***Updated 22/02/17***

Not sure when valentines day was but I’m certain that it has passed so…here’s to a new post that is somewhat coinciding with the theme of valentines day.

REASONS WHY INTJs ARE SINGLE

Lets’ go.

Before we start, this post will feel like a merge between what my normal INTJ article ‘sounds’ like and what my diary consists of. 100% of what you are going to read are heavily influenced by my brain/ opinions and not much based on research whereas my other articles are 100% my brain content and about 30 – 40% research.

Feel free to add or critically critique my content in the comments section below if they didn’t do your INTJ brain any justice!

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So, why are INTJs single and why do INTJs find themselves single.

First off, we don’t like or prefer people, neither do we actively make ourselves like people unless circumstances tries to make us otherwise (e.g group projects and team work related commitments).

Do you know how hard it is to try and give a damn about strangers when you generally don’t care? Because to us, everyone are just horizontal walking meaty flesh in fabrics; it’s not easy to pick out one that we hate the least when we are not even bothered or have no reason to glance up at anyone in the first place.

On a serious note, besides the above, one of the main reasons that we are single is because our standards…

(*are #grammarnazi)

~ Standards: Our impeccably high standards is one of the forefront as to why we are single, it’s also, rightfully justified. Hear me out, we are not perfect of course, gosh no, however, the standards that we have in place is high because we know that we can turn our standards into reality. Since we know that our standards are doable (because we are acting on them), it means that we want the same in return, or at least 90% of our standards. INTJs that understands and knows how a relationship ‘should’ work and knows what they want in a relationship will have a standard that is so much more impenetrable, rightfully implemented and unbreakable.

If you were wondering what makes our standards so high and what you should do to get ‘ranked’ up that high…well, you shouldn’t force yourself into our standards by being someone else other than yourself. Nonetheless, I will enlighten you a little bit in the next bullet point.

First off though, I must explain that ‘standards’ and ‘actions’ are two different things:

• Standards are what we want a individual to have in regards to their personality (sometimes physical appearances too). For example, someone has to be understanding, accepting, maybe just as weird as us, patient and open-minded etc.
• Actions is what we both do during the relationship to make it special and stronger.

As for the actions, it’s really nothing that special, yet what we want is rare because not many people do what we can see ourselves doing…or at least implement actions to suggest what a relationship should really be like. If it helps, I’d like to think that when you look at INTJs in love and seeing them interacting with their significant other, you believe in true love and that it exists right before your eyes – that what you are witnessing is magic between two individuals.

Some random examples that I can think of as an action of love and endearment is seriously just generic stuff that most people don’t do or easily overlook, for example:

• Looking at your partner lovingly and not at your phone – staring into each others souls;
• Poke fun at each other without anyone getting upset – for example, the amount of time girls get annoyed that their guys tell them that their butt looks big…*facepalm*. Honestly, it just sounds like a compliment to me, like “guuuurl, your butt looks good, what’s there to be annoyed about?, you have a nice a$$, rejoice!”;
• Understanding where the other person is coming from through communication without getting offended or highly irritated – which can be a smooth ride if you are patient with us and not get annoyed with our “ers” and “ummms” – you know we’ll be patient with you too;
• Sharing thoughts and connecting with each others thoughts, adding to the thoughts, playing around with ideas and making up a crazy hypothetical fantasy with each others minds – do you know how fun that is?;
• Being comfortable in silence, doing our own thing or doing/ experiencing something together – I think that you can always find anyone to do stuff with, but you can’t find someone to do nothing with – crazy right?;
• Breaking out in a random match of word association game or grabbing the nearest book/ dictionary and opening it at a random page, pointing at a word and turning that word into an insult against your significant other (for mutual fun);
• Respecting and understanding each others alone time without getting offended or feeling like you did something wrong and now you are clingy as duck;
• Surprising the significant other by buying them their favorite food out of the blue or just randomly hugging them and telling them that you love them out of pure endearment for them, their smile, their soul and for just being here;
• Doing things that you want to and not because you have to or feel the need to reciprocate.

This list is just an example, individual INTJs have their own standards, sometimes, it’s not even a list, it’s a whole mesh of ideals.

Anyways, you see, the above are just simple things that what relationships should have, but instead, these days people are making the above a rarity. Since our standards (which should really be the norm) is so ‘high’, we don’t tend to have expectations, even if we do, we squash them very quickly as to not get disappointed; so this is why we have standards instead. Think of it as our standards being the uncompromising version of expectations; these standards won’t go and will not be swayed or lowered whereas expectations are easily mitigated and overruled – nah, not our standards.

Of course though, you don’t have to carry out everything on the INTJs actions list if they do have one, it’s not a deal breaker if you just achieve 50% of it. We probably consider someone awesome it they just carry out 10% of it.

***Personally, if we ignore the actions, in general, I have very high standards and if even one person can crawl into the 80% benchmark then I see no reason as to lower my standards because I know that my standards can be met – plus, I was not going to lower it to begin with.***

To an extent, our standards are so high that we can come to subconsciously accept that in our life time, we are going to be on our own for a long time, or for the rest of our life…

…and you know, most of us are okay with this, even if we don’t 100% choose this outcome (you’ll see why later). It can be said that our standards, to an extent, makes us stop looking for someone (not that we were looking to begin with – some do though of course) and we have accepted that what we imagine and fantasize will only stay in our heads and not be made a reality. With maturity, ironically, our standards won’t be compromised that much more just because we know who we are and what we want and deserve. We have a lot of love to give and we want to understand that you too are capable of such love that is on another level, equal to ours.

We, INTJs, want someone at least our equal as well as also wanting to know and understand that we are what this person is looking for too; that it is not all one sided. Again, although what we want is actually realistic and what should be the norm, it is not and so our standards will seem exceptionally high, especially when not many people are of our equal in mindset.

~ Future foresight: Sometimes, I dislike this ‘future foresight power’ that we have, I just want to be mentally blind and just go with the flow. So, for those who doesn’t know, ‘future foresight’ to an INTJ means that we are able to predict multiple events that can unfold depending on the present and past action that is implemented or going to be implemented. Yes, our future foresight isn’t just active at work or during our daily lives; when it comes to possible relationships, our future foresight kicks in too.

Our future foresight is a mix of intuitive knowing and sixth sense (maybe the last part is just me). Nonetheless, our future foresight and intuitive knowing helps us to ‘just know’ that someone isn’t ‘the one’.

How? Well, with everything, we tend to over analyse before making a decision; in regards to other people, we simply gain information about you and try to ‘figure’ you out before we feel anything. Facts before feels. Brain before heart.

Slightly off topic, in reality, when friends tell us that someone or a random stranger is ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’, we,  INTJs are over here either not giving a crap, not looking or just respond with a generic…”yeah” (please notice how unenthusiastic our voices can be…unless we are mirroring your moods).

Appearances really don’t capture much of our attention or make us think twice about you. What gets us interested is when you actually show a genuine interest in wanting to understand us; that it’s not out of common courtesy. Actually, scrap that, we are not going to divulge ourselves to you so the other things that possibly piques our interest is:

• When you have something interesting to say (‘interesting’ is defined differently so good luck with finding out how you can capture an INTJs attention with nothing to go off on);
• You are just having fun cracking a few jokes here and there;
• If you have a nice laugh,
• Smell nice – naturally or artificially

The above may make us do a quick glance at you. Afterwards, what keeps us engaged is another thing. Okay yes, the list was terrible, I’m clutching at straws besides the first accurate point.

Okay, back on topic, our future foresight relies on how your personality is, what is in your brain, what you say and how you treat others amongst other variables regarding your personality – this helps us to weigh out compatibility factors between you and us. For example, the following listed characteristics are some points that most INTJs would not want to share a future with:

• Right of the bat you are too touchy feely – don’t be touching us like we gave you permission;
• Someone who come across as needy, clingy and that they needs words of affirmation all the time;
• When someone has no ambition, drive or goals – if you don’t know at least 40% of what you want to do then we can’t try to fit into your life or fit you into ours if we have nothing to work with, let alone become besotted with feelings for you – we’re not asking for your plans to be set in stone either, just having an idea is a good start;
• Doesn’t think about the future and only focuses on the now – which is good and all, but we would rather someone who can pay attention to the result of their decisions;
• When someone retains a form of naivety and innocence that is too much to handle – for example, when someone thinks that the world is just rainbows and sunshine and that there is no evil in this world….(I can’t even, just go away);
• Someone that easily gets offended or doesn’t think before they speak;
• Someone who intentionally start an argument for their one-sided amusement,
• That there is an impure underlying reason for your crush on us – for example, that we are the “rare” INTJs or that you just have a specific preference of ethnicity that you just want to date.

We don’t have to deal with the above when our introverted intuition screams at us that we don’t need to be dealing with you. It’s amazing how our introverted intuition can analyze facts that is your personality and then use our future foresight to push these facts into the future as predictions regarding whether we should emotionally invest in you or not. With these combination, we essentially develop varying perspectives of you and what our possible life together might be like without any excess external information.

You’ll find that some INTJs instantly know whether a relationship can work or not after the first or second interaction with you – our brain works fast with age and it’s great for solving problems, seeing things at critical angles and ‘deducting’ people…in other words, it’s our way of friend zoning you. Hey there sad face, you should know that an INTJ saying that you are their friend is still quite something :)

(smiles)

There is a “down” side though, all this makes us very much single. Sometimes, we can easily get carried away with creating information about you that you have not expressed to us; consequently, our minds can lead us astray into adding information about you. However, more often than not, we would have grasped enough factual information as to how someone works as we age – this is due to our naturally developed ‘Feeling’ trait. With this aspect at our disposal, we can understand and read others accurately; therefore, being led astray by our brain doesn’t happen frequently.

***Side note: Whenever people question me or asks rhetorically how I know someone is not the one, I get silently exasperated or sometimes explain about implementing some form of standards. I really think that our ability to see ourselves as a third-party, topped off with evaluating other people’s personality via different critical perspectives…really helps to pinpoint whether we are compatible or not. For myself and others (whenever they ask me why someone is doing this or that), I tend to find myself highlighting what actions caused the outcome and what ours, yours and their personality could potentially do to create a future outcome. I have come to accept why some people do not understand why something won’t work or what will work or what actions does what, because it’s hard for others to see the ripple effect; that or they willingly wanted to stay ignorant – nothing like waiting for a problem to develop, only to tackle it when it hits you in the balls (said no INTJ ever).***

Nonetheless, another downside to our future forecasting is that we may miss some opportunities to build memories or opportunities to develop ourselves in the relationship area. Despite this, just the knowledge of knowing that something won’t work out in the end saves us possible heart ache and sadness, emotional investment and time wasting – these factors alone is enough to stop us in our tracks and make us re-evaluate you and ourselves, our situation and both of our future prospects. Plus, since we ‘know’ that someone isn’t the one, why would be willingly put ourselves up for months of sadness in return for temporary happiness; what we want is the real thing, we do want to let go and love honestly, but only for the right person. Simply, what we want is something lasting, even after death; we want deep communication and connection, so knowing that someone isn’t capable of this is…not going to make our time worth while, no matter how good the relationship temporarily could have been. Effectively, we are saving ourselves for the best, even if it means being single forever.

Granted, a lot can happen after a number of years and actually, a lot can happen in a minute, in a second and not everything will turn out the way we want – however, 5 years of mutual effort and happiness is better than a future forecast of a possible 1 year relationship.

Interestingly, there is one thing that determines whether we see a future with someone – it is when we want to find a solution for a relationship to move forward positively, that is when we know that someone is worth it; even if reality isn’t working for the both of us. This alone means that we have hit another level of care for you and that we will try and do our utmost best to solve problems to make the relationship prosper.

When we want something to work, we commence to articulate ways and actions that makes sure that the relationship is beneficial to both parties. Very often, when an INTJ is in a relationship, they are more concerned on perfecting the actual relationship itself, instead of being concerned with the individual that we are with; because by this point, we know that you are worth it, we just need to make it work.

As for the problems, I’m not talking about problems that are coming from your personality or our personality because if it was then you’ll know that we won’t begin anything anyway. The problems that I am mainly talking about is caused by outside influences, not problems that we create ourselves.

In hindsight, if we give ourselves excuses to not do something then that is when we know that we are not feeling a strong sense of compatibility towards you. People come and go for the majority of our lives and if we are not bothered that we don’t see you at least twice a year then it’s not meant to be. In our mind anyway.

Hopefully you can now see the reasons why it takes INTJs so long before they become emotionally invested; we don’t want to spend time on someone who we know that we will say goodbye to eventually.

However! I am very aware that some INTJs do have flings and whatnot, you know, the ‘norms’ of a social life, peer pressure and getting into the game to gain experience – especially if they feel the need to develop in certain areas. I ain’t judging, you do you.

Also, for INTJs that have some form of sixth sense, they may find themselves actively avoiding someone when they catch whiff that someones’ intention is to confess their feelings. So being proactive and all, they may avoid the whole scenario altogether as it gets uncomfortable and slightly awkward – especially if they don’t have any feelings towards this person. All the while, preparing for the inevitable whilst wondering how to reject someone.

***Side story: One time, I deliberately didn’t go to a martial arts session because it was a valentine’s day that day (the only time I actually paid attention to valentines day to actively avoid an awkward situation) and I sensed that this one guy in particular was exuding an overwhelming vibe that he needs to tell me something squishy. I found out that my hunch was right at the end of the next session.***

~ Closed book: We stay misunderstood for two reasons, firstly, we don’t care to explain ourselves for various reasons and secondly, nobody tries to understand us (not that we like talking about ourselves deeply in the first place), however, with persistent coaxing, we may open up – be careful though, there is a difference between you coaxing and being annoying. The best way to figure out whether you are bringing us out of our shells nicely or nagging at us to open up is by understanding how much of a ‘bestie‘ you are to us. Even then, it’ll still take time to open us up, or, if you get to experience or hear a certain level of our brain, you’ll end up feeling like we are still keeping secrets. By now, you should know that we are extremely private and will hold back whenever possible as what we truly think can get very complex and hard to explain.

The latter makes people feel frustrated and not be bothered with us anymore…and I wouldn’t blame anyone for giving up, which is why not hinting at our thoughts and not explaining ourselves in the first place is a better option.

As you may have seen from my other posts, our way of thinking is similar to a game of complex hopscotch, with the game twister thrown into the mix, along with other stuff.

We become such a closed book because it’s hard to explain data that has been internalized, categorized and cross-indexed with the result being that we see the interconnections of everything. As a result when we explain or talk, we end up hopping backwards and forwards between topics – our words, explanations and everything becomes very abstract, confusing and random for the listener. In a sense, we have learned to understand that others will be confused with our words and so our expectations of others to understand in minimized.

Furthermore, we feel misunderstood when a situation relies on others to evaluate us – it’s okay though, we’ve come to accept that we are too different – if you haven’t accepted this fact, you will sooner or later.

Now, the above is just us not caring to try anymore, but, when we are in the company of those individuals who wants to listen and understand, then in our minds, we can outweigh the fact that people don’t want to understand us, with, us wanting them to understand us (to an extent of course).

Once we want someone to understand where we are coming from and what our thoughts on something is, we’ll find a way to voice out our opinions with some conviction. I find that sometimes, we don’t explain ourselves to be readily understood by others; this is sometimes intentional but most of the times, we just end up vomiting our brain content in an unintentional mess of words after thinking for ages on how to word out our thoughts correctly and in a linear way that is easy for you to understand whilst reflecting what is happening in our minds.

~ The Wall: Simply put, we’ll show you a deeper version of ourselves if we feel and think that you are worthy, and, that you can ‘handle’ our deeper and complex side. However, if you were to show a fleeting reaction of judgement…we’ll rebuild that wall back up so fast that it’ll be like you never broke it down in the first place. You see, when we do reveal ourselves, we are very weary of how we come across and what we say, so we will detect and read your slightest movements, reactions and hone on into words that you choose to respond with. We are like the Venus flytraps actually, once we let you in once…or a few times, we’ll shut ourselves off if you consistently cannot accept us. Granted, most INTJs may close themselves up for a long time after the first time; therefore excessive chances to open up to you can be rare.

Our wall can definitely get in our way, but it is a defense mechanism that serves us well and prevents us from wasting our time on people that doesn’t deserve us. However, when it gets to a point where we do decide to open up to you, it means we trust you; nonetheless, we’ll still treat you the same as other people, as in, we’ll still recoil and shut down if you flinch at what we say.

~ Obliviousness: It’s true that some INTJs are clueless when it comes to reading signals, it’s just that most of us don’t find the comfort in flirting or feeling the need to flirt. Since we don’t use it ourselves, we can become quite oblivious…or just mark it down as that other person being an exceptionally friendly person WITH EVERYONE. In hindsight, if the INTJ doesn’t know you and you started flirting, the INTJ isn’t going to catch on (unless they have a weird sixth sense going on).

Just some reasons as to why we won’t think much of you or not expect any love interest coming from you:

1. You are still a stranger even if we hung out once or twice
2. We didn’t notice you
3. We don’t care about you like a friend (yet or ever)
4. Question (internally) why you are always talking to us or touching us? You are annoying
5. Question (internally) why are you always around us? You are annoying
6. Why would you like us?

***Side story: I never understand how guys and some girls can ask people out within the space of meeting someone a handful of times or even for just an hour. It baffles me.***

~ Trauma: It’s possible that some INTJs have been through a traumatic experience and don’t want to willingly go through anything similar to that certain experiences again. It doesn’t help that we feel deeply and have emotions that are somewhat uncontrollable (especially in the younger years) – nervous tension and awkwardness before, during and after a date for example is enough to put us off. I have a little tip here though:

• Instead of claiming something as a date, just offer it as a hangout – this helps to alleviate expectations of how the day should go and allows you to be more of yourself than trying to be someone who impresses. Also, when you offer the date as a hangout, you’ll automatically make the other person show their true selves more as you offered a day that is more on a friendship level; therefore, less serious. Basically, you did yourself and them a favor. Good job!

***Side note: It also crushes their hopes of wanting to take things further with you, however, you have left the door open as you didn’t outright reject this person so things can still grow between you and them. Yays.***

~ Emotions: In general, emotions are weird, hard to control, distracting and finicky little things, especially during the early ages of an INTJs life. Emotions will baffle us and sometimes make us feel annoyed or irritated because we don’t know how to respond, but with maturity, emotions are something to be embraced (only with the right individuals though). Most INTJs may find themselves single in order to concentrate on what they want to achieve in life, as well as to avoid of the drama that may come from a relationship.

~ Anti-cupid sites and relationship/ singletons holiday: Okay, it’s not a big surprise that most of us don’t do dating websites (or social media for that matter) and even if we do, majority of us don’t last long on there because we either have something else better to do, lose patience at the whole system or at the people on there, finally questioning why the hell we are on the website for in the first place.

We also don’t pay attention to days like Valentines day or Singletons day (I think I made Singles day up…), nor do we see the novelty in these days. It’s ‘weird’ to treat each other super nicely for one day and then be normal and boring for the rest of the year – it’s much better to make every day special or just treat Valentines day as just another day. Also, we’re not much of a fan of reciprocating presents.

~ Our soul, individuality and independence: Now, after what is written, I have taken everything into account and can say that we actually end up becoming a very wholesome person by ourselves.

We spend time understanding ourselves, introspecting what we want and deserve, we pick up interests and end up living happily as a singleton. We create enjoyment with our own time and we learn to make the most of it – so in most cases, we are bored in crowds than when we are alone.

We become perfectly content with ourselves that being single isn’t a negative, even if in the end, it is not our preferred outcome because we got so much to give. However, being single is better than half-a$$ing a relationship purely based on needing to fill a make-belief void that everyone should supposedly need; human companionship. Thanks society.

When we become self-sufficient and understand what we need, it makes us harder to be loved and to be caught. We become this person of indifference that we gladly embrace; single, completely self-sufficient and independent in ‘fixing’ ourselves, getting anywhere we want and getting what we need etc.

Although as stated earlier, some INTJs are exploring relationships sporadically, the other majority of INTJs don’t seem to juggle with ‘options’ – the decisions of random hookups and one night stands doesn’t sound and look appealing in real life. Too much drama. This is where our standards kicks in too, it keeps us from giving ourselves away for pleasure.

In my opinion, everyone can give and receive pleasure, but you can’t base love just on that…so why give yourself away so easily?

For the experience? Sure, but what then afterwards? Would you regret it? Would you not?

~ The kiss of death: You will die from our love, seriously. By now, you should know that when we go in, we go ALL in and we mean it. We can become very positively invested when in a relationship, so much so that we can ignore other areas of our life; essentially, we are practically giving our all to you although it may not seem like that. It won’t be obvious how intense we are, for example, we won’t constantly call you or anything like that; what we tend to do is just think about you everyday, you know, just introspecting. We are self-aware of how our intensity can come across so we’ll tone it down.

Does it sound weird that you are a welcome distraction that we don’t want to get rid of, but instead, work with?

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To end, I don’t think it’s about the ‘right timing’ or whether we are ‘ready for a relationship’ that influences us, I think it’s about meeting the right person that can shift our universe to another level whilst matching what each other deserves.

Of course though, already understanding when we are ready and understanding ourselves through and through makes for meeting someone special that much more perfect – like the icing on the cake with rainbow sprinkles.

I hope that the above information was accurate enough as not much research went into this. Again, feel free to comment.

 

Geomeun Goyangi =^-^=

Even though this is a diary post, I feel a disclaimer is still needed.

***Disclaimer: 87% of these quotes are from myself. Also, please note that these blogs should NOT influence you to generalize that all INTJs, as a niche group, are all the same – because we are not; a lot of other factors shapes and individualizes a person.***