Why ENFJs push people away when they get too close (PART 1)

All my life I've always loved to get to know people, and I get drawn to them. But then there comes a time when that other person responds well to me and gets closer and I feel like they're starting to form an attachment with me....and then I sort of feel nervous and petrified and I back off, keep them at an arm's distance. Then I see them get confused and back off, and then I feel bad and want the relationship to get better again. I'm not just talking about love relationships, I also mean friendships and family relations.
I think this is very true of some of my friendships, particularly H and one point of time, fat. Or when people tag along with me, it makes me wanna just shake them off even tho i may have been the one who initiated the friendship or encouraged them to get attached. Why's that? But this is soooo true for H. I get sooo suffocated and not a v pleasant feeling when she labels me her best friend. But then i feel bad and start trying to be close again but with an extra layer of guardedness? WHY. Ok one theory is that i don't really like some qualities that she has as a person and it gets hard trying to shut up and not say anything about it (goes against my values such as talkingbad abot other people) cos when i do then she gets offended. So it feels like i have to suppress what i think/feel constantly?

For fat or mar, maybe because it's not mutual? or too much hanging out with one person does that to me.

"She always seems to be forcing her way into deeper relationships with people. It's been a thing that actually really annoys me because it makes me wonder why I'm not enough for her.
Sometimes she'll go a week without talking to me because she's so busy trying to be best friends with everybody else. -INFP"
I dont think i'm like that. Im very particular about who i want to be close with. And i'll drop all my friendships for Sya. Simple as that.

"I'm very ankward when friendships get too close. It's like a feeling.. of being uncomfortable.. like pressured, when someone puts a lot of trust and closeness with me.. Not that I don't like it, but it makes me feel a little bit afraid and unwell."

This applies to me, but for certain people only. I think it has some things to do with trust. For example, if KL and i got very close, i would be okay with it simply because i feel safe and know that my secrets would be safe and that I won't be judged for my true flaws and dark thoughts. But H for instance, i do not feel safe because when it comes down to it, i dont trust her. Its her personality, and telling people my stuff which im not okay with. So i think pushing people away has got to do witht the trust aspect. But one bad thing is that we like people, we want to get to know them, but unfortunately its not always a one-way street and sometimes we too have to share abit more about ourselves and our secrets.

"What ENFJ's need to realize is that not every friendship has some sort of hidden agenda. Maybe guys/girls just want to be closer to you because they enjoy your company and not because they want a committed relationship. You're freaking ENFJ's for fuck sake, people love being around you.

If you ENFJ's ever wonder why some people seem to hate you, it's because you're shooting yourselves in the foot. I learned this from my ENFJ mother. you manipulate us without even realizing it. You run away from us when you think you're in danger or have become "too close" to someone and come back when you feel safe again and then repeat that cycle over and over.

To the average person it seems like you are just using us. like you just share your relationship with us when you feel it's convenient and then when higher priorities come up you dump us back down again as if we were never your friends in the first place.

You get our hopes up that maybe we can have a solid relationship with you again only to have you run away again and leave us broken.

You're like the man offering a thousand dollars to a homeless man only to snatch it away and run off as soon as the man reaches for it. sure it's not because you're evil, but it sure as hell seems that way. what else are we supposed to think unless we've studied up on ENFJ's and know how they tick?

And imagine if someone actually did desire a committed relationship from one of you guys. Imagine the trauma that person would undergo even more then with the friendship scenario. I've seen the mental damage someone can go through when they don't know what someone wants because that person keeps emotionally running away for long periods of time with no explanation and then coming back as if they had never left."


Suspicion confirmed =/ I've always wondered if my style of hanging out with friends might come off as just being there cos its convenient. And if so, is that so wrong? And i've once thought that whoever wants to be in a committed relationship with me is gonna go thru hell and back, simply cos i like doing the tango - back and forth. I get scared, can you blame me? We ENFJs feel so deeply, that all sorts of defence mechanism are bound to be there. And running away is one of them. We have such thin psychological boundaries that one move from you can crush us for years.

"ENFJs do the things they do because they have been hurt, or are afraid of being hurt. I'd think you'd understand that it's not always easy to be friends with some people who demand a lot of your time and energy, and you have a need to have a million and one friends, close or otherwise. We're an enigma, yet people figure us out and use it against us, and it'd be wrong to assume after the first few times of it happening, we just LET people get close again, without the fear overtaking our hypersensitive and overemotional bodies and minds and having us run away."

E. He completely messed me up. He figured me out, and played me like a fiddle. Im very guarded now who i let see the true me, not just different facades. I showed E who i really was, and got crushed because he wasn't "charmed" in the slightest, instead i dont know what i was to him. Not again, never again. Thats where the running away part comes in, it's just a defense mechanism.

"I'm afraid of people getting close to me because I have been extremely hurt in the past - my self-esteem and confidence dropped below zero because of 3 people - all at one time (hahah omg same, E +I + N) Although I understand that not everyone out there is going to hurt me it is by way a self-defence mechanism. Sometimes to accept someone is to accept their past, their flaws, and everything else that makes up that person, and bear in mind that someone may have gone through really difficult times and to push/force someone to open up to you way too soon just makes them retreat even more."

This. My self-esteem....what self-esteem? At least it's recovering.