ESI/LIE Conversations

[Bethanyclaire]

@Bethany, I don't think she's super-offended by my religious beliefs. She seems to me to mostly be talking to herself sometimes about this, as if saying something out loud enables her to examine it better as a part of her external environment. "Oh, I knew you were a liberal." Not said disparagingly, as I first feared, but rather like "Oh, I knew that male Cardinals have red feathers."

Yes I thought so, she is engaging with this information about you (in her own way.) That's how it seems on the surface anyway although my knowledge of ESIs is quite surface level...

As to other beliefs where we might differ, she talks about her friends and work and church when we go out, and her stories are mostly about how some people have offended her sense of right and wrong in some way.

Weirdly enough, if I can follow what she's saying (ESIs are not big on external references), I usually agree with her assessments. I've caught her surprised reaction to me agreeing with her sometimes, and that, more than anything else, seems to be how she gauges me.

That's good, sounds like you have conversations where you are comfortable sharing your true opinions about stuff. Sounds..easy, which might be a good thing.

When I first started talking to her, she said her husband listens to Rush Limbaugh, and I stalked her and found out that she's a registered Republican. She drives a conservative American car and her house is spotless. What I was afraid of was not that she might be religious, or necessarily a Republican (I was, once, too), but rather that she might be a right-wing Authoritarian. But she isn't.

Her nail polish is clear/White liberal, not red Conservative, and she seems openly curious about other people.

When I first met her, her speech was filled with racist and low-class descriptions of out-groups, including Jews, but I hoped that might be due to constant exposure to her factory-rat husband and his friends. And that seems to have been the reason, because I haven't heard that from her recently. Last week, she asked me if I'm on Twitter, because she just discovered that she can talk to real people in Israel on Twitter. She seems to just be naturally curious now.


I think I've established to my satisfaction that she's not an Authoritarian, and with that out of the way, the rest of it is just background noise. Harder still, for me, is the fact that ESIs don't extrapolate, and instead have to decide what they believe and feel towards other people based on their experience.
SMH.

Haha my knowledge of American politics is not great. But good to hear you are taking the time to think about who she is behind some of the surface level impressions I had a really good ESI friend at uni and I remember when we first started she made some racist comments and tried to defend them. She stopped pretty quickly after people commented on it. She was/is a super nice person (I have had a couple of ESI friends who I just thought of as being very lovely in one way or another). I think I'd be the same when it comes to politics- I wouldn't want their views to be too extremely different to mine. I'm not sure about religion- I don't think I'd want them to be too too religious. It's good you are thinking about it, hopefully it will become clear soon whether it seems you are too different or not. I suppose it depends on if you both want it to work as well..not sure what I mean by that. Btw, does she know about socionics- does she believe in it??

Well, I have met up with a dual now a couple of times. It does take some time to get to know them..it's really not a clear-cut yes for me atm haha. I do think it can happen sometimes that you just know..but not necessarily. I have my eye on a couple of others :s I feel like I've been making it a bit too easy for the dual I'm talking to atm and he's not making enough effort. It's a funny thing, knowing about socionics when you're getting to know someone in a romantic capacity. Useful of course, but also good to remember that you need to let it be natural..for you to really get to know each other. By making too much effort with the dual, he is perhaps being too relaxed about things and making me think he's not that nice..but maybe I'm not giving him a chance to be lol.