed an IEI-Fe subtype as the behaviour was on the whole very similar to one of my oldest friends who is also an IEI-Fe.
After our two meetings he then left my city to travel to another city for a month. He was gone about a week when I realised that I cared for him deeply. At this stage I was worried that I may never see him again in case he deleted the app or something – fortunately this didn’t happen.
He came back to my city and had found most of his accommodation around my country for free using the Couchsurfers website. I caught up with him again for dinner (he told me he was really excited to meet up again). At dinner I found out he was staying with drug dealers in an outer part of the city (note he isn’t a drug user himself and I could tell he came from a good family, but he was staying there for the adventure and because well beggars can’t be choosers when you’re getting free accommodation lol). He also did mention that the arrangement made him uncomfortable in a moral sense – plus he got told off for walking around the common areas in only underwear while he was doing his laundry which he didn’t like haha.
Obviously there were many dangers with this living arrangement from the risk of being wrongfully charged by police to being caught up in drug violence – so I offered up my spare bedroom to him (also I live near the city centre). What did I have to lose? Plus I had never lived with a dual before. He was happy to accept but wanted to spend a week where he was to not offend his then current host by leaving so soon after he moved in. The next day he moved in with me anyway lol.
Around the house I took care of all practical things, like cooking dinner, groceries, buying him snacks he likes, washing up dishes and laundry (over time he started just putting his dirty clothes in my dirty laundry basket so I would just do joint washes together and put his clean clothes back in his room). Sometimes he would lose socks and I knew he didn’t have enough underwear so I proactively bought him fresh ones of both. For someone who had a dad and two older brothers and had dry skin, he didn’t know what aftershave was, so I showed him and got some for him.
With me taking care of all practical affairs, as an IEI he started taking care of all ethical things – I took delight in his impish teasing and conversations over dinner that lasted for hours on end before watching TV on the sofa together. Unlike so many others now he was never distracted by his phone and enjoyed conversing. He was so charming and I caught myself laughing all the time. It was so reenergising being around him, so much so that at times I sometimes even forgot that he was in the house.
He did still go out by himself and had his own acquaintances and friendship circle, however in many ways I was running his life. He did appreciate it all, the protection, nurturing and resolving his problems for him. He had a safe little feathered nest and a stone wall to shelter from the world when needed. The practical initiative didn’t stop around the house, I took him to many different restaurants, cafes, clubs and concerts and we started working out together at the gym. The one area he took practical initiative on was doing joint ab workouts after gym with a YouTube program. He would supervise and make sure that I did it all correctly and not give up. He would teasingly whip me if I failed lol.
We went on an overnight trip together to a nearby city and I showed him the sights and art galleries. The road trip was so fun, he was like a golden retriever sticking his blond hair out of the window while I was driving us along the coast, putting his hands through the sunroof and later napping with the seat down when he was tired. He was really opening up to me, telling me about his at times stiff relationship with his father, his close relationship to his mother, what his brothers and female friends were like, his political views and life in his home country.
He travelled to another part of my country but made a bit of a hash of it, booked his accommodation last minute and at a time when there was a festival on so not much available, the other backpackers in the hostel were cool and he missed out on some of the key sights and attractions. I made sure that this wouldn’t happen again by taking him on my next journey. Going to Malaysia and Cambodia was something I always wanted to do, though wasn’t the highest priority for my next trip but with my dual around I decided I would go now – so I took him to both countries for two weeks before he would travel by himself again.
At first he was quite hesitant and wanted to travel independently, however once the trip got underway he appreciated all my practical tenacity, organising flights, accommodation, transfers and the itinerary getting the right balance between seeing key sights and down time and forestalling all the pitfalls of travel such as missed connections and lack of organisation and enabling him to just relax and have fun. I would treat him too, I gave him the queen bed and took the sofa bed and I would let him swap cocktails if he preferred mine (there was no ethical pressure for me to do this, I wanted to and it was my idea just because I know how much IEIs love that kinda special treatment). I would even let me swap meals with me too. As we were having such a great time he floated the idea that I should continue to join him on the second half of his holiday through the rest of Asia, but I couldn’t get the time off work. He also suggested I move to his home country so we could keep living together.
While he was travelling alone I got calls from him from time to time asking for assistance with organising airport transfers, trains, day tours and other things for him. He joked he would’ve died if I didn’t help him. Even after he left m y country I arranged for his sim card billing to be cancelled on his behalf.
Before he left I organised a farewell party for him and his circle of friends at my house to say goodbye. He was living with me for a total of 6 months of his 8 months in my country. We still text each other most days of the week.
Finally some other more specific Socionics observations – he really did take care of my emotions and the emotional atmosphere. Once even after receiving some bad news (he thought he lost his passport but fortunately later found it) he was in a quite sullen mood and I had friends over. He was in no way impolite or rude, just a little withdrawn and not his usual exuberant self – but nonetheless he apologised for not being engaging (an apology was not needed). He sang in the shower and sometimes I saw him pacing and talking to himself, no doubt letting his ni mind wander and come up with exciting new things to talk about and ways to entertain others. He was graceful in his movements and would almost glide down the stairs. He did appreciate all my practical tenacity, problem solving and decisiveness and was relieved when I took responsibility for decisions – even decisions as simple as what café to have brunch at. I could see how taking this much responsibility for someone else would bother a lot of Socionics types – but it was no burden for me as this is something I excel at and particularly is how I show care for others (plus you get to do what you want when you’re the decision makerOn holidays when I came back from the bar I always found him chatting with other people, other people were so attracted to his nature and his abundant vitality. I was so happy to see this. One time he ended up getting into a deep conversation with a stranger about whether she should break up with her boyfriend or not – she later said she found him inspiring.
I do miss him terribly.
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Originally Posted by persimmonism
