In discussion with an LSE friend, we compared notes on ways that we 'act out' for a specific kind of attention from the world. Both ways happened to reflect dual-seeking function expression...
I find myself play-acting toughness. An easy example: when I was in high school, I started a fight club to fight and grapple with lots of people who eventually became friends. In college, I would invite people to fight me as a tongue-in-cheek form of flirting. Secretly, I always hoped to lose--hoped for someone to show me that I was right to merely pretend to power and strength because I in fact had neither of these things. I wanted someone around to whom I would lose time after time, who would kindly and forcefully push me in other ways towards fulfilling my goals.
I find myself play-acting toughness. An easy example: when I was in high school, I started a fight club to fight and grapple with lots of people who eventually became friends. In college, I would invite people to fight me as a tongue-in-cheek form of flirting. Secretly, I always hoped to lose--hoped for someone to show me that I was right to merely pretend to power and strength because I in fact had neither of these things. I wanted someone around to whom I would lose time after time, who would kindly and forcefully push me in other ways towards fulfilling my goals.
Unfortunately, in my own way I am single-minded and driven, and I come from a long line of powerful matriarchs; my pretending to be tough did a lot of convincing to others that I was, in fact, tough. I became tolerated among my friends as a willful, strong person. I routinely was told not to push or pressure people.
Nothing could be further from the truth than the sense of me being tough or heavy-handed. Internally, the experience is one of 'stepping up to do my part' in the absence of a stronger personality. This twisting and play-acting quality of acting out for attention from a dual--which perhaps expresses itself more manipulatively or pitifully in other personality types--is one of the ways personalities can become warped in their self-expression over time; spend enough time laughingly protesting that you really are tough, or any other suggestive-function quality, and you'll find that with enough practice at those qualities, you might come to resemble quite a different personality than your own.
My view is that it is deeply wrong to see what you are describing as an LSE with suggestive Fi. My interpretation is that suggestive Fi manifests as nearly the exact opposite of what you have described here: someone who is deeply uncertain about the way other people feel internally and is very sensitive not to push others. Not someone whose uncertainty would lead them directly to push others.
ReplyDeleteAfter discussing with you the reasons for you holding this opinion, I've come to agree with you, and mostly edited out the LSE portion of this post. Thank you :)
DeleteI am glad to help clarify.
DeleteThe rest of the post, I agree with but I wonder if it is specific to only part of the socion to call it "acting out". The way I see it is that the suggestive function is a sore spot, and often a fixative or neurotic part of the psyche. I interpret the type of "acting out" you describe as a reflection of this fixation, but the way you describe the act of acting out tends to have to do with a public image and identity, and more specifically with a rejection of boundaries on exterior space expression. Not all the socion would respond to this, I think there are other ways that the neurosis of the suggestive function can be seen, but I think maybe it is fair to say that people act out in certain ways which are not themselves.
A few examples, I am partly thinking out loud, in ILIs I think, not unlike IEIs the neurosis is towards their initiative -- their activity level and presence in the outer world. But an ILI wouldn't "act out" in a public way; they may "act out" in the sense of trying to overly relate to others with emotional honesty in a way that can appear dependent -- trying to fill the empty space of experience outside of themselves with their close trusted relationships.
In LIEs there is the deeply neurotic uncertainty about how other people feel. This type tends sometimes to "act out" by making erratic life decisions regardings their personal relationships; making drastic changes to their lives and careers and sometimes trying to control their personal relationships, without often knowing why they feel a particular way and how the way they act will affect the way they feel towards people.