When compatibility is not enough (an ENFP x INTJ typological love story)
She stepped into the stranger’s car and they sped off towards Malibu. Because he doesn’t drink. And he didn’t want the typical first date. “You just want everything on your own terms, don’t you?” “Oh, you have no idea.”
She kept telling him about her extraordinary experiences and he keeps putting a frame of scientific language around them until she said…stop. You don’t have to accept my experiences, but don’t try to contain or reduce them. He felt silent and in the space of that silence she felt how desperate he is to believe everything she’s saying. There was a push and a pull. A complementary way of thinking. They drove beyond Malibu and got out to look at the stars and the waves dashing the rocks. He told her about his ridiculous experiments in minimalism, where he kept taking stuff away from his life until it broke him. That’s so dumb and so beautiful, she said. He said he thinks about going into the woods and living as some kind of neo hunter-gatherer all the time. I understand the impulse, she said. Modernity does push us into this life of meaningless desperation. But it IS our reality and running away from it is futile and ultimately very artificial. Then they talked about whether it’s possible for any individual to be self-actualized without society being self-actualized in some way already. They both spent most of their twenties in a dead-end relationship and most of their thirties thus far single.
I thought I’d just be single forever, he said, but I’ve come around to just how good love feels. Too many people look for a lifetime of commitment when they can’t even be committed to the moment, she said, isn’t it beautiful to just keep choosing each other for as long as we can?
“But then how can you ever be secure?”
“Are any of us ever really secure?”
“I guess I just proved your point.”
She was so sure after that night, even though they haven’t as much as kissed, that she was in love. She made soup and baked bread for their second date. He shoved the food thoughtlessly into his mouth. “It’s good,” he said distractedly, before launching into a bitter, misanthropic diatribe that seemingly came out of nowhere. “If I actually cared about humanity,” he said finally, “I’d probably work on software that would solve the healthcare problem. But I don’t.” Chilled to the core, for once she didn’t know what to say. The evening ended with her showing him the door. “Please leave so I can stew in my own disappointment.”
That was that. Except she somehow couldn’t stop texting him. And he couldn’t stop texting back. She feels an expectant rush every time her phone dinged. “People like you, don’t they. They don’t like me.” “They all like me, but they don’t get me.” Once in a while, one of them would push to meet again, which would make the other one all squirrelly and distant. They took turns doing this. This is exhausting, she thought. I need to stop.
She met the ESTJ at a French bistro for their first date. They clinked their their glasses and picked at a cheese plate. He’s a manager at a French international company. He showed her the two cell phones he has with him at all times. This one is my tether, he said. I have to stay available in multiple time zones. The conversation flowed carried along by a scintillating stream of bubbly. “You’re so free,” he said. “You’re so stable,” she replied. Oh but nothing is more exhilarating than freedom. Ah, but after a while, nothing feels better than stability. His friends doesn’t like it that he’s been single for so long, he said, a single man feels out of place when everybody else is coupled up. He insisted on getting the check, and making a stupid detour on his Uber so he could drop her off at her doorstep.
Later that night the phone dinged and she felt the familiar lurch. It was the ESTJ. Texting like the gentleman he is. When can he see her again? She tried to push down her disappointment. Of course the INTJ won’t text her first. Not when she has been cold to him. That’s not how it works. She imagined herself at a party with the ESTJ and all his friends in coupley-couples, the ripples of well-to-do laughter. Wouldn’t it be nice if she could be free enough and he could be stable enough for the both of them? But that’s not how how it works either.
