Context.
My fILE friend has found a mSEI and she is utterly ADORABLY confused about him on a daily basis, however she's 1) too cool to join a forum full of antisocial losers 2) keeps PROCRASTINATING WRITING THIS for me to post so I am writing it myself because I want to help them marry and live happily ever after if it's the last thing I do with my small insignificant life goddammit.
However I know nothing about SEI-ILE duality, let alone with the stereotypical genders reversed, and I am not there in person to help, so let's see what the forum has to say.
Let's set the scene.
We have one (1) female SO/SX ILE 6w7 college student madly in love with confused about one (1) male SP/SO SEI mystery-enneatype college student.
The goal.
For now, it is simply to get closer to him on a friendship basis, not necessarily immediately take the romantic route.
Points of confusion & other background info she wants me to put.
1) Confusing, inconsistent behavior towards her. She has noticed that particularly, in a group setting he acts colder towards her. Her SLI guy friend who is there to observe has suggested that it might be a general guy thing because supposedly guys can get a lot of flack from their guy friends if they act very interested in a girl (?) Sounds vague, and I don't entirely trust that. And on the other hand, in her words, there are times when he literally beams when he sees her. Is such behavior an SEI thing?
2) He is always texting/calling to ask her, out of all people, very simple questions that could be easily googled e.g. where is this professor's office. He also asks her things of the sort: how she will study for an exam, what answer she got for something even though in theory there are more qualified people to ask.
(I'm telling her he's starting unconsciously mooching off of her Te. As an IEI I see what he's doing there mhm)
3) They have the occasional long, deeper conversation where he's very engaging. She can tell he enjoys her presence and talking to her and she felt like they really connected. Then there are other times where it feels as if they never had such conversations and the interaction feels colder on his end.
(my 2 cents: this may very well be partially due to his SX-lastness, they can be like that, but it doesn't explain the coldness afterwards)
Questions.
1) How are SEI males different than what you'd expect?
2) How much should she Ne/Te help him out? She's already started reflexively covering for him in some ways, but I know that it's easy for such things/your dual to be taken for granted, and this guy obviously doesn't realize the value in his dual yet, and I don't want her to feel "used" by him with him still not bridging the emotional distance.
3) Is it possible for her to directly bring up her confusion over his inconsistent behavior towards him? I know as an IEI I would point-blank do this, but also for my duality, it is supposedly a no-no for SLE to try and take ethical matters into their own hands because they'll probably fuck it up and it's just not good. Therefore is this an unwise course of action and she should just suck it up lol, and what can she do instead to stop being so confused. If not, how should she go about this?
4) How to make an SEI see the value in their dual? What prompts them to start bridging the emotional distance.
4) In general, which roles are ILE expected to take in this duality?
5) How can an ILE go about getting closer to someone? As a 6 she is perpetually doubtful, so it'd be nice if someone could spell it out even though "the ILE way" should in theory come naturally to her.
6) Any advice and insight from ILE/SEI very very welcome.