An INFJ Experience

In a conversation regarding the Myers-Briggs temperament type, someone asked what it's like to be an INFJ.

I only know what it's like to be me.  Like being black, sixty, or anything else, it should not be construed as speaking on behalf of anyone else.

Here was my response.

I could do worse, I guess. Here’s a little bit about my INFJ experience.

Because I am outwardly very accommodating and affable, people sometimes don’t discover the moat until they are wet.

I like my space and if I get to be me, I expect you to be you. Whether I like you or not, authenticity matters and I respect it and hope you feel it in our association. I believe in a clean fight if there must be one. I will answer almost any question you ask, even if it is embarrassing to me.

But even if you are my best pal, you will not be invited inside my head.  You will see the inside of my home infrequently.

To illustrate, a really awesome friend I reconnected with after forty years told me her favorite musician. I didn’t like his music so I looked up the artist’s lyrics and with enormous delight and nostalgia, recognized at once which room in my friend’s soul I was now entering. I had been there before and, even after a 40-year separation, I experienced relief that her essence was intact and we could almost start where we had left off.

This longtime friend has as good a chance as my own children, who know me well, of seeing something like my favorite passages and wandering into my soul.

Yet, as an INFJ, I can assure you that will never be allowed to happen. 

My revolution will not be televised and I will not send out a poison cloud or lethal pulse. What I will absolutely do, however, is go missing in action on anybody who wanders too close to the works.

I'm not sure I can even help it.