Abstracting Feeling
Intuitive feelers turn every feeling into an abstraction. All idealism involves emotional abstraction to get to the purified ideal, or thing-in-itself, like love or hate, but now cut-off from the environment or outer world where it originated. Maybe it originated in another world, like a Platonic ideal.
As far as love and relationships are concerned, this emotional abstracting capacity leads to the concept of love without conditions —unconditional love.
At bottom, an INFJ needs something related to FEELING in a relationship with a significant other.
The INFJ man is likely to employ all manner of ruses that prevent his would-be suitors from seeing this need because this is a most precious and sensitive area for him. He may not even know himself how much he desires this type of connection with a woman.
Fi id
The reason he is likely not to know that he desires this type of connection with a woman is because the id function represents everything that is subconscious in an MBTI type. Introverted feeling is particularly subconscious as a cognitive function because it is feeling and it is internal. Nobody may suspect its existence, even under normal conditions, but in the INFJ man, it may be buried so deep down within the ensconces of childhood that it might as well be a fiction.
When he grows up, undergoes puberty, and puts away the things of childhood, there is still this Fi id function underlying everything he does in life as a root motive. This is also where things are likely to get really fucked up, complicated, and confusing.
Or if he is wounded emotionally, which is fairly likely to be the case, as it is nearly inevitable that there will be some emotional damage stemming from this function somewhere in the early mothering experience, and if not that, then from his peers, or something else…because basically he feels too much, he is too concerned with feeling, and this will generally not work well in this world no matter what his early circumstances. It is the Fi id function that is the stuff of depth psychology, why it exists in the first place — INFJs are a psychological goldmine of feeling waiting to come up to the surface and be purged.
It is also the double-edged sword of why they either make great relationship partners or the most fucked up person you could imagine being in a relationship with, and perhaps, both at the same time.
They are childlike and unadulterated in their emotions, simply because that’s the nature of the id. It’s like a wild horse, or an infant, and infants have big needs at this level. When they’re hungry for milk and they’re not getting fed, they will scream bloody murder. It’s completely irrational.
As the INFJ male grows older he learns to fantasize and imagine with this same strong feeling and intuition. He imagines things as they could be and finds much that is either painful or not good enough for some reason. It’s like he’s from another world. He will find himself in a hostile environment that is not set up for people like him. He will either learn to protect himself or perish.
But this feeling side of himself never goes away, and later when he is looking for a partner he will subconsciously want someone who can meet him here.
If this criteria is not met, it is hardly likely that any further qualifications could produce a successful relationship, which, however doesn’t mean just because this one is met, that it will. This is simply what an INFJ man most needs in a relationship, per the title of this article.
My tone here cannot help but be solemn and grave. It’s something he wants so badly, yet often does not know how to name, or express, and it even goes so far as to be something that subconsciously sabotages him in relationships that are otherwise worthwhile, because he cannot get this thing he needs so badly.
It is this very thing that can cause him to drive away a woman whom he loves too much, a woman who has touched him in this most naked and vulnerable place, and if he is wounded, he will destroy out of this impulse of love.
Hell hath no fury like an infant scorned. Because his needs are so big here, it is hardly likely that they could have been met, maybe impossible, like an ideal can be impossible or unattainable. It’s no one’s fault really, just a fact of his nature meeting the facts of nature proper —the world.
Because he’s intuitive he cannot accept facts like a sensor feeling type can. The INFJ man comes into this world with the faculty to imagine the way things could be, or could have been. It’s a propensity to abstract a feeling away from its original context and imagine it in another, or in a state of perfection.
What he needs in a woman
He needs a woman that can feel. Delicate situation. He needs a woman that can enter him without force such that it happens as a fact of her emotional nature. It’s like sex in the astral. She’s already in. No muss, no fuss.
Once she is there, she should tread very tenderly because there is no way of telling what fucked up shit is lingering around, and the INFJ man is likely to be helpless to it. He is a child here. Gentleness is needed no matter what.
There will be understanding without words or explanation. This can’t be faked.
All this the INFJ man needs but is likely not to give the slightest hint that he does, which in the first place is because he doesn’t know. Maybe at some point he did, but then became jaded and decided on other qualities being more important. Nonetheless, even if he has an inkling of an idea, he is likely to declare the opposite. This is a part of his adult strategy. He can almost make it a point of <<I dare you to go there>>, but without any explicit statements in this regard, only subtext and insinuation.
However, lying in the adult INFJ man is this precious thing that is almost a fiction.
The second thing an INFJ man needs in a relationship is understanding. Without this, love by itself, though necessary, is very dangerous. Next time I shall delve deeper into this.
Meanwhile, what do you think an INFJ man needs in a relationship: sex, love, deep-dish pizza? What?
We long for the thing to take away the pain of living in this world… pain of an fi Id. For someone to cut through our Fe bullshit, and see the core of ourselves. We suck at operating in the world, but we don’t suck at love. potential for greatness and great self destruction. But I agree without the other understanding the nature of this insidious function, all is lost.
Do INFJ guys stop being sexually attracted to the woman that gives them the love they require and that satisfy this deep Fi need? I feel like they would be likely to develop Madonna/ Whore complex because of this abstracting feelings thing and like cathegorizing women mentally.
I also have noticed INFJ guys are attracted to dominant women and I tend to wonder if they are submissive. I’m thinking of guys under 30.
I show love by doing small things for the one I love, I like my Fi to look correct so I’m pretty confused by how INFJ guys show love because we are used to see them in Heathcliff mode rather than any sort of healthy love mode.
It is almost like INFJ guys need to suffer in order to be able to show love or something.
I was kinda mocked by an INFJ guy as being “naive” because of the way I am.
It always feels like they will be giving me hell, but they are extremely hot once they get me under their spell which never happens instantly but over time. I find them bland and safe, like I can sort of bully them until they come strong and become very visible out of sudden. And all I wanted was a safe male friend. Idk if they usually are approached by women in this manner but this is my experience and I might be ENFP.
I’m not an INFJ but from what I’ve seen of them this is pretty common. They tend to be pretty placid until something wakes up their inner fire and all hell breaks loose. A girl seeing this darker more firey side come to the fore may quickly change their mind about the “bland safe” male they thought they were 🙂
Also Blake mentioned in an older article that INFJs are likely to creep up on people over time as you stated…
Tbh I find infj men just need a particularly intuitive istp or a se-comfortable intp. Theoretically it makes sense that they would match with other feeling intuitives, which they do, but usually in a more platonic/spiritual connection kind of way. Infj men think they want to be understood and loved unconditionally, but what they really need is just someone who pulls through for them, in *reality. Yes they love to fantasize about deep emotional connection and all that but inevitably learn that what they really need is someone who knows how shit works and how to run things. The lack of this singular trait is the core of the infj complex. The emotional fi subconscious is a murky freezer where they stuff their insecurities to cope with an underlying incompetence and inability to exist in the world of implementation. They have a crippling fear of reality. Everything else is a way to run away from this fact or redecorate it to their choosing. No matter how many infj men you study, no matter how much evidence there is to show that they are built to philosophize, and create art, and compose poetry, to me these are people who chose to escape from something they fucked up beyond all repair in reality that haunted them to such extents that they had to purge it via pen or brush. Which kind of makes sense to us now that its the 21st century and art and expression are seen as not only therapeutic but actually sometimes prestigious, but objectively in the course of human history, this kind of behavior is fucking bizzare and completely out of left field. Resignation in a sense to “the moment” and a weird contradictory stance of being motivated by this. They remind themselves of this incisive moment where they lost their dignity or purpose or etc., they frame in their head, upload onto their insular thought-tube and play it on loop and this routine seems to be enough to fuel them in their conceptual agendas.
The extents they go to regain what they feel were taken by them in reality, are diabolical. In my opinion, free them bitches. I really dont want more theories or art or radical whatevers soaked in self-remorse, I’ve had my fill. If someone were there to just bitch slap the austere, degrading unloving father for the measly delicate infj man, take his hand, ride him off into the sunset, and help him set up a quaint painting studio with their just enough efficient knowledge of trade, to what extent would he have truly experienced happiness with another?
Infjs love logic. It’s their fetish. Efficiency turns them on. Especially because it’s something so intrinsically complicated to their ego-formation. Emotions are either their livelihood or their escape mechanism, no need to cater to something they already have more than enough of.
I actually think there’s more to be said about infjs relation to Ti, other than that its just unhealthy because of ni-ti looping. On the cognitive stack, I think the third function functions like a weapon, something sharp and utilizable. I don’t want to get into detail about this right now, but I think this a way to protect oneself from the fourth function, which represents a cruel in its randomness, indifferent reality.
Infjs are crippled by physical reality. Literally so because their function stacking that represents harsh reality is also Se, which is pure interactive physicality. I think the only real defense or way to deal with the fourth function fall onto the fifth and third function. Right now I’m just going to focus on the third function because I think it has more to do with what we seek to find real wholeness(since we’re on the topic of love).
Everything the infj “feels” comes from some kind of Se trauma. I don’t think this is reductive. If you really look in their lives, you’ll always find some kind of literal cause for their emotional pain. I don’t think this applies to all people or all types even though it sounds normal enough. Depending on the fourth function, you’re gonna get different reactions to reality. Someone with Fi in fourth function, extjs, will have Fi trauma. Their emotional pain will be rooted in how they feel about their own identity. This wouldn’t be as outwardly noticeable or blatant to trace, it’s gonna be a lot more subjective due to the nature of Fi. For isxjs, they will have Ne trauma. They are crippled by extrapolative abstractions that operate on a different plane of reality. I wish I could list them all out, but I wanna get back to the point at hand.
So the real root of one’s own fragmentation is the fourth function. In a way, the stereotypes and emphases of the types based on their first functions, like infjs being intuitive and imaginative, or isfjs being regular-degular and compliant, are the unintended after-results of some other seriously fertile undertakings. It’s like blood turning red, but only when it is exposed to the air. The true blue color of blood is something we can’t ever see with the naked eye in its natural habitat. If we really want to get psychological about all this, we have to understand that the real happenings are buried underneath pretty vulnerable barriers and won’t be so easily known unless serious over the top efforts to observe are taken.
It’s not that Ni makes Infjs complex and intuitively ambitious, it’s that their deep-seated traumas are rooted in their literal realities being pulled out from under their feet. It seems that this basis is what leads them to resort to creative and unorthodox ways to make sense of life, that they have to get to the bottom of reality, because that is what they feel actually happened. That reality bottomed them.
This is where Ti comes into play. Again, Ti is something weapon-like, mean, tough, capable and intimidating. An infj pressured to watch their back, who is intimated by Ti will be frought with anxiety, self-doubt, and feel inwards and outwards judgement. An infj who utilizes Ti in an intimidating way, will perhaps write a treatise laying out the principle of logic and ethics. The same keywords apply, but the directional flow differ, it could go either way. This is truly where every infj is completely different, where every person is completely different even if they have share the same cognitive layouts with others.
At the end of the day, it’s not so simple to say that any type should inherently be with any other specific type because every situation is different, but thematically speaking, Se and Ti are what make or break infjs. So a most utopian union with another will be centered around forming loving connections to Se and Ti, or a dystopic relation to these functions could be the very thing tearing them down from the inside out. Either way, love is about looking pain in the eye and accepting it as your own, it’s not about others joining you in neglecting the things you neglect about yourself. So I say closer to the source of the pain(se +ti), closer to the letting go of the meaning of it all and integrating into your juiciest element.
What a sad worldview it is to see every type as lacking something and needing to develop their weaker sides in order for everyone to be equally sane, safe and bland. Instead of developing our stronger sides that God gifted to us and that make us unique.
Having our inferior functions is a blessing because we know what we lack and what we are good at. I do not see myself in a relationship with someone who has my inferior functions as their dominant because I see them as a friend/ mentor type and there is zero attraction.
I have noticed that Western world only finds SJ types to be sane, everyone else is basically diagnosed with something.
I have a thing for ISTP women. They tend to be glamorous but at the same time down to earth. Whenever a woman catches my attention it tends to be an ISTP. I’ve never had a relationship with one however so I can’t speak to any long term connection and I’m also not an INFJ so I’m not sure if they’d feel the same.
You’ve decided physical competence is the measure of human worth then diagnosed everyone oriented differently as damaged. That’s backwards. The people you’re pathologizing as “escaping reality” build the frameworks that let reality function at all. Abstract thinking isn’t retreat from implementation. It’s the precondition for coherent implementation. Every system requiring coordination across populations, every structure attempting to serve actual human needs, every attempt to organize collective action without collapsing into violence starts with someone capable of seeing patterns before they’re physically instantiated. You don’t get functional legal systems, education structures, medical frameworks, or technological development without people who can hold abstract models and test them against principles before anyone builds anything. The “theories and art soaked in self-remorse” you’ve had your fill of are the reason you have language to describe what you’re describing. Every word you used, every concept of psychological function, every framework letting you distinguish between different modes of thinking came from someone doing exactly what you’re dismissing as cope. Someone had to abstract feeling from context to create the idea of unconditional regard. Someone had to think through ethical frameworks before anyone could articulate what they needed. Someone had to compose, write, theorize to build the conceptual infrastructure you’re using to argue they’re all just running from competence failure. Physical execution without abstract guidance is just motion. Efficiency without purpose is just speed. You can be incredibly efficient at implementing systems that destroy people. You can be extremely competent at executing plans that serve no one. The ability to step back, see structure, identify what’s missing, articulate what should exist but doesn’t, that’s not weakness compensating for inability to function. That’s the capability that makes functioning toward anything coherent possible. “They have a crippling fear of reality” and reality includes the conceptual. Law is real. Ethics are real. Meaning is real. The structures letting people coordinate are real. None of those exist in pure physical space. They require people capable of abstraction, of holding models, of thinking through implications before implementation. Dismissing that as fear is like calling the ability to see forward in time cowardice because you prefer dealing with what’s directly in front of you. The people who “philosophize and create art and compose poetry” aren’t escaping the world. They’re building the infrastructure the world runs on. Every framework that lets people understand themselves, every concept that gives language to experience, every structure that organizes thought came from someone doing exactly what you’ve decided is just elaborate avoidance. You want someone to “bitch slap the austere father, take his hand, ride him off into the sunset” and that’s a fantasy of rescue that solves nothing. The father is a structure. The son isn’t broken for being unable to physically overpower it. The solution isn’t finding someone more competent at force or execution. The solution is understanding why the structure itself is incoherent. And that requires abstract thinking, conceptual frameworks, the ability to articulate what’s wrong before anyone can fix it. You don’t get there through practical competence alone. “What they really need is someone who knows how shit works and how to run things” and what they actually need is both. Everyone needs both. But the capability you’re valorizing is more common and easier to develop. Physical competence, practical execution, efficiency, these are teachable and everywhere. The ability to think structurally, to see what’s missing in a system, to articulate incoherence before it collapses, to build conceptual models that people can align with, that’s rarer and harder to replace. You’ve diagnosed depth as dysfunction and prescribed your own qualities as cure. But people don’t organize themselves toward better outcomes through better execution of existing systems. They do it by seeing those systems as incoherent first. And that requires people capable of abstraction, of holding ideals, of valuing principles over immediate physical reality. The “crippling fear of reality” you’re diagnosing is often clarity about what reality is structurally requiring that others aren’t seeing yet. You’ve constructed an entire pathology from your own preference then reverse-engineered every possible human response to fit it. “Everything the infj ‘feels’ comes from some kind of Se trauma. I don’t think this is reductive.” It’s absolutely reductive. You’ve decided abstraction equals avoidance, emotional depth equals compensation, and creation equals cope. Then you’ve declared this pattern universal while claiming to have studied countless examples you never actually describe. “No matter how many infj men you study” and you haven’t studied anyone. You’ve projected a narrative onto a personality category then convinced yourself the pattern you invented is what you observed. “They fucked something up beyond all repair in reality” and whose reality? Which people? What specific failure? You provide none. Just sweeping declarations that creative output exists because someone couldn’t handle “implementation.” The contempt is transparent. “I’ve had my fill” of theories and art, so you’ve written a theory soaking others in your remorse about their existence. You don’t want more complexity because you’ve decided complexity itself is the problem. Then you prescribe practical competence like it’s medicine for a disease you diagnosed by deciding anyone who values abstraction must be sick. “If someone were there to just bitch slap the austere, degrading unloving father” and now you’re writing fairy tales about everyone’s childhood. You’ve invented an origin story, declared it universal, then positioned yourself as the one who sees through the performance. You’re narrating strangers’ inner lives based on type labels, calling it insight. You’ve taken a cognitive model and turned it into trauma determinism. Se trauma creates the wound, Ti becomes defense, and now everyone fitting this stack needs exactly what you value: someone who “knows how shit works and how to run things.” How convenient. The cure for everyone’s dysfunction happens to be your preferred qualities. “Infjs love logic. It’s their fetish. Efficiency turns them on” and this is you deciding what others want based on what you have. You’ve universalized your own value set then declared everyone who doesn’t naturally possess it is crippled and secretly craving it. That’s “I’m good at practical things, therefore everyone who isn’t must be broken and wanting what I have.” You claim the original article romanticizes weakness, but you’ve pathologized difference. Someone values emotional resonance, must be avoidance. Someone creates art, must be running from reality. Someone thinks abstractly, must have failed at concrete tasks. You’ve decided there’s one valid mode of existence and everyone oriented differently is coping with inadequacy. “Love is about looking pain in the eye” and then you immediately prescribe the pain, the source, and the solution. You’ve written a diagnosis assuming dysfunction, found it in everyone who doesn’t think like you, then offered yourself or people like you as cure. This isn’t looking pain in the eye. This is deciding others are in pain because they’re not you, then declaring your qualities the missing piece. The entire argument is contempt dressed as care. “Free them bitches” and from what? From valuing things you don’t value? From creating instead of executing? From feeling deeply instead of prioritizing efficiency? You’re demanding everyone conform to your hierarchy of worth then calling the demand insight. The original article might romanticize emotional vulnerability but your response eliminates the capability that makes structural change possible. You’ve decided everyone who thinks abstractly is compensating for practical failure when actually they’re doing different necessary work. Both matter. But the bottleneck isn’t practical competence. It’s conceptual clarity. It’s people capable of seeing patterns others miss, articulating problems before they become catastrophes, building frameworks that let everyone else function better. Those insights don’t come from efficiency. They come from the exact mode of thinking you’ve pathologized as escape. Cut that shit out.
Reading this I thought that Blake must have edited the article; as it turns out he hadn’t done. I’m a bit confused as to how you came to these conclusions based on the above article.
I’d hazard a guess that Blake would agree with large parts of what you wrote; if you go back through his body of work he has consistently told INFJs that they should play to their strengths (ie Ni prescience and Fe expression) rather than trying to conform to a world that largely doesn’t suit them.
I’m also a bit dubious as to how much an INFJ can effect systems; while they obviously have the foresight to do so they probably will find it hard to find the backing and support of others to instigate such drives. That’s not to say that it can’t be done, just that in my opinion they will be going up against it; humans being social animals are more impressed by social acumen than foresight and so the more reserved are going to find it tough to make their case heard.
Then why are INFJs always caught in abusive relationships?
I’d be interested in whether the needs of INFJ women and men are different as it pertains to romantic partnerships. I’ve had a few encounters with INFJ women and it always ends poorly despite there being a good connection in the first instance.
From what I can tell INFJ males may do best with an ENFJ. An ENFJ will provide almost everything they are looking for – stability, wherewithal of how the world works, introduction to social socials, high intimacy drive (if you can read through the lines), and a sense of magic/fun. The catch is that the INFJ male would need to be accomplished and sure of himself to catch and tame the “black widow” so to speak so he would need to be careful of what he wishes for.
@Bob Hoskins
“”Reading this I thought that Blake must have edited the article; as it turns out he hadn’t done. I’m a bit confused as to how you came to these conclusions based on the above article.
I’d hazard a guess that Blake would agree with large parts of what you wrote; if you go back through his body of work he has consistently told INFJs that they should play to their strengths (ie Ni prescience and Fe expression) rather than trying to conform to a world that largely doesn’t suit them.””
That wasn’t directed at the article, it was at @xen
“”I’m also a bit dubious as to how much an INFJ can effect systems; while they obviously have the foresight to do so they probably will find it hard to find the backing and support of others to instigate such drives. That’s not to say that it can’t be done, just that in my opinion they will be going up against it; humans being social animals are more impressed by social acumen than foresight and so the more reserved are going to find it tough to make their case heard.””
@Bob Hoskins
-You’re treating structural change as a personality type’s project. It’s not. Populations change systems when suppression becomes unbearable. INFJs don’t need charisma or backing. They need to be internally structurally coherent when the moment arrives. Reserved people who’ve been watching don’t struggle then. They’re the ones everyone suddenly listens to because they already understood what just became undeniable. And reserved doesn’t mean lacking social acumen. People shaped by different environments, experiences, astrological influences if you follow that, develop entirely different communication styles. Some INFJs are magnetic speakers. Some organize quietly. Some write. The assumption that personality type determines capability erases how context shapes people differently. Social performance matters in stable systems. It’s irrelevant when the performance stops working. Change doesn’t require buy-in from people invested in the current system. It requires the system failing so completely that even people who benefited can’t deny it anymore. You’re describing this like reserved people need institutions to let them lead. Institutions don’t hand over power. They lose it when populations stop pretending the institution works. You’re mixing up navigating power structures with what happens when those structures collapse.
My bad on the first point – I didn’t think anyone would read such a long comment lol.
On the second point I find your sentiments a bit quixotic but what would I know, I’m not an INFJ and the few I’ve met have been able to weave magic!