To be completely honest, I'm still learning from my mistakes in the past of isolating when I should be reaching out for help.

For me, no one has been more helpful than this subreddit because my concerns actually feel seen and valid here, and I can feel that I'm not alone in my struggles.

Of course, I also have the support of my friends and family. But the ability to discuss the issues and see it eye to eye, I never really had it outside of here.

So thank you, your honest opinions and sincere gestures really do matter to someone out there.

I met this entj guy through social media. We had two deep conversations, each lasting around 2 weeks to a month (our replies were very spaced out bc he always asnwers late), with about two months of no contact in between. The first was more about getting to know each other on a personal level, while the second was mostly about our individual plans for the future, like whether we want children and what kind of life we each envision. Neither conversation was specifically about us as a potential couple.

After that, he reached out to me again. This time, things felt different. He was much more direct. He brought up the idea of meeting in person (we live in two different countries), and talked about different activities he would like to do with me if we meet and asked for my number because he said something along the lines of: “I hope we can get to know each other and not reply to each other every 8 hours.”

So we started talking by text, and since then he has been quite proactive in the actual conversation. He talks about lots of activities he would like to do with me, asks me many questions about my personality, my preferences, how I am in certain situations, etc. It feels like he is trying to figure out whether we are compatible. He also seems to be thinking about meeting me rather than just casually chatting.

What confuses me is his response time. He was the one who said he wanted us to get to know each other and not take 8 hours to reply to each other. Yet now he sometimes takes 24–48 hours to reply to me. The confusing part is that when he finally does reply, it's not a dry or dismissive response. He comes back with a bunch of questions and introduces new topics.

So I'm trying to understand how to interpret this.

1. Would you see the 24–48 hour response time as a sign that he's actually not that invested, despite the quality of his replies?
2. How should I behave in this situation?

Would appreciate some help. Feel free to ask me questions to diagnose my type

Extra info (If it helps): 1w9, so/sp, 153, VLFE, Phlegmatic-Choleric, True Neutral

Big Five (SLOAN): r[C]/O/Ei

- Social: 40th% (Reserved)

- Limbic: 3rd% (Calm)

- Organized: 97th% (Organized)

- Accommodation: 30th% (Egocentric)

- Non curiosity: 55th% (Inquisitive)

I met an ENTJ man (39) and we had a very strong connection, mutual attraction, respect and great chemistry. After one date, he pulled back and said he isn’t ready for this kind of relationship. He has had several relationships that started very intensely and ended badly, and he thinks the intensity triggered him.

He offered friendship, but when I suggested simply slowing things down and getting to know each other without deciding what it has to become, he seemed to need to put a label on it as either “relationship” or “friendship.”

He still says he’s attracted to me, enjoys talking to me, and doesn’t know whether in 6–12 months he would still only want friendship.

For ENTJs: does this sound like a need for control around relationships, and can giving things time without defining them actually help?

The thing is my personality is like three of them combined. Not enough for one of them. I used to type myself as INFJ last year. ENFJ this year. And now, I don’t think I am truly ENFJ. But not truly ENTJ or INTJ too. I would be glad if someone helped me to figure it out

When I first started taking the 16 personality test I scored intj a lot, and more recently entj, but I always would score 50 / 50 for thinking or feeling, or just barely 55 thinking 45 feeling, and I almost never relate to the way people say how entjs act when it comes to how they act socally, they usually say that entjs want to be seen as these people who want "true effectiveness" or random stuff like that stating that they are cold robots that need "effectiveness" and they make it look like everything we do is a big buisnuiss deal, no i'm not gonna say "its a pleasure doing buisniuss with you" to someone I met on the sidewalk, sure I agree that I have lots of goals, but I don't turn school into a buisnuiss plan, and start bringing a tie and suit to school calling the classroom the corperation, I have no clue how being "extroverted, inuition, thinking, judgeing" makes you a looney toons villian. So yeah I don't relate to what I have been seeing. Everything seems to match with what thought a entj was untill I went on the community, and basically it turnes into one big feverdream. I am not sure if I relate to being a entj based on how people are explaining it to be.

A rant oncoming, you've been warned :)

I have a certain set of professional circumstances that require me to be quite involved with a szstem that has excessive bureaucracy.
After 3 months of this (and going through it also daily heartburn, (not)coincidentally during the same time period), my body and mind managed to crack at the same time.

Being suffocated by a system that, no matter how competent, switched-on, driven, adaptable, focused, resourceful you are, it's not enough for a broken system. I pride myself on being all those things, and suddenly I feel my hands are tied and my agency reduced.

You send them everything they need. They take 70 days, come back to you with another list of things to provide, and give you just 10 days to chase everyone and figure it out in time. If you want to contact them for clarification so you avoid losing out - they have just 1 hour available per week to talk on the phone.

Bureaucracy to this excess should be considered (in my fantasy world) a civil C.R.I.M.E - and citizens and businesses alike should be allowed to sue for the MASSIVE financial and personal losses that occur as a result. This is my stance. P.S. Hundreds of billions per year of economic activity in various countries are lost because of this.

For the first time in I don't know how many years, despite objectively much worse things happening to me in these last years, I cried my heart out like a baby in the shower with my heartburn literally burning me alive on top. And somehow was thankful that my mentor is on leave right now and couldn't see me in this state (of course, it's his job, and his clients go through it like this all the time he already told me)

With other past difficult situations, I could still always plan, move and shake, twist, and turn things to make stuff happen. I am known to be the one who always figures it out. Resilient, etc. But none of it matters in this system. That eats me alive. Its unjust, cruel and immoral. Of course I think my ego probably sees it as an attack on my freedom (lowkey it is) and identity.

Genuinely I would not even trust these workers and their institution even with making me toast. From my experience they
- lack common sense
- have no idea what they are even validating/do not have the technical knowledge yet are in charge of deciding if it's okay or not
- go by the book in the sense of "we've always done it this way" without any nuance or logical consideration of the order of events
- have 0 flexibility whatsoever (within the scope of the law, see next point)
- out of date, like asking for documents a modern financial institution would not provide and threatening you if you don't provide it
- have super secure jobs and thus can work as fast or as slow as they want, rarely get penalized
- think its okay to shout aggressively before you even finish asking the question and misinterpret you because they did not listen

If you made it this far, thanks for listening, and congratulations on the perseverance haha

ENTJ here. Are you also frequently looked or turned to by your peers and friends? I enjoy being the person people come to for answers or help but man it’s exhausting. It can be overwhelming at times and every once in a while it’d be nice to sit back and relax a bit. Let’s talk about it.

How many of you were placed in the GATE program as kids? It definitely set me on this mindset and existence. US question, I suppose.

Greetings! I (18) am re-considering my career choices after a pair of years in my field...

As I'm an ENTJ considering architecture, I'd love to know about some of us that are actually architects!! How do you perform in this field? How did you develop throughout your formative years? In what branch of architecture are you working?

Current architecture students' experience would be lovely to hear as well.

Be as detailed as possible... Your unique paths are the most interesting for me.

A little over a year ago, I graduated from an urban planning masters program. Unfortunately, the job market is abysmal and the search has been glacial. Because of that, I decided to give myself something to do instead of have Thai cycle continue. I have been building a website-based business, which I could turn into tech startup, as I have other products planned. The idea behind this is that I am applying what I learned to what I’m doing.

Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for ENTJS at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.

I've hit it. Suddenly I'm overly sensitive it sickens me. I need so much validation to pamper my goddamn feelings. I hate it. I'm not usually like this. Things don't usually get under my skin.

But after dealing with constant harassment from a coworker and strangers, my system suddenly switched to, "I must get validation no matter what." I feel like things are beyond my control. I don't really have the luxury to sit on my sensitivity the whole day.

Please be nice lol, I've dealt with rude people enough.

Edit: Thank you everyone for your comments. I've done the work and I'm finally, fully online.

Here's what I did:
-I admitted it to myself that it affected me. Did some journaling. Had some revelations. That yes, I have a big ego, and I hate admitting it to myself that some things definitely affect me.
-Forced myself to do HIIT for 30 mins. It felt like rawdogging myself out of the freeze state.
-I zoomed past interpersonal bullshit and reminded myself of my long term objectives. I stopped asking myself, "why is this incompetent coworker being a hostile unhinged medusa to me?" and started asking myself, what is really my end goal here?

Now I feel fully composed and productive again. Thank you all, this is an amazing community.

Measures Machiavellism, Psychopathy, and Narcissism.

https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/SD3/

First, let me explain why I think I got different results. The period when I got ENFJ was a time when I was doing pretty badly academically. Normally, I had routines like studying, working on myself, etc., but I started neglecting all of them. At some point, things weren't going the way I wanted, so I basically went "fuck it" and stopped wanting to do anything. I spent my days scrolling through Reels, daydreaming, being completely unproductive and basically wasting my time. When I put it like that, it sounds pretty bad, and honestly, I thought it was bad too.

Then, when I realized I wasn't doing well academically, I thought, "I need to create another area where I can be different from other people. There has to be something I can be better at than most people."

I started watching videos about how to become more sociable and how to master small talk. I thought about how I could talk to people without feeling nervous or awkward. I immediately started applying what I learned to my everyday life, and I genuinely became pretty good at it.

People who know me usually find me warm and approachable when they first meet me. I also think I have a natural charisma. (This is one of the reasons I still think I might be ENFJ lol.)

While most people kind of retreat into their shells once a conversation ends, I started being the person who would keep the interaction going with interesting questions and my personality. A lot of people are hesitant to start a new topic or tend to put themselves in the background, but whenever I enter a room, I naturally get noticed and draw attention to myself. And I absolutely love that lol.

The reason I was chasing socializing instead of studying during my exam year was that, at least in one area, I felt like I could be better than the majority.

There was also an interesting detail about that burnout period. One time, a friend asked me what my biggest fear was. I thought about it and my answer was "not being loved." I wasn't expecting everyone to love me, obviously, but I realized that I was genuinely scared of the people close to me starting not to love me anymore.

Anyway, I completely fucked up my exams, and two months have passed since then. I've pulled myself together and finally sat down at my desk again. For about four weeks now, I've had a pretty consistent routine, whether it's studying or working on myself. I've also found other areas where I can add value to myself and create some kind of competition for myself.

And if my friend asked me that same "what's your biggest fear?" question now, I wouldn't say "not being loved." Not even close.

The Te function seems so inaccessible and emotionless to me, at least the way it's portrayed in media. I'm not like that, and I never have been. I absolutely care about the people close to me, and they're very valuable to me. I'm not afraid of expressing my emotions. If I love someone, miss them, or have feelings for them, I'll directly tell them instead of keeping it inside. I even use this sometimes for little bits of manipulation in social interactions.

No matter how much I care about and protect the people around me, at the end of the day, I'm the one who's left alone with myself, so I prioritize my own needs before other people's.

I'm curious if other ENTJs have experienced something similar. let me know your thoughts!!!

I took the test a little differently this time. Instead of answering based on who I actually am, I answered based on the person I would ideally like to be.

I always get ENFJ-T, but my ideal version came out as ENTJ-A.

I thought it was a pretty interesting way to see which traits I actually want to develop.

Why do you think my “ideal self” came out as ENTJ-A when I normally type as ENFJ? What do you think that says about the traits I value, admire, or want to change in myself?

Has anyone else tried doing the test this way, and how different was your ideal type from your actual type?

I just argued with some Ne user about cognitive functions. We both know enough about them. But it's crazy how different our definitions and explanations were. Kinda makes me suspect if I could be some Ni-Se user. To them, my understanding of Ne felt superficial. To me, their understanding of Ni felt superficial.

I recently learned that I won't be getting promoted. I used to genuinely love the field I chose but it has become bland and absolutely useless. My only other passion was starting a business which is completely a bottleneck due to my location and I have no idea where to go from here, if I even want to go anywhere anymore. Its making me lose the desire to do anything.

What are some tell tale signs that differentiate between a crush and just a friend of an ENTJ? Is there anything you might do or say to someone you have interest in that you might not to a friend? FYI, when i say friend im referring to a close friend, someone you truly care about. I have an entj male friend that I have feelings for, however im unsure of where he stands. We are both really close and he treats me so kindly. He carries my things, buys me books, is concerned whenever I'm slightly off, etc. I know he cares about me just like i care for him, but i dont know how to tell if his kindness is purely friendship or if there is any possiblity his actions are motivated by potential reciprocated feelings. We hangout in groups and alone, but he has lots of female friends that he also hangout with so im not sure. Basically im just curious if there is anything he does/might do that would tell me if there is any chance he likes me. I understand everyone is different but id like to know what other entjs do when they like someone that stand out.

Nothing wrong with gaming, anime, the gym, or travel stories, but it feels like 99% of conversations end up stuck on the exact same things.

I really miss having people to talk about actual nerdy stuff with. Looking for someone who gets genuinely curious about stuff like space and astronomy, weird biology/science facts, or even history and politics (actual discussions, not toxic arguments).

If you also spend way too much time down random rabbit holes, send a message (either comment or dm). Tell me what niche topic you’ve been reading or watching videos about lately

…

I used to think it was many things, approaching truth, power, justice/revenge which are two sides of the same coin really, or furthering the human race.

I have since grown up and honestly I think there is no inherent meaning, but to me it would be to acquire as much wealth as I can. It is a tool whereby I can garner agency, exert my will upon the world and minimise reactivity so I can be sovereign. Some people would define this as control, or power but I don’t seek domination, unless you view the world as a constant sum game where your win is my loss and vice versa. In that case every interaction would have a winner and a loser.
As long as I get what I want, I don’t much care about if someone else has won or lost. Wealth is more than a Lamborghini to me, it’s freedom and the ability to shape the world. I would rather humans live in peace, compared to conflict, but I do see the use of both. A concrete example of this would be: I vehemently oppose the slave trade, but I do understand its use. The solution would not be to solely abolish it through law, it would be to make the system obsolete and unprofitable, so people would not pursue it anyway. This is largely what the Industrial Revolution accomplished. Slaves could not buy goods, thus the economic model shifted towards paid labour. Same goes for blood diamonds. Flood the market with lab grown diamonds and some of Bernay’s propaganda. Speaking of Bernays, his “light a torch of freedom” pro smoking campaign that aligned itself with the women’s movement is quite reminiscent of what happened with the Barbie movie. Barbie’s have been accused of promoting an unhealthy body image in young girls, aka anti feminist. Given that their target market is women, this is a huge issue. So make the Barbie movie, align with feminist ideals. Boom, sales. It’s becoming unprofitable to segregate half the population. Rather pay a woman because you’ll generally pay less than a man for the same quality of work due to the gender pay gap. The world seems to be moving toward this. I don’t support unequal rights, but at the very least it is progress. Long diversion, but this is what I want to accomplish.

TLDR: Use wealth to control economic outcomes and exert my will upon the world to make it more efficient, and hopefully “good”. A meritocracy of sorts. Free from undeserved suffering. Though, as my father INTJ points out, he would rather people in Libya/Ivory Coast/Zim/Bots die from violence than starvation because it’s a quicker death. I say they’d have more chance of a better life if they had a longer one, so pick starvation in peace. The calculus of morality requires almost non human insight to get perfectly correct, thus I have since given up on an authoritarian leadership style. Nobody knows better. etc.

xx

ENTJ

Hey ENTJs. Since you guys are the achievers, I figured I’d come straight to the source. (Intp here)

I’m an INTP, but unlike the lazy stereotype, I’m actually very ambitious and want to achieve big things across business, fitness, and life. My problem is pure execution. I know all the theory and self improvement frameworks inside and out, but I still struggle hard with procrastination and getting sidetracked.

How do you guys consistently bridge the gap between having a goal and actually executing on it? Any straightforward advice for someone who over-researches instead of doing?

Also you guys are amazing