INFJs and False Friends

INFJ personality types and INFP personality types often suffer from the same problem in interpersonal relationships. This problem manifests in the feeling of being smothered by the needs of other people, while simultaneously feeling very lonely and like no one truly sees us or understands us. INFJ personality types and INFP personality types are natural caregivers and adept at holding compassionate space for other people. These qualities draw people to us, and many people believe that they have a deeper bond with us than we do with them. It’s quite common for an INFJ personality type or an INFP personality type to be aware that another person considers them their “best friend,” and yet we don’t return the feeling.
The feeling of other people believing that they are closer with us than we feel to them can be extremely frustrating to INFJ personality types and INFP personality types, because we feel like we are doing all the heavy lifting in the relationship. We are frequently listening to the other person and counseling them about their life problems, however, they are not returning the favor. And in fact, the INFJ or INFP who is in a situation with someone like this usually does not want them to return the favor because we don’t feel secure enough with them to actually open up about our real feelings.
Almost all INFJ personality types and INFP personality types deal with this type of “false friend” relationship, where the connection is mostly surface-level and we don’t feel like we’re getting much out of it, but we continue on with the pretense because we don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings or risk their anger. In the long run, this can result in deep resentment for the INFJ personality type or the INFP personality type. Tune in to the video to hear about the solution.
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