Overdefensiveness

[sumone]

What helps me when I get caught being 'over' defensive is if someone can make me laugh at myself and move on, shrug it off or just give me a bit of space. It's when someone tries to embarass me or make a mountain out of it that drives me nuts.

Me too.

I once went to a pizzeria for dinner with an INFP friend. It's a tiny-yet-famous hole in the wall where one man has been making incredible pizza every day for the past 40 years. Hour-long waits are the norm there. So my friend and I placed or orders and waited. And waited and waited. One hour passed, and then another. I noticed that people who had come after us were getting their orders ahead of us. My friend was unwilling to say anything, so I went up to the counter woman, and said in my nicest Informing-style voice, "Excuse me, we've been waiting here for two hours." And what do you know: In five minutes, we had our pizza.

We finally sat down with our pizza (which was worth the wait, I must say!) and my friend said......"That was very rude of you." And the pizza turned to ash in my mouth. Huh? Rude of me? I was a little assertive in the nicest way possible and that made me rude? I guess no one ever told him not to bite the hand that feeds him pizza.

I became a little defensive at first - I am a New Yorker after all, I protested, and its not in our nature to be all sweety-nice all the time. But the moment passed. After we had finished our dinner, I made the oh-so-casual comment, "You didn't really think that I was rude, did you?" I thought that he would be sated and slightly tipsy by this time (we passed the long waiting time by buying beers from across the street), and would admit that what I had said wasn't all that bad after all. Nope. He launched into a treatise about exactly how rude I had been, until I cut him off with a "That was really hurtful!" He finally got the message and shut up, but the evening still ended on a bad note.

There was nothing rude about your behaviour at all. I wonder about your friend, just how long would he have waited before he deemed it 'not rude' to mention his order?? What a crazy thing to make an issue out of! It drives me nuts when someone ruins an outing over nothing. I met a girlfriend for drinks one night and we had just settled in with our first drink, all happy and relaxed when I asked what she was going to be doing on the weekend. "A charity race!" she said. "Oh, which one?" I inquired. "Parapalegic race," she stated. "Oh man, that is going to be one slow race!" I exclaimed and then looked at her with a deadpan face. Inside I was killing myself laughing! But she was very, very angry and lectured me about my insensitivity for the rest of the evening. grrrrrrrr

 

[Gaze]

I can take criticism when the intent truly is to improve me or point out an error - but not when I can detect some underlying resentment or ulterior motive that is the source of the criticism (damn you, intuition!). However, despite the initial offended reaction, I do try to sift through their point to see if there's anything to gain from it.

I quite agree. That's why I'm extremely critical of criticism (seemingly ironic) since the ability to see a situation from many angles matters most to me. If someone is giving a critique and they're only seeing it from their perspective or angle (e.g. a strictly "sensing" response) then I'm reluctant to consider it because I perceive it as one-sided. But if they are able to empathize, and are willing to acknowledge that there's is not THE only way to consider it, then I'll listen. But if someone approaches me assuming that they have all insight, and believe their perspective is inherently right (and are quite arrogant about it) or don't recognize the limits to their pwn perspective, then I give it little value or consideration.

Using a patronizing tone when giving criticism is also a big turn off since it is easy to sense someone's motives, and it assumes that we can't see the truth ourselves, much less the big picture. It fails to recognize the degree to which we see ourselves or notice how others see that same situation or actions, but still choose not to respond the way others think we should, since sometimes, we really just don't care.

So, be very careful when you criticize an INFX, we are watching you, and we see and know things that you don't see. ; )

 

[slant]

Yup.

I am.

Just a bit.