An INTJ's Lack of Feelings - A Choice?

[jonathanb]

As explained in my previous thread (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), I'm an INTJ that manages to deal with his feelings pretty well (though I still don't expose them to most people). However, this was not always so. I worked on it through the years to get better.

I was wondering - is the apparent emotional apathy, or external display of it as such, a choice made by the INTJ, or something society had forced upon him or her?

I figure - since the INTJ is "weird" to begin with and has often has very original and unusual hobbies and opinions, and tends to being politically incorrect in social situations, he our she are often "outcast" by society. Having been a social outcast all of my life, I can understand how such an experience can cause someone to be cold to everyone else and refuse to show emotion, even going as far as psychologically forcing oneself not to be emotional at all. So while it might be a conscious or unconscious "choice", there's another side to it.

Your thoughts?

[Shadizar]

Choice

I feel just like anyone else; but my desire for logical conclusions gives me a moment to think coldly about anything before I take into account my emotions and how others may react. Often my conclusions are out of sync with how I feel/value something; at which point I'll reassess my feelings/values and adjust accordingly; ie. there's no logical reason to be homophobic or religious, ergo, I'm neither. Unlike most, my feeling/values are not affected by those around me unless they can use cold sound logic themselves. When my emotions DO catch up to the situation, they tend to look like this (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), not a sound reasoning foundation.

[Tactical Panda]

I figure - since the INTJ is "weird" to begin with and has often has very original and unusual hobbies and opinions, and tends to being politically incorrect in social situations, he our she are often "outcast" by society.

I'm not weird, I'm not that original, my hobbies are common enough, my opinions are unique as much as any others, I have an okay idea of when political correctness improves wellbeing and when it hinders wellbeing, truth, courage and reason, and I'm not an outcast and people look to me.

It doesn't change that I am an INTJ.

I was wondering - is the apparent emotional apathy, or external display of it as such, a choice made by the INTJ, or something society had forced upon him or her?

Emotions cloud the ability to meet objectives efficiently. Apathy is a front for not wanting to be disturbed while we go about doing this. If there were no meaningful objectives for us to take on it would be a different story - we may just be so use to operating like that.

[Hawkx]

Well it seems that I've suppressed my emotions extremely well. I do not even really feel anything anymore. I think it might be the fact that if you don't use your emotions you might tend to lose neural connections on emotions and use it for knowledge.

[OR1ON]

I've had a problem recently that is really hard for me to tap into my emotions if I don't care about what is being discussed. I'll be talking to someone. Hear everything they say and comprehend it; yet when they ask me for my opinion on the topic the only thing that pops into my head is "WOW, I don't really care". Then I'll just mumble a rephrase of their perspective.

[Dolores]

I don't lack feelings. I just don't act on them when I see the potential outcome will be a bad one and would only lead to some disastrous situation. Many feelings are subjective and brief. I see no reason to act on a passing feeling. It's different with a constant feeling, of course. One must not ignore that. However, I admit I have difficulties displaying those feelings.

[Senseofrelief]

We have feelings..the premise is wrong..the op should drive off a cliff for starting this thread...I hate this made up shit about personality profiles..so annoying.

[jonathanb]

Everyone has feelings. I was talking about how one deals with them.

[Tactical Panda]

Everyone has feelings.
INTJs are part of everyone.
INTJs have feelings.

A lack is a failure to possess.
An INTJ has "lack of feelings".
An INTJ has a failure to possess feelings.

INTJs have feelings.
INTJs have a failure to possess feelings.
INTJs have feeling that are not under their possession.

Feelings can be managed.
A choice is part of management.
A choice may or may not come into the management of feelings.

INTJs have feeling that are not under their possession.
A choice may or may not come into the management of feelings.
Possession is a form of management.

If INTJs have feelings and were able to possess them, they may or may not be able to make choices about them.

I dunno.

[Seablue]

I was wondering - is the apparent emotional apathy, or external display of it as such, a choice made by the INTJ, or something society had forced upon him or her?

I figure - since the INTJ is "weird" to begin with and has often has very original and unusual hobbies and opinions, and tends to being politically incorrect in social situations, he our she are often "outcast" by society. Having been a social outcast all of my life, I can understand how such an experience can cause someone to be cold to everyone else and refuse to show emotion, even going as far as psychologically forcing oneself not to be emotional at all. So while it might be a conscious or unconscious "choice", there's another side to it.

Interesting. I don't think I was hiding my emotions at all when I was a young child. I learned to bury them to protect myself from my parents and to distance myself from my classmates. In the first case, I had to hide being angry/sad because they used it to hurt me more (consciously or not). In the second case, I was an outcast already, so I thought it was better to accept it and encourage it. It also helps looking "hard" to scare the potential bullies. I also went through a depression, which tend to make anyone cold and emotionless - I often say it "cured" me from being excessively emotional (crying easily).

Now it's been a long time since anyone accused me of being cold or anything like that. I went back to having emotions and showing them, even if I control them (like any adult, I guess). I'm still considered "weird" by a lot of people, but that's okay, because I've surrounded myself with other weird people :p When having a very important/emotional conversation, I tend to be silent and expressionless, but my friends know it's because I'm deep in thought to control and analyze and verbalize my feelings, so they don't get angry at me.

[benr3600]

Interesting. I don't think I was hiding my emotions at all when I was a young child. I learned to bury them to protect myself from my parents and to distance myself from my classmates. In the first case, I had to hide being angry/sad because they used it to hurt me more (consciously or not). In the second case, I was an outcast already, so I thought it was better to accept it and encourage it. It also helps looking "hard" to scare the potential bullies. I also went through a depression, which tend to make anyone cold and emotionless - I often say it "cured" me from being excessively emotional (crying easily).

Now it's been a long time since anyone accused me of being cold or anything like that. I went back to having emotions and showing them, even if I control them (like any adult, I guess). I'm still considered "weird" by a lot of people, but that's okay, because I've surrounded myself with other weird people :p When having a very important/emotional conversation, I tend to be silent and expressionless, but my friends know it's because I'm deep in thought to control and analyze and verbalize my feelings, so they don't get angry at me.

This. I would say it is generally mostly a defense mechanism, partially apathy.

[Bluesea]

I don't feel a lack of feelings, however do choose when and if I will make these public; so it could be less evident to observers when I am experiencing various emotional responses to what is occurring, or what these are. I consider sharing feelings as more of an intimate thing that I would do with people I am closer to.

I guess my preference is for rational consideration and functioning to intervene before stress based or negative emotional reactions occur in interpersonal situations, especially if people are in leadership roles / have care for others / positions of power / authority in relation to other's welfare. I suppose that is expecting from others the same consideration I am trying to practice. Positive feelings though I think are ok to be more spontaneously expressed.

[benr3600]

initially looking at the SN of those who posted before, and after me, = mindblown.jpeg

[vermeer]

I don't feel a lack of feelings, however do choose when and if I will make these public; so it could be less evident to observers when I am experiencing various emotional responses to what is occurring, or what these are. I consider sharing feelings as more of an intimate thing that I would do with people I am closer to.

I guess my preference is for rational consideration and functioning to intervene before stress based or negative emotional reactions occur in interpersonal situations,...

Well expressed, I agree. About societal influences: just like I sometimes expect others to control their emotional response in certain situations, I am often aware that people expect me to react different in others. So the influence society had on my behaviour so far was rather that I'm more open about my feelings (e.g. among my friends).

[Mindfreak]

I have some feelings, but no strong reactions.

[Sprelious]

Beam me up Scotty

[Zsych]

I'd go with adaptation myself, but yes. A choice of sorts. I wouldn't be surprised if the chosen hobbies and what not are not also a side-effect of some kind of adaptation, early in life.

[obiwan177]

Everyone has feelings.
INTJs are part of everyone.
INTJs have feelings.

A lack is a failure to possess.
An INTJ has "lack of feelings".
An INTJ has a failure to possess feelings.

INTJs have feelings.
INTJs have a failure to possess feelings.
INTJs have feeling that are not under their possession.

Feelings can be managed.
A choice is part of management.
A choice may or may not come into the management of feelings.

INTJs have feeling that are not under their possession.
A choice may or may not come into the management of feelings.
Possession is a form of management.

If INTJs have feelings and were able to possess them, they may or may not be able to make choices about them.

I dunno.

I thought this beautifully laid out argument was going somewhere lol. The last line made me laugh.

I agree that we use it as a defence mechanism, but I disagree on why. My parents never used my feelings against me, in fact I would say quite the opposite, and I still manage my emotions in a very similar manner. For me, I believe that I hide behind the 'wall' that I do, because my emotions tend to make me quite vulnerable. I think logically and rationally, and have never understood how to deal with emotions well, so they are a huge weak spot for me.

At the same time, I am generally apathetic about a lot of things. I "fail" to see why something should be important, and why I should put effort in thinking about it. Politics I generally don't care about discussing, because I don't really think it matters in the end. That goes for other topics as well. I don't see the point in discussing or thinking about which movie is better than another, so I don't have a favorite movie either. When my friends are going to eat somewhere, I usually don't care at all where we go, as long as it isn't to the few places I dislike.

[MiaoPurrington]

Interesting. I don't think I was hiding my emotions at all when I was a young child. I learned to bury them to protect myself from my parents and to distance myself from my classmates. In the first case, I had to hide being angry/sad because they used it to hurt me more (consciously or not). In the second case, I was an outcast already, so I thought it was better to accept it and encourage it. It also helps looking "hard" to scare the potential bullies. I also went through a depression, which tend to make anyone cold and emotionless - I often say it "cured" me from being excessively emotional (crying easily).


This is quite similar to my experience growing up. Very similar.

[RandomWalker]

I consider both disregard and indifference feelings and exercise them regularly

[VENUS 2020]

Well, I think I have feelings. I can feel happy, sad, excited etc. I just don't react the way other people do, or how they expect me to. Don't quite know why that is.

[Autumnleaf]

Good question. I go with defensive response for myself.

[SarcasticVlad]

Everyone has feelings.
INTJs are part of everyone.
INTJs have feelings.

A lack is a failure to possess.
An INTJ has "lack of feelings".
An INTJ has a failure to possess feelings.

INTJs have feelings.
INTJs have a failure to possess feelings.
INTJs have feeling that are not under their possession.

Feelings can be managed.
A choice is part of management.
A choice may or may not come into the management of feelings.

INTJs have feeling that are not under their possession.
A choice may or may not come into the management of feelings.
Possession is a form of management.

If INTJs have feelings and were able to possess them, they may or may not be able to make choices about them.

I dunno.
If I understand this correctly, and I think I do, all of this has something to do with prices of tea in China. Now am I right or am I right?

[memory]

When I was a kid I learned really early to keep my feelings to myself. I'm told that when I was a toddler I had the cutest, indignant reactions. So the older kids would make me mad just to see me react because they thought it was "cute." The only way to avoid being picked on was to quit reacting. Hence, I'm pretty decent at stuffing my anger or sadness into some distant corner of my mind, smiling, and pretending everything is all right - as long as people are around. (When I'm along in my room, I'll punch pillows, throw pillows... just as long as I'm silent in my rage and no one knows about it later.) My emotions are strong and run deep, I've just learned to channel them and redirect my thoughts so they don't overwhelm me and I keep control.

[IreOfDesire]

I have high distrust in people and usually try to hide feelings to avoid their exploit. This is also the source of my reluctance to share much personal information.

[DoubleEntendre]

I think my apathy was learned. I was born into a family that was in the Marine Corps so I constantly moved. In order to cope with the constant loss of people I had learned to care for (Friends, teachers, etc.) I learned to forget how I felt and bring the feelings back whenever I chose to. Although I am still capable of caring, like any INTJ is, on a moments notice I can become as dettached as I need to be.

[Japonica]

I think the idea that INTJs are robots is an extremely hurtful stereotype imposed by 'E's. Just because I'm wasn't the first one in line to see 'Eat, Pray, Love' doesn't mean I'm a callous shit.

I think INTJs have one thing in common: we don't fall for what I like to call "shallow emotions". I don't care about self-discovery that hurts people along the way; I don't give a shit about the problems of rich people unless they're highly valid; I don't care for foreign humanitarianism from the west where the only goal is publicity (raising awareness is different, although occasionally an excuse for publicity by selfish celebrities); I don't care for bitching I can't do anything about; and I've started to become pretty annoyed with Africa screwing shit up for the last century, and I'm tired of the west getting pressure to fix it (nothing against the innocent people, I just hate the governments).

I do care for honest philanthropy that isn't seeking brownie points. It was just an hour ago I was watching this: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Personally, I found it incredibly relevant, and I have a feeling I'm not the only INTJ out there that will be moved by this.

Perhaps INTJs tend to be more disgusted with North America's political correctness, lack of relevance thus feeling the need to analyze everything, lack of sincerity and logic. If this titles us (or just myself) as not having any feelings, I guess it is a void.

---------- Post added 06-20-2011 at 01:33 AM ----------

I have high distrust in people and usually try to hide feelings to avoid their exploit. This is also the source of my reluctance to share much personal information.

I agree. Exposing a little turns out to be exposing a lot. A lot of people take advantage of weaknesses, and I think manipulation is a serious issue within society that is not scorned enough during adolescence.

[Dusk]

Generally, when something causes me an emotional reaction, my first response is to analyse and come to a logical conclusion as to why I felt this way. It isn't a choice but something I do naturally. There are times when the emotion that arises is either too strong or distasteful and so I choose to either detach or repress, that is a choice.

I experience emotions on a daily basis but my way of processing them may make me seem like I don't.

[intjistp]

Everyone has feelings. Feelings are always private. When one express himself nonverbally (in most cases unintentionally) these expressions are called emotions. F is about emotions.

[obiwan177]

I kind of like being a robot. I mean, R2-D2 is freaking awesome.

But I agree, I feel emotions all the time, but not necessarily towards the same things that other people do. Maybe it's because of the INTJ tendency to see through BS, or analyze things completely objectively, I have no idea. For example, I laughed at the preview for Paranormal Activity 2, when most people would have been scared.

I also tend to wall up my emotions. I feel them, but (from what I can tell), obviously not as much as other people do. I am more emotionally stable than almost everyone I know. I also don't act on emotions, because that makes absolutely no sense to me.

I am also less emotionally mature than everyone I know, and I wonder if it is because I don't pay attention to my emotions as much.

They are there, I just don't care. (it rhymes, so you know it's true)

[buru]

I don't know if was a choice but it was definatley something I learnt. Being a young kid at boarding school it became obvious pretty quickly that letting my emotions take over would never result in anything positive, just draw attention to me and generally make the situation worse.

[sunlover]

As explained in my previous thread (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), I'm an INTJ that manages to deal with his feelings pretty well (though I still don't expose them to most people). However, this was not always so. I worked on it through the years to get better.

I was wondering - is the apparent emotional apathy, or external display of it as such, a choice made by the INTJ, or something society had forced upon him or her?

I figure - since the INTJ is "weird" to begin with and has often has very original and unusual hobbies and opinions, and tends to being politically incorrect in social situations, he our she are often "outcast" by society. Having been a social outcast all of my life, I can understand how such an experience can cause someone to be cold to everyone else and refuse to show emotion, even going as far as psychologically forcing oneself not to be emotional at all. So while it might be a conscious or unconscious "choice", there's another side to it.

Your thoughts?

We're wired to suppress the "outward" display of emotions that we "feel" on the inside.

[therrirl]

I'm never on the fence. I find that I'm either very emotional or very unemotional almost like a switch. I think from what I've read here I agree that it has to be something grand to push the switch one way or the other. I have learned though when to fake emotions to get what i want, especialy from customer service reps that don't want to do thier job.

[Zhuinden]

It's definitely a learned behaviour. Or at least, it certainly is for me. I've learned how whenever I am guided by emotions, nothing good comes out of it - and if I show my emotions, things just get irreversibly worse. So I did my best to suppress them completely :)
(I can't say it worked perfectly though, but I certainly feel everything less intensively.)

So the people here who say they can still feel everything well just don't show it - well, they should be happy. I'm fairly certain various elements of emotions can actually be forgotten.

[lelouch]

well as an entj, I could say that most of the time I compartmentalize emotions when I feel incapable of constructively doing anything with them, otherwise I feel like i'd be a big blubbering wreck lol

[obiwan177]

Either I feel my emotions extremely intensely, or barely at all. I wonder if as a child I was extremely emotional, but like many of you have said, learned to suppress them most of the time because it seemed to work out better. Maybe INTJs are inherently very emotional, and so we hide from them more often?

Maybe we experience emotion more intensely then the other types, and thus tend to be afraid of it more easily, not being able to understand it because we never spend time with it.

[BirdsOfAFeather]

I tend to (try to anyway) suppress my emotions because when they are let out of their cage, they sometimes prompt me to make irrational choices that I always kick myself for later. When I make decisions based on sound reasoning, I can at least take comfort in the fact that it appeared to be the best route to take with the information that I had when things don't go as planned.

I'm not sure if I agree with the statement that INTJs experience emotion more intensely than other types...I just think we have less practice keeping a handle on strong emotions when they come to the forefront. At that point, I might as well forget that I even possess brain cells for thinking as the existence of them is a moot point.

[therrirl]

I tend to (try to anyway) suppress my emotions because when they are let out of their cage, they sometimes prompt me to make irrational choices that I always kick myself for later. When I make decisions based on sound reasoning, I can at least take comfort in the fact that it appeared to be the best route to take with the information that I had when things don't go as planned.

I'm not sure if I agree with the statement that INTJs experience emotion more intensely than other types...I just think we have less practice keeping a handle on strong emotions when they come to the forefront. At that point, I might as well forget that I even possess brain cells for thinking as the existence of them is a moot point.
The vulcan mentality. We are logical until you piss us off then RAGE. may also explain why we are often better in sex too?

[Suzy Q]

Personality type is inherent, in my opinion. You don't "choose" to be an INTJ. You are born that way. As an INTJ, I have plenty of feelings, the full range of emotions that any other human being has. My feelings and emotion don't rule my life. My rationality rules my life. Now that I am in my 50's, I have learned to modify/soften some things about myself for the benefit of making my life easier. We are perceived as cold by people who are our opposites in type. Outwardly emotional, touchy feely people are very intimidated by rational people.

[Muthalickr]

Either I feel my emotions extremely intensely, or barely at all. I wonder if as a child I was extremely emotional, but like many of you have said, learned to suppress them most of the time because it seemed to work out better. Maybe INTJs are inherently very emotional, and so we hide from them more often?

Maybe we experience emotion more intensely then the other types, and thus tend to be afraid of it more easily, not being able to understand it because we never spend time with it.

Your last 2 posts were very interesting because they speak to my situation right now.

I'm normally very even keeled but lately i've been going through a lot of emotional turmoil.
Being an INTJ, I can't categorize these feelings logically and therefore get extremely frustrated because I can't push them aside like I do 99% of the time and I can't work.

The fact that I can't push these feelings aside because they're not hypothetical feelings but rather feelings that are happening right now, coupled with the fact that its affecting my work, is driving me mad.

Any suggestions or similar situations that people have gone through? If so, how did you deal with it?

[Somewhere man]

I most definitely have feelings.

In the rare event that I'm only with a person or maybe a few people who are considerate and respectful of my feelings I'm ready to share stuff that may be pretty personal. But I'm not about to share personal information about myself with anyone who isn't capable or willing to understand what I'm talking about.

[Alphemo]

I'm normally very even keeled but lately i've been going through a lot of emotional turmoil.
Being an INTJ, I can't categorize these feelings logically and therefore get extremely frustrated because I can't push them aside like I do 99% of the time and I can't work.

The fact that I can't push these feelings aside because they're not hypothetical feelings but rather feelings that are happening right now, coupled with the fact that its affecting my work, is driving me mad.

I have nothing to offer you but my robot empathy, I'm afraid. You're not alone! Stop whining! There are starving children in Africa and rich people running out of their gold-leafed toilet paper!

[too late]

I don't think I chose to be indifferent. I would frequently find myself trying to care about what is going on around me just so I could have a proper reaction to it so people wouldn't think I was being rude for not caring, but in the end....I just cannot bring myself to care.

I think this sums it up pretty nicely:
I've had a problem recently that is really hard for me to tap into my emotions if I don't care about what is being discussed. I'll be talking to someone. Hear everything they say and comprehend it; yet when they ask me for my opinion on the topic the only thing that pops into my head is "WOW, I don't really care". Then I'll just mumble a rephrase of their perspective.
I gave up on "trying to care". I taught myself to act like I do.

I do obviously have feelings though. Just not about most things that people around me do. I tend to keep them inside most of the time, but I will occasionally express myself to someone.

[Muthalickr]

There are starving children in Africa and rich people running out of their gold-leafed toilet paper!

gold-leafed toilet paper sounds really uncomfortable...

i guess i should have expected indifferent/sarcastic replies when asking INTJ people questions about feelings.

touche good sir/madam.

[Tenacity]

Personally I have extremely deep emotions. However I feel uncomfortable sharing them with people unless I am very, very close to them. I am also extremely psychologically in tune. Therefore I assess all of my emotions and have a very clear understanding of my reactions to different situations and how that's related to past experiences/beliefs/ etc.

I think one of the reasons I don't like to share those emotions with other people is I know that they won't be able to understand and categorise my emotions/reactions with the same reasoning I can so I will therefore be misunderstood.

And yes.. also I don't like the feeling of being vulnerable.

[Marcus Septim]

Everyone has feelings and shit
It's just that,not everyone functions with em as their first criteria for making choices
Some people use logic over emotion (T's) but even they feel

[meldsong]

I don't know if I can make the distinction that our tendency to be unemotional is a choice or not, but I'd say that if/when we make the logical decision to use/react with emotion, the emotionless side tends to hold more sway. I think that is because an INTJ approaches everything in a sort of cold logic, and therefore in most situations the logical thing to do is to react without emotion. While certainly there are times where emotion can be useful, I still rarely feel it.

Like others have pointed out, when I was younger I learned to bury my feelings so that I could get on with my life with less stress and anxiety (the latter of which often plagues me). I would get placed into a new situation as a child, and other kids wanted to do things I didn't care about. So, naturally, I either found the other lonely kid, or I ignored the current situation and went back to the fantasy inside my head. By this point in my life, when I actually do feel emotion (as I said, a rare situation), it is usually short, but intense. Occasionally I'll let it fester for a while, but usually I can quickly oust it and move on. There are few "chronic" emotions that I have felt for many years, and which I doubt will ever go away. They don't cause me much pain, though certainly I'd rather they weren't there. Such long-term emotional feelings are among the few things that can get me angry, even.

[Integer]

I tend to (try to anyway) suppress my emotions because when they are let out of their cage, they sometimes prompt me to make irrational choices that I always kick myself for later. When I make decisions based on sound reasoning, I can at least take comfort in the fact that it appeared to be the best route to take with the information that I had when things don't go as planned.

I'm not sure if I agree with the statement that INTJs experience emotion more intensely than other types...I just think we have less practice keeping a handle on strong emotions when they come to the forefront. At that point, I might as well forget that I even possess brain cells for thinking as the existence of them is a moot point.I like the phrase.

[xor]

I have emotions and lot of them. I feel them intensely but they all stay inside so I have pretty much the same face 99% of the time. I only share some of those feelings with a small number of persons. No one will ever know them in entirety. That's why I write.

When an emotional response is expected to be displayed by me, if it advantages me I can fake it. Usually just naming the emotion I am feeling works pretty well.

[stoopandscoop]

I don't have feelings for people who don't understand me. Friend or family member. If I do have feelings, I'd like to keep it to myself because I don't like to be the center of attention, if I am going to be the center of attention then that would be selfish.

Simple as that.

[superlovemuffin]

I tend to (try to anyway) suppress my emotions because when they are let out of their cage, they sometimes prompt me to make irrational choices that I always kick myself for later. When I make decisions based on sound reasoning, I can at least take comfort in the fact that it appeared to be the best route to take with the information that I had when things don't go as planned.

I'm not sure if I agree with the statement that INTJs experience emotion more intensely than other types...I just think we have less practice keeping a handle on strong emotions when they come to the forefront. At that point, I might as well forget that I even possess brain cells for thinking as the existence of them is a moot point.


this pretty much sums up my experience pretty well too. I have stark emotional responses much of the time and grew to understand how extremely biased those responses could make me. even when I'm a human-sized pot of roiling emotion, I try to focus on factual responses rather than expressing that emotion. so long as that emotion is at least attached to factual/objective criticism and stated without vulgarity, I can usually live with myself the next day.

if not, it's like suffering twice for the same offense--not only was I bothered by whatever happened, but then I was further bothered by my own response.

[kerbe6]

I believe that for me, it's a sort of a self-perpetuating suppression. I think I was born predisposed to feel stuff about things less often than other people. I can see this predisposition toward rational thought reinforcing itself through self learning. Your brain strengthens connections that are used more often, so emotion slowly becomes less and less relevant and useful. At the same time, "thinking" becomes easier and more useful.

I remember trying to be excited about things that others were excited about, and just not being able to feel it.

I can "understand" emotions though. I can be with a person who is acting very emotionally and while I may not see them as acting "logically", I can generally understand and accept them as making sense from their perspective.

As for things like strong opinions and preferences (where to go out to eat, which movie is better, etc), I tend to see those types of things as being irrelevant. I see value in something because of it's "functionality" (this can be a complex and thorough evaluation), and not the gut emotional reaction I get. There are plenty of exceptions for certain things, but this is generally how it is. I've learned to let myself have preferences though. When it comes to something like choosing a place for dinner, for instance. I could easily say that I just don't care, but it can be more fun for both people to lighten up and let your gut decide for you.

[orbit79]

I personally think we feel emotions, but that we try not to let them rule us, and instead try to make our decisions on logic. They say that whilst we may not show our emotions too well, they are still there, and paradoxically to how we may appear, we can actually be a little over sensitive to criticism at times, which I can certainly relate to. However, my sense of logic wins out in the long run, and once the initial shock goes away, reason will take over. Ultimately I think we can look at ourselves fairly objectively, as one might when looking at others. When dealing with other people we can appear not to care, due to our logical and objective nature, however in general we do so to try to help, not with white lies or blind flattery, but with truth (as we see it) and reason. This shows a sense of caring, it may just not be recognized that way.

[peppermint]

As explained in my previous thread (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), I'm an INTJ that manages to deal with his feelings pretty well (though I still don't expose them to most people). However, this was not always so. I worked on it through the years to get better.

I was wondering - is the apparent emotional apathy, or external display of it as such, a choice made by the INTJ, or something society had forced upon him or her?

I figure - since the INTJ is "weird" to begin with and has often has very original and unusual hobbies and opinions, and tends to being politically incorrect in social situations, he our she are often "outcast" by society. Having been a social outcast all of my life, I can understand how such an experience can cause someone to be cold to everyone else and refuse to show emotion, even going as far as psychologically forcing oneself not to be emotional at all. So while it might be a conscious or unconscious "choice", there's another side to it.

Your thoughts?

I feel emotions -- sometimes acutely. The thing is, I don't like to feel those emotions. They're unpleasant, annoying and get in the way of other things. So yes, I do choose to put emotions aside, especially in regard to people and their actions towards me.
However, I do not think that there is one defining moment when I began to have a wall. I just know that from the time I discovered reading, I enjoyed books to the annoying company of my peers.
I know that I can appear incredibly stupid sometimes and I've been called an idiot. I just can't seem to understand the social rituals and I get lost. But this doesn't mean I don't feel the rejection if I am trying to connect.

[Astura]

Well my philosophical view is that not that wither we choose to have to feelings or not but rather we choose to act on them or not. I do feel emotions but i don't always choose to act on them. I think the best way to compare my range of acting on them to normal person it terms of a black/gray/white scale. (black=nothing, white= act, grey= indifferent)

SO while most other people have the full range of equal colors mine seems to be unequal in scale for each range of the colors. It's not that I don't have them it's just that the range a lot more skewed and unbalanced then other people. That said i think the best thing to happen to me was meeting my fiance' (enfj) and her helping bring out emotional range so I now have a lot healthier and deeper relationship with my friends and family then i did before by choosing to express my emotions withing being rational all the time.

Anyways i think that the choosing part is how we handle our emotions. A positive reinforcement will let us develop them and be mature on them. However it appears a vast majority of intj's (from the posts in this thread) end up in a circle of self reinforcement where we they have awkward emotional expression and get picked on/bullied for that which causes them to be less expressive with them leading to less maturity of emotions and expression of them from lack of practice and thus the cycle ends up repeating itself.

[rohit]

I don't feel emotions at all at times. So many times it has happened, some event happens, everyone gets excited, happy, starts jumping around....and I'm just sitting there doing nothing...don't understand one reason as to why all are reacting like this while on the other side I'm reacting like this?

I don't feel joy, sadness...only thing that is filled inside of me is rage. Sometimes when it takes over I completely loose control over myself and my thinking and logical abilities. It's probably the biggest weakness I have and probably the only reason for my failures over the years.

But I couldn't help it. I always wanted to enjoy the smaller things in life. But way things have been....parents, shit society...I just ended up like this. Infact the only way to survive in this world for me was to end up like this.

[FreeForm]

It seems as though emotions can be predicted in many situations and thus willfully ignored by filtering through logic; though I've discovered lately intense feelings can be difficult as they seek to override our primary method of processing information. It seems having Fi as a tertiary function means less refinement which in turn leads to the "light switch" effect of either feeling something very strongly or not at all.

I mostly use outward emotional expression in a way that can have some rational benefit to others(empathy, compassion, elatedness, etc) but much of what doesn't make it out tends to be very negative, irrational and even scary at times. Others might see glimpses of what's going on internally through use of dark humor- however most people aren't that perceptive to pick up or acknowledge it.

Overall I'd say INTJs don't have a lack of feelings, we just have better control over them.

[EverybodyLies]

I don't think it's a choice. It's just your nature. You're more inclined to logical thinking as opposed to emotional understanding. Logic before Emotion is what it is. To someone, the majority, who allow emotions to dictate their logic it may seem cold.

[Reddkatz]

For me it's about what I am able to understand. Emotions like happy and sad I can easily understand. Irritation, and annoyance I can understand too because I feel that every day. The two emotions I don't understand well is anger and love. If someone tells me he or she is angry, I ask why?

Like yesterday there was a guy I knew that kept asking his girlfriend to get his phone, and she didn't. He said he is going to get really pissed off soon because he kept asking, and I asked why? He can obviously get it himself. I don't understand the things people get angry at.

Love is also something I feel weird with. I've been in five relationships and I can honestly say I've only been in love once. I don't really consider love especially when I see couples. I don't see that they are in love and that is why they are together. I don't know why. It's something I can't connect with for some reason.