Break Ups | An INFJ's Perspective.

I feel like I experience break ups in a very unique way because of the fact I am an INFJ.

As an INFJ, when it comes to relationships mine are few and far between. This is because I need to be able to really connect with a person on a range of levels before I start to develop romantic feelings for them. Once I have this with a person, quite frankly, I'm screwed. When I develop a really strong connection with a person I get very attached; not in a clingy way, more in a 'you mean a lot to me, I really care about you, but I'm not going to be super in your face about it' way.

So when relationships come to an end it's really difficult for me -when it's the other person who decides to end it anyway. I'm sure you're able to guess that I'm writing this because I have recently gone through a break up, and you're not wrong. Granted it was two months ago that things ended, but today I realised I'm not quite as over it as I had first thought.

I was only with the guy for four months, but out of all of my exs he's the one I developed the strongest connection with. We had so many things in common, both in terms of interests, personality traits and values, and we got along so effortlessly from the moment we met. There's an ancient Buddhist teaching that your soulmate isn't the person who gives you butterflies, but instead is the person you always feel completely at ease with; and that's what things were like with him.

I cared very deeply about him. He managed to restore my hope both in men and love, and for that I will be forever grateful. But obviously he decided to end things with me. He had his reasons which I won't go into, purely because it's personal and I've done enough over-thinking about that stuff already. We agreed to stay friends and that's working out surprisingly well. That being said our contact is almost exclusively through messaging and social media now. I feel that remaining friends and talking most days is both a help and a hindrance for me. It helps because it means I haven't completely lost the connection I have with him -it's just weakened. But it doesn't help because it means I still have hope for the future. It also doesn't help because when I see him interacting with other females I feel a pang of jealously and sadness in my chest. And that's what's proving to be the hardest part for me. I'll be completely over him eventually though...

Thoughts and Opinions: Anti-Social?

I feel like this is quite an important post. As you know this blog is made up of me talking about aspects of my introverted life; the main aspect being the fact that I'm a very introverted person in a world that doesn't always value or understand introversion. It is this lack of understanding towards introversion that results in many introverts -myself included- being labelled as anti-social, even by people who are close to them.

I have been called anti-social by the majority of my family, some of my friends and even my boyfriend. But the thing is I'm not an anti-social person. I just don't feel the need to interact with, or even be around, people as often as they do. I enjoy socialising with my friends as much as the next person, I just don't like doing it for too long. Being around people, even people I have known for years; flitting between conversations; and just actively being 'present' is fun fine at first, but it takes up a lot of energy and after a few hours I just want to go home to spend time alone. That doesn't make me an anti-social person though, it makes me a person who needs to 're-charge' more often than others. If I were really anti-social I wouldn't have bothered coming downstairs or going out in the first place.

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The fact that I also suffer from social anxiety is another issue when it comes to being mislabelled as 'anti-social' by others, especially strangers and acquaintances. When people first meet me then tend to think that I'm 'rude', 'stuck up' and/or 'anti-social'. They make these assumptions because I'm not like them when it comes to socialising. To them I am abnormal and therefore deserve these negative labels, because they can't empathise with how much of a struggle I find social situations, especially new ones. You can ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I am neither rude or stuck up. Just because I can't hold a conversation doesn't make me a bad person. Just because I don't say a lot and don't ask questions doesn't make me a bad person either. Just because you can't tell I'm mentally panicking as I speak to you, or that my heart is pounding and my palms are sweating profusely as we interact, doesn't give you the right to assume that I'm a rude, stuck up or anti-social individual.

I think if extroverted people made an attempt to try and understand the perspective introverts have on life; and if sociable people made an attempt to understand how it feels to have social anxiety, both would be seen in less negative lights. I would also hope that it meant people like me would stop being labelled as anti-social and judged as rude by others.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Sorry that it turned into a little bit of a rant half way through.

-Hannah. :)