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.

***

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.

More About Bryan C. Laesch:

Amazon: My Author Page
Facebook: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar
Patreon: Bryan C. Laesch

Instagram: Bryan C. Laesch
Twitter: BryanofallTrade
Youtube: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar