Kindred observations
General comments
novo (SEE): I don't see many prospects for these relations. Each partner inevitably hits the other's most paintful function with their creative one. No matter how you try, both sides suffer equally. Externally such relationship may seem fine, but internally negative attitude accumulates.
LIE-LSE
Anna_27 (LIE): One of my co-workers and friends is my kindred relation, TIM LSE. Since we only work in vicinity of each other, we don't stress each other too much. But one time we had to make a trip together, and I almost went crazy feeling angry. I don't tolerate her well in large doses. There is mutual understanding over principles, but from time to time there is also animosity and misunderstandings between us. Kindreds. That says it all. We can unite and work together well against an external threat (don't touch our people), but between ourselves we can also fight. The unity doesn't last long. I would never agree to live in the same apartment with her as I feel that she would drive me crazy.
EII-ESI
Margie (ESI): I haven't been in close relationships with EIIs, but as friends and co-workers - these relations feel very strained. My EII friends are wonderful, very intelligent and kind people, but I constantly have a feeling that my presence makes them tense (either I pressure them somehow, or maybe it's not very interesting for them to be around me). Meanwhile, they won't speak a word to me about this and under any circumstance. They continue being nice and pretending that everything is fine and we're good friends. Our relations look much better from the outside. The tension probably arises from contacts made to painful functions - the EIIs try to avoid Se directness, and instead try to Ne-talk around the problem and open up other options before me. In my ESI mind this seems as if the EII is trying to make me withdraw, to step back from what I'm doing.
When I had an EII boss at work, I could never tell whether I was doing something wrong, or whether it was his problems. It was impossible to receive clear, concrete instructions from him - "well may be this is so, and so, and this, and that .." - as a result, I often felt like I was reinventing the wheel at work.
Gabriel (ESI): I have a friend of type EII, almost a classical representative of this type. My own type is ESI. We have been close friends for a year, and now we're on the brink of a major conflict. This is how I see things from my end:
- I don't understand his hints and insinuations. I don't understand what he means. EII lacks in directness and never stops at one conclusion.
- My EII friend wants me to discuss my feelings and relationships with him, to openly tell him about everything, analyze it together with him in great detail, which makes me feel nervous because I don't like having such conversations. I am very mistrustful and don't like talking about my personal life with other people. When somebody goes around poking and prodding, and expects me to share what's going on in my life, my first thought is: "Why do they need this?" I open up when I feel the desire to do so. But if somebody tries to "climb into my soul", all my internal doors slam shut and I immediately become suspicious of the person.
- He is always willing to be there, to listen, to talk, to help. While I am not always so responsive. Because of this, some of our friends will practically "sit on his neck", and right now I lean towards believing that this is how he likes it. However, I feel uneasy when I see that one person is expending himself without much reciprocity. I try to teach our friends to act otherwise, but he undermines my efforts with his all-encompassing kindness. Here our approaches conflict.
- The EII will say admiring and supportive things to complete strangers, and make general positive statements that don't seem to address any one person. This leaves me uncertain of my own personal value to him.
- Especially problematic are situations when I need his support, while he seemingly lends his support to everyone. He supports everybody, but in actuality - nobody. If he openly told me "I'm not supporting you, because I think you're in the wrong" or "I'd like to help you, but I cannot" - this I would understand. But his position is "I will participate for everyone", which I often interpret as a betrayal. He often takes the middle ground, as if he is trying to mediate between conflicting parties, which is upsetting for me when I'm one of these parties. Instead clearly showing whom he is backing, he slightly props everyone.
- Despite the complexity of the situation, this EII guy will try to take up a middle position and doesn't step aside. It is as if he thinks himself a great psychologist who is working on untangling and resolving all such difficult situations, by which he simply kills my own efforts.
- I don't feel like I need his help in some situations, yet he persistently "inserts" himself into my personal life and affairs even though I haven't asked for this - sometimes he is overly intrusive.
I also tend to strain him. By my directness, sharpness, and who knows what else because he keeps silent or says sweet things and pretends like everything is fine between us. The result: tension and misunderstandings. In general, the feeling that I get from this interaction is that I always have to hide my claws and my "sharp edges" and put on velvet gloves, which is difficult and isn't me. While he sincerely believes that I am just as cute and sweet as he is, and treats me with even more gentleness. I don't understand when he is offended - and when he isn't ... I simply don't understand what he is doing!
BiJou (EII): Kindred relations are a mixed bag, perhaps because the creative function that falls on kindred's most painful spot is the most conscious one in TIM's model (base function as taken as something granted, it's not as sensitive). Thus, there is non-acceptance of the person. My relationship with an ESI is good only if I respect that individual. If not - there is immediate antipathy and dislike. Moreover, I can almost always clearly explain what "bad traits" I see in them. This isn't the same around people of other TIMs - I may not completely respect the person but somehow accept and tolerate them ... For example I stopped respecting an ESI colleague because while he was showing me the ropes at a new job, he very arrogantly started nitpicking at the width of tables in my report, and similar things. It was very off-putting to me how he was trying to self-assert at my expense. Later, I've also noticed that he attempts to shift his incomplete work onto the shoulders of his co-workers in a rather sly way - he will try to "saddle" them with his own workload by volitional pressure: "Julia! You go and do this." while he doesn't have any rights nor authority to it. I also considered him to be not very bright, yet self-important. Apparently, I have annoyed him, too, by interrupting and disagreeing with his narrow "moral" evaluations of other people by pointing out that any action committed by a person has complicated motives and causes, or sometimes by contradicting his ethical estimates by saying that I liked a person that he disliked. Or perhaps I have annoyed him because I rarely gave him definitive answers, and in general avoided his company, almost ignored him. This is how things have unfolded between us. But these are more rare cases. In general, my interactions with ESIs have always been decent, although I've never been very close with a person of this type. For the most part, I've met intelligent and worthy representatives. Though, sometimes tensions can arise over some details, even on the background of mutual respect; and this prevents us from getting closer to one another.
IEI-ILI
Darya Dyukareva (IEI): Balzac and Esenin are not a pair. You're watching a beautiful movie - he poops on it. You're admiring an autumn landscape - he'll for sure tell you that you're so much like a rainbow. For certain will tell about his plans on how I could be making more money (for Yesenin, heh). You'll never be his ideal. There will always be many other people around you, and other beautiful women. Thus, go to training, go to the gym, go parachute jumping, etc. and etc. in the end there's no result, a waste of time for nothing. Don't get fooled by ILI's coldness and mystery. Underneath there isn't anything else hiding other than the same coldness and mystery. So it will be all your life. For one person to love for two is difficult.
Ernest (ILI): Don't try it. At the beginning it's charming and nice, but later ... Then, the ILI will have to command the IEI, while the ILI doesn't know how to do this (he himself is waiting for someone to command him ... SEE is needed). The IEI did not consider me to be a man. I didn't take her in by willpower. She thought I didn't love her. Run immediately from such relationships - this would be better for everyone.
Maria (IEI): With ILI it was like in the crypt, with a perceptible scent of decay. He has confused me in appearance for an SEE, proceeded to charm and fascinate me, and started playing their favorite game of "freeze - unfreeze" with my emotions, and then the true waspish sarcastic ILI broke out ... The degree of his biting remarks increased accordingly to the increase in my patience - he was, as if, provoking me to a scandal. Fine, if he had taunted me constructively, but he simply practiced his wit on me. Well, I had enough after a month. I politely put an end to it and sailed away.
Evelina (ILI): The inactivity of IEIs didn't especially worry me. This is because I never fell for one. IEIs are too sincere, too open, at the stage when it is absolutely unnecessary, i.e. when it's needed to charm and interest, that is, to play with wit, with your mind, while they begin to bare their souls, or at least such was my impression. My reaction to this - "what does he need from me?" They don't keep distance, and sometimes are too intrusive in their attempts to get some emotional feedback. There is too much pathos in IEIs, which in itself isn't bad, and in a girl this can be charming, but for a guy this doesn't look manly, which negatively impacts the impressions created during initial acquaintance. And, excuse me, the complaining and the whining. This is also off-putting, as I don't find a wish to help and console a person who's not very close to me. If the IEI starts complaining, this is the last straw.
Lyudmila (IEI): I have a friend of type ILI, and father-Balzac. With my friend of type ILI we have lived together for half a year (rented an apartment), but we personally never really got very close, there's always some distance, although I enjoy meeting up with her once every couple weeks. With my father - total shutdown, it was very difficult to live under the same roof with a complete stranger, and I always had a feeling that the opinion of the first person he met on the street was more important to him than mine.
Irina (IEI): Relations with an ILI haven't turned into sincere deep friendship, but his intellectual capacity and philosophico-cynical outlook on life have endlessly fascinated and captivated me. One of my female acquaintances of type ILI is a remarkable person. She is wise and sarcastic - anyone could wish to be like this. I sincerely admire her.
Irina (IEI): Balzac is a quiet horror. At the beginning it seems: What a charming and pleasant person. Wow - He's so intelligent, and interesting. Then you begin to communicate more closely and this ideal shatters within a couple of months. His negatives would drive me crazy - how is it possible for someone to be such a pessimist? His logic turned out to be boring, and making decisions for himself he couldn't accept. Imagine what happens when the IEI has to decide for two people? At times I enjoyed taking care of him, but I also wanted to be cared for. The only positive moment of these relations was that I became more appreciative of "black sensing" Se.
Cosy (IEI): IEIs hate processes! Especially work-related ones. The most important point for an IEI - is the result. I don't see meaning in activities that don't have an end result in sight. While for ILIs, their essence is that they like to converse about the process, the activity itself: how to go about getting a job, how to earn money, how to materially set up the whole country ... Of course ILIs do value their results, but when they start talking about it, everything again shifts to the process. Why talk about this? This is obvious at an intuitive level...
- [note: Here, the difference in Process/Result trait of these two types, their differing ways of processing information and starting on a project, is evident.]
Cosy (IEI): I don't know about romantic relationships, but I had one very close person of type ILI. When I read the discussion subtitle "what to do that would be good for him", I realized that all this time I have been doing "what is good for both of us" but received no response. There were no attempts from the other side, and it feels like I was alone in trying. So there is that feeling with ILIs that you're knocking on a closed door, that they aren't going to open for you even slightly. On the other hand - I am that same closed door, while in a romantic couple as least someone should be "an open window". What has upset and frustrated me in ILIs was a certain sense of fatality. There was a feeling that he won't fight for anything, but simply accept it as it is. He won't try to hold you, to keep you. If you want - be next to him, don't want - leave. I need to be sought, won over, sometimes I need some harshness even aggression, some pressure, a drive. Don't wait for this from ILIs. They are democratic through and through (even not in the sense of socionics), and their endurance and behavior in manner of "I'm not holding you" eventually you begin to interpret as indifference.
friedice(ILI): Once I was in the situation described above. I have also told her: "if you want to - leave". But my motives were different. I felt insincerity in her. It was clear that she didn't want to leave, that she wanted something else, which she wouldn't openly say. I took her words as attempts at coarse manipulation and blackmail, which always annoys me. Better leave now, than live in confinement. Thus, by mistake, you can build additional walls with such words.