The INTP Friendship Experience

General Overview

INTPs often have trouble making friends. Part of this is just the way they’re wired. INTPs have a feeling function, extraverted feeling, as their inferior function. This reflects the content that they have little interest in and little skill development in as well. For most INTPs, their emotions usually come out as explosions that they have little control over or understanding of, and this is a source of worry and even fear for this type. This emotional blindness also means they usually don’t understand why they should need or seek emotional support or validation from others. This bone deep independence can isolate them from others, who want to feel and give support as part of being friends.

 

However, when INTPs find someone who can lock wits with them, who enjoys deep and spirited debates on a variety of subject, they’ll often connect quickly and deeply to the other person. INTPS need to connect on an intellectual level with other people, and types who can’t or won’t connect in this way will often find them insensitive or even rude. And they can be, especially if they believe that other people aren’t on the same intellectual level. INTPs like to be respected for their minds, and once they find people they can respect in the same way they’ll be loyal friends who offer intellectual stimulation and well meaning, if sometimes clumsy support.

INTP friendships with NTs

INTPS often move naturally into friendships with other NTs. Because they tend to bond based on intellectual discussions, often completely devoid of emotional content, they gravitate to this rational type. INTPs use extraverted intuition as their auxiliary, which means they enjoy abstract, speculative conversations, and other NTs are usually happy to indulge in interactions like that. The result of this combination is a connection that’s based on intellectual debates and a good natured rivalry of ideas and concepts. And this is precisely the type of friendship that INTPs are looking for and want.

INTP friendships with NFs

INTPs usually don’t have much in the way of emotional intelligence. Their brains are overly rational, based on facts and ideas, which can make them seem insensitive and even rude to more sensitive NF types. However, this shouldn’t be seen as a barrier to a friendship between these types. With the help of NF friends, INTPs can learn to open themselves up a bit and accept their own deeply buried emotions, making them less likely to explode when they’re emotionally overwrought. INTPs need this kind of help to gain control over themselves, and to learn that not everything in life has to be rational and logical. With the help of friends who use emotions with more skill, INTPs can learn to soften enough to let other people in and they’ll usually find that their lives gain much more richness because of these types of connections.

INTP friendships with SJs

INTPS and SJs aren’t usually a good match. SJs are tied to the past by a connection that’s almost a form of nostalgia. Because of their introverted sensing function, they often live their lives according to this attachment to the past, making decisions based solely on what worked before. This type of bias can drive INTPs crazy. Their minds are usually extremely logical, and they prefer to back up their decisions and life choices with reasoned arguments. That’s not to say that they don’t have their own biases of course, but INTPs prefer to take in all the data they can before making a decision and then make their choice based on that information. SJs, who look to the past to dictate the present, can seem like the height of irrationality to this type. And to INTPs, who rely on rationality and facts divorced from their context, this can make them completely unacceptable as friends.

INTP friendships with SPs

INTPs have trouble forming relationships with the personality types who lack an intuitive function. ¹ They rely heavily on conversation and intellectual discussion to form bonds, and a big part of that is the ability to talk about ideas and abstract concepts. But sensing types like SPs don’t like to have conversations like this. SPs like the concrete, they like to explore the world as it is, and the idea of spending most of their time having intellectual discussions often seems boring and confining to them.

In some cases, INTPs may be able to connect with SPs using their shared dedication to exploring the external world. INTPs use extraverted intuition as their auxiliary function, which often drives them to travel and press metaphorical buttons in the external world just to see what happens. SPs like to travel and explore as well, though their motivation is quite different. This point of similarity between the two types may enable them to form a connection, though it’s unlikely that connection would last over time because of the conversational barrier.

Final Thoughts

INTPs can find it difficult to bond with others. They tend to see the world, and other people, very differently to most personality types and their overly rational brain can get in the way of forming connections. But this isn’t something the INTP should try to change. The world needs all types, from the emotional to the rational. So as long as the INTP is open to it, they will be able to find other people who can give them the rational, intellectually based connections they need and want.

References

1. Storm Susan. “How Do YOU Use Extraverted Feeling?“. Dec 17, 2015. (Retrieved Jan 2018).
2. “Introverted intuition (Ni) vs Extraverted intuition (Ne)“. Nov 25, 2016. (Retrieved Jan 2018).
3. “INTP – The Scientist“.

Footnotes

1. This means either introverted or extraverted intuition. This is a learning style based on seeing patterns in the way people behave and the way events unfold and using that information to speculate on future events. INTPs use extraverted intuition, which drives them to explore the external world and seek out the patterns that underlie everything in existence.