Five Reasons Why INTJs Struggle with Dating

Hey, everyone.

So this post is a bit of a doozy. I knew what I wanted it to angle toward, but I had no idea how to do it, make it cohesive, and make it appealing to other people. That's rather ironic because when I came up with this post, it was during my own eureka moment in which I realized I didn't care... well sort of. Eventually, it occurred to me that I should tell you all about my eurek-ous discovery by making it one of five reasons why INTJs have problems with dating. Now, all these reasons are legitimate, and there are plenty more, and even googling "INTJ and dating" yields some interesting results itself, but my post will focus itself on these select few. 

1. No Reason to Care

This was my eureka moment. See, there was a cute girl at work whom I wanted to court. Unfortunately, she was resigning, so I had to be quick in my approach. On her last day, I was going to lightly tease her about how I could take her out to mark the occasion, but since she hadn't followed through on coming to my young adults group, she obviously couldn't keep her word, which would light a fire under her ass to keep this commitment. Anyway, the day arrived and I had wanted to talk to her, but as she was talking to another co-worker, something in me snapped. Their conversation was inane--really inane--and a part of me didn't care. Like, really didn't care. It told me to leave and I did, but I immediately rued my decision because... I still cared. How is that possible?

Well, in the days that followed I realized that I cared about dating her, but I didn't care about any of her stories or happenings in life when she hadn't shown any interest in me. I mean, I would care about such things, but first I would need a commitment from her.

This may sound confusing, selfish, or ass-backwards, but I think INTJs suffer from this duality in many of their interactions with others. We're not incapable of empathy, but if someone isn't willing to put the effort into it, whatever "it" is such as a relationship, fixing their lives, or improving themselves, then we're not going to waste our time and energies being concerned for that person. They've made their bed, and they can lie in it.

And so too it is with dating or courting. We do care for our partners--more than you can imagine--but we're not going to give just anyone the time of day. Our attention and concern has a price, and if you're not going to pay, we ain't selling.

2. Selective

In the past couple of days, I've seen a handful of videos on YouTube going into why dating in the modern world is so difficult. Despite whatever the presenter of the vid says, the comments are chock-a-block full of MGTOWs laying the blame squarely at the feet of women, claiming their standards are too high and unrealistically so. I've seen the comment "80% of women are chasing 20% of the men" more than once.

Now, this doesn't mean we shouldn't have standards. In fact, I saw plenty of men commenting with their required standards for women which included things like "having no more than 5 sexual partners" and "not having children outside of wedlock." In fact, these are standards I can get behind, although I would change the former comment to "having no more than 1 sexual partner," but most of the grief seems to come from men who claim they are moderately good-looking and have better-than-decent incomes, but because so many women are looking for a loaded Prince Charming right off the bat, these men go without dating.

Perhaps these men are right and many women's expectations are too high, but getting back to the point and as I have said before, INTJs have high standards. We are very selective and exclusive individuals. As it's been said, "all of our friends have passed a secret test." Does this mean INTJs have committed the same folly as so many women in the world? Perhaps, but considering there are INTJs out there who have found meaningful relationships, it's more likely that since INTJs tend to, or at least try to, live up to their own standards, we have less trouble finding someone to match our standards because both partners share the same mentality.

But my point is that INTJs are selective, and in a world where more and more people are willing to let themselves go because no one else is bothering, it becomes more and more difficult for INTJs to find someone to date.

3. Different End Goal

Perhaps one of the most curious things I've ever heard and read about relationships is that they should have a goal. Apparently wanting to be in a relationship just so you can have someone to cuddle isn't a goal. That is to say, no dating for the sake of dating. Although I'm fairly certain many people have "happily ever-after" on their relationship to-do list. For most people, that means a lifelong, happy and healthy marriage.

However, INTJs are not most people. Like I've said in other posts, we often take pride in being different. And in my research on INTJs and dating issues, I found a forum where more than a few INTJs were in polygamist relationships, which I find completely unacceptable. The way I see it, if you're a person worth dating, then you deserve to be someone else's one and only, and not being shared. The only people who partake in polygamist relationships are the self-absorbed and the worthless.

But I must admit that I don't necessarily fit the mold of the ideal conservative boyfriend/husband. Men who are raised in conservative and/or practicing Catholic/Christian households are expected to do certain things in a marriage. Most notably, it's expected of us to have children, to work at least a standard 40 hours a week, and allow our wives to be stay-at-home mothers and housewives. For myself however, I don't want children, and since my ideal career is that of a writer, I don't want a wife who's only skill is Home Ec. As a writer, I can work from home, and writing is a fickle career--sometimes I write 2000 words in an hour, and sometimes I struggle to write 500 in two hours. But because of both conditions, I am able to stay home and most likely find time to take care of the things that need doing, i.e. dishes, laundry, and cooking.

Although I desire to be married someday, I have no need for a stereotypical housewife or stay-at-home mom, and to be honest, if I'm Stephan King-successful, I'd be downright pissed if my wife did nothing but lounge around all day spending my money. I'm not saying she couldn't have the benefit of my money, but she has to bring something to the table. Even if she doesn't have a career, she still needs a passion in her life. True, you can be passionate about raising children and keeping the house clean and comfortable, but again, that's not my desire despite growing up in a conservative and Catholic atmosphere where I'm likely to find many women like that.

INTJs often don't want the "usual thing," which lends even further to our dating problems.

4. We Do Fine Alone

Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles INTJs face in dating is our proficiency at being alone. While there's nothing wrong with self-sufficiency, it does tend to give off an air of disinterest. Plenty of people like feeling like they're needed, as if they are essential to some sort of dynamic. It's one thing to be wanted, but when you're needed, that means there's something out there that can only be done by you. Hell, even with as much as I scoff at the idea of fate, I still like the idea of being needed by someone.

But INTJs are self-sufficient masters. I once read that INTJs often "convince" themselves that they don't want to be in a relationship, but I don't think that's true. I think many of us want to be, it's just we're not willing to sacrifice the self-sufficiency we've honed over the years to let someone into our lives. It sounds strange for me to cast dispersions on this ability, but a relationship is made of two people. True, one may be submissive to the other, but that doesn't mean the dominant partner rules all aspects of the relationship as if the submissive partner is an inanimate object.

Another issue to this self-sufficiency problem is that INTJs have the "my way or the highway" mentality. Again, this works very well when you're alone; you can make all the lateral decisions you want and only have to deal with the dissatisfaction that comes from a wrong decision from yourself. But when you add another person to the equation, things become a bit more complicated, and INTJs don't really do complex in their social lives.

5. Impatience

I'll admit that I'm not entirely sure about this one, but for myself, I know that I am quite impatient with many social interactions and formalities. The one that really gets me about dating is the "getting to know you" part. The modern dating rules seem to recommend that it is better to get to know a person outside of a romantic scenario before moving onto the courting rather than trying to combine the two. I find this to be absolute rubbish because what's the point then of those first few dates? I thought that was the point.

Another thing that ticks me off is the FORD method. For those who don't know, the FORD method is the recommended way of dealing with small talk. FORD stands for family, occupation, recreation, and dreams. Now, while I love the hell out of the last two,  I don't really care about family and occupation. The reason for this is because occupation tends to be rather simple; not many people have as complicated a career path as yours truly, and the thing about family is that it can take a while--a long while. Families are complicated, there's a lot of history to unpack, especially in a family such as mine. My father is one of ten children and my mother is one of four, three of whom survived to adulthood, and that doesn't even begin to cover my cousins.

The other problem with family and occupation is that they're mundane. People get excited about what they do for fun and what they dream about, but in many cases a person's job is just a job, and as for family, well, to be honest, unless I'm dating you or you're a close friend, I don't really care about your family. That's a case of I need a reason to care, or it needs to be objectively interesting. When I first meet a girl, I'm not really interested in her parents or siblings; I'm more concerned about whether or not we have chemistry. Now, if she and I did have chemistry, then I would be interested in her family because I would want to know what sort of people I could end up calling my "in-laws."

But my point here is that I'm impatient with today's dating standards and rules. I can follow the rules of fifty years ago just fine, but that's because I've got the girl in front of me, I have her undivided attention, and if the date goes well, there might be a kiss at the end of it. With no kiss on the line, what the hell do I care? I know that sounds cold and selfish, but I don't have the patience to muck around with being "friends first." Maybe on a back-up girl, but not on a first choice. Not to mention, I'm not really in a rush to get married. I understand that it can take three to five years to get to know somebody. So I prefer that "getting to know you" period be a part of those three to five years rather than outside of it.

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Whew! I'm sorry this took so long to write and get out, but it was worth the wait. Even if you don't agree with what I've written, at least it is written well. Even a movie with a terrible plot can be mildly saved if it's technically good.

And if want to make sure you keep getting excellent piece of writing after excellent piece of writing, please join my mailing list. And with the generous support you can give me through Patreon, I'll have a reason to care about how well I write.

For next week, I'm not really sure what I'll do. There is one idea, but I'm struggling with the material, so perhaps I'll cover five jobs that INTJs don't want, but can still do better than you. Until then...

Keep writing, my friends.

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How INTJs Communicate: An Informal Analysis

Hey, everyone.

So, for this week I wanted to do a post on some of the dating troubles INTJs face, especially my own, but I'm having major writer's block regarding how to start the post. So instead, I decided to do a very informal analysis of the way INTJs tend to/are likely to speak and why. This idea was born from something I noticed about the way I think and talk at work. So...

Different from Everyone Else

It's no secret that INTJs are different from everyone else, and unlike INTPs who are quite adept at (socially) camouflaging their differences, INTJs tend to take pride in standing out. Now, besides our arrogant attitudes, our otherworldly auras, and our disdain to sweat the minutia of other people's lives, we also stand out in how we talk and communicate. A friend of mine actually commented on how blatant this difference was as I tend to write my stories in the same sort of voice as I speak. I don't remember how she described it, but if I were to classify our diction and syntax, they tend to be quite technical, formal, and educated. But what does that mean exactly?

Technical

We INTJs are obsessed with perfection and efficiency. As a result, we take great care in everything we do often thinking a task to death before undertaking it. This applies to our speech in that we are the sort of people in the world who still use "whom" and we use it correctly. We will also strive to not end our sentences with a preposition, and we'll stay far away from double negatives. We also try to make sure the way we speak matches the scenario we're in. Some people might be prone to using words like "thingamabob" and "whatchamacallit," even at business executive levels, but INTJs would never do that unless they're really relaxed in the situation. Otherwise, we're going to use words like "consolidation" and "liquidize."

Formal

Of course though, being in any formal atmosphere is a good enough reason to use a word like "consolidate." For instance, I work at a pet store and my main duty is stocking. The most important items I stock are dog and cat food. Now, while I generally loathe stocking excess dog food on the top  shelves, since most of them are 30+ lbs. and I don't feel steady on the ladder-stairs, but we got in a shipment of a brand that when I was hired in, we didn't have much of. Now we have enough that we have to store the excess on the top shelf. We also had a few bags here and there piled in with other brands. So I decided to consolidate all that one particular brand to one location on the shelf, which then caused me to consolidate several other brands. And that's exactly how I thought about my task: "I consolidated all the Fromm, Acana, Orijen, and Zignature into their own sections."

Another instance of this formal thinking and speaking is that while I was on register recently, the computer told me that a cash drop needed to be performed. Now, I don't know what a "cash drop" is exactly, but I know it must be done by a manager, there's always less money in the register as a result, and they have to print out a receipt at the end of the procedure to balance the books. Anyway, when I finally ran out of customers and was able to request a cash drop, I pulled up my radio's microphone--not my walkie-talkie, but my radio's mic--and said, "Register 1 requires a cash drop." I identified which register I was at, I used the word "required," and I said what needed to be done. I didn't say, "Hey, Jeff or Christine, or whoever isn't busy, I need you up front." No, I got to the point and used the business lingo.

Educated

And speaking of lingo, the clear example from the above scenario is that I said "required" instead of "needed." I chose the fancier word. Another example of this is that I  texted my friend Mary to see if she was still planning on attending our alma mater's homecoming game this Friday. Originally, I intended on texting her, "Hey, do you still intend on coming to the game this Friday?" But I decided to change "intend" to "plan." I did this for a number of reasons, primarily because I thought "intend" might come off as rude as if I didn't believe her intentions to be there, but my first instinct was to use "intend" instead of "plan" because as an INTJ, I prefer the word "intend" because its a more educated sounding word.

Another example is that I am more prone to asking customers "Do you require any assistance?" rather than "Do you need some help?" I may think the phrase "Do you need some help?" but the phrase "Do you require any assistance?" comes out. Also, instead of saying "A dog peed on our floor," I'll say "A dog urinated on our floor." While this is an example of education, I must admit that it's more of an example of formality since I don't like to use "pee" in front of other people. I'll say it about myself, but I won't say it about myself in front of others because I don't want to be seen as immature, and that leads us to why INTJs talk like they do.

It's All about Image

You ever hear the saying "the clothes make the man," or that "you should dress for the job you want?" Well, for INTJs we want to give off a certain image of ourselves. That image is of one who is competent, resourceful, intelligent, and capable. As a result, we act more business-like or even military-like when we're with other people. We don't want to be lumped in with all the other braindead slobs. Like I said, we stand out due to our word choice and word order, and my point is that we do that on purpose. Whereas we could act and speak like everyone else--it would be efficient after all--we choose not to, and since we take pride in our education and character, going above and beyond the call of duty in communication fits us like a speedo.

A Multitude of Perceptions

The other thing that I should mention is that because INTJs have such expansive vocabularies, that means there are a lot of words floating around in our heads, and many of these words have similar, not the same, but similar definitions. And while we don't give one iota about the minutia of your life, we will study the minute differences between all these words and use them exactly where they belong.

A good example is the difference between the words "speak," "talk," and "tell." I first noticed the difference between "speak" and "tell" when I studied Italian at college. In Italian, we have the word "parlare" for "speak" and "dire" for "tell." I thought it an odd discrepancy at first, but when you think about it, to have someone speak to/with you and to have someone else tell you (something), both scenarios have two very different contexts. In the latter, a person is merely giving you a piece of information whereas in the other it's implied that a conversation took place, possibly even an important one. A conversation can also take place with "talk," but it's often regarded as an informal or general conversation. And therefore, being an INTJ I hate small talk preferring to speak with people, and I loathe it when someone else tells me my business.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, I can't really capture the way INTJs speak in such a short blog post. Like I said, this is an informal analysis, and without some concrete comparisons to the other types, it's all hearsay. However, eagle-eyed readers may have picked up on the uniqueness of my writing voice which is quite distinct. It's not the sort of writing or voice you'd expect to see on a personal blog. In fact, this post and the blog itself are perhaps the best examples I can give of how INTJs communicate. I mean, how many people use "minutia" or would say how INTJs "communicate" as opposed to how INTJs "talk?" The difference is quite obvious and I'm proud of it.

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Well, that started off as interesting post, but I'll be honest, I felt like I was beating a dead horse at the end and felt like I had run out of examples. This post started strong and petered out. Unfortunate, but it's not a real analysis, so oh well. But if you want to make sure you never miss an INTJ analysis, formal or informal, from yours truly, please join my mailing list. And with the generous support you can give me through Patreon, I can keep writing analyses on INTJs and even make some of them quite formal indeed.

For next week, I'm really going to cover INTJs and their dating troubles, come Hell or high water. Until then...

Keep writing, my friends.

More About Bryan C. Laesch:

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