AE's Journal Round 6 - Navigating the Liminal Space

[AnalyticalEngine]

I'm finding a lot of the productivity bro advice heavily targets knowledge workers, which is naturally applicable to me, because your ability to concentrate and get good work done is of critical importance in knowledge work. What I'm finding is that, given my life is so cognitively intensive between my job and hobbies, I have to treat my brain/mood/attention span with the same care an athlete would have to treat their diet. Because I have found, for example, consuming junk on YouTube ruins my ability to write or program effectively because my brain feels like mush.

Likewise, it was a lot easier to get writing done during COVID when I never left my house and never did anything except write, but now I can't really do that because I have other goals in my life and that sort of lifestyle was creating an imbalance in my life. So I'm hoping that getting extremely, productivity-bro levels of organized helps alleviate the cognitive load of trying to keep my entire life balanced yet still be able to write/program.

There's an additional layer here with the depression because depression saps your energy and makes it very difficult to do anything, but then doing nothing also makes you more depressed. One of the techniques in depression therapy is to kick yourself into gear again with all these scheduling techniques, since mood follows action. So all of this is very Orange, and I'm finding it more useful to try to channel Orange to solve this problem.

On a personal development front, I've come to realize that since I do have access to Yellow/Turquoise (although I don't think I'm to the point yet where I operate in Yellow as my default), trying to spend more time in Yellow (and therefore channeling the rest of the spiral when needed) is solving a lot of my personal hangups and interpersonal issues. It's making my life a lot easier to manage if I can look at a situation and think "okay, I need to act Green here" or "this person is operating in Blue, how can I match that in a way that feels authentic?" As opposed to thinking everything needs to be Orange/Green constantly, which I'm coming to see was a major pitfall I've been falling into.

[Western Red Cedar]

All this said, after trying this for three weeks, I think I'm actually trying to do too much and therefore failing at all of it, so I'm going to scale back a bit and focus on some fundamentals then work up. Cal Newport recently revised the deep life stack where he split it into two halves. One half is basically "get your shit together" and the other half is self-actualization, with the theory being that it's hard to control the big, meaningful things if you don't have control over the little things first, which I'm increasingly finding to be true. So I might go back to the drawing board here and primarily focus on diet/exercise/limiting screen time as my three core habits for now. When I feel like I have those under control, I can try to expand the Orange mindset to more things for greater gains.

When I saw that schedule you posted a couple weeks ago I thought it was pretty intense/ambitious. I typically aim for two deep work sessions per day (45-90 minutes) but I call that day a success even if I only accomplish one. Sometimes a project or deadline requires more, but regularly shooting for three sessions was a bit too much for me (I only categorize personal, focused work as "deep work" even though I do some collaborative work/meetings that I could arguably put in that bucket). I'm definitely fresher in the morning, so I try to accomplish one of my harder tasks before 11:30.

I think it is feasible to optimize further by limiting screen time and other productivity hacks, but you may be too heavily focused on cognitively demanding activities with a FT job, studying a foreign language, serious writing projects, teaching, etc... Some people seem to make this work, but it seems like the exception rather than the norm.

After tinkering with schedules for a while, I ultimately found that balancing some intense physical activities with cognitive demanding knowledge work served me best. I wanted to study Spanish or read for an hour after work, but my brain was fried. It was much easier for me to go on a bike ride or do some resistance training at the gym, and is probably what my body needed after sitting all day. That definitely makes me feel better than watching Netflix after a day of work. I sort of fit in social outlets based on other peoples schedules, and creative outlets based on additional open time.

One of the great things about prioritizing exercise as well, is that it tends to work well in countering depression for many people. I think shifting the focus to nutrition, exercise and limiting screen time are probably great habits to focus on.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@WRC - That all makes sense. I agree aiming for even just one period of deep work per day is probably going to be more realistic and therefore yield better results. I do think I was trying to do too much before because I took this whole week off for Thanksgiving and completely crashed and didn't do anything all week. Sustainability is important.

Plus I think having a set up that's easier to iterate on is important. For example, if I aim for one period of deep work per day and better track what I'm doing, then I might discover that work is taking up more energy than I realized, which means I could change my WOG accordingly. Also, getting in the habit of doing these core habits is important because it makes it easier to combine activities later. For example, exercise and socializing could be combined, but it's hard to have much fun at a running group unless I've been running enough on my own to already be in shape. Also changing habits is itself cognitively demanding, so it's probably better to just focus on those three (diet, exercise, limited screen time) first.

[grundomatic]

I also thought the schedule looked ambitious, but I certainly wasn't going to discourage you. Getting a few of the basics in order seems like a solid plan. I think that in Atomic Habits the suggestion is to build one habit at a time, at what to me is an excruciatingly slow pace. Like just put on your workout clothes for a few days, and then maybe later in the week you can put on the clothes and just drive to the gym. If you haven't read the book, it might be helpful. I'm also recommending it to myself, as it's been a while. When I first read it I liked it so much I went ahead and bought a copy so I could reread it as desired.

[AnalyticalEngine]

I have read Atomic Habits and found it to be pretty useful too. I think his slow habit advice is really helpful when you're starting from scratch on something totally overwhelming, but I suppose I am being overly ambitious in some areas because I'm not starting entirely from scratch. For example, I was already going to the gym twice a week, so upping that to three to four times a week isn't so hard. However, even with that I started to find it was sucking up a bunch of time and energy that I really had to be proactive budging.

The slower habit advice is something I'm doing with my food bill, however. I was in the habit of eating out a ton, so instead of jumping into lentil smoothies for every meal, I'm trying to make the rule be "just eat at home." Even freezer burritos from Trader Joes are cheaper and healthier than going to Taco Bell, so I figure I would start then and then work up to cooking everything.

I do feel like I'm a bit of a crossroad where I want to change everything all at once because some changes do require extreme adjustments to get me out of a local minimum, but I've also started to notice that having agency over small things is huge for having agency over the big things.

All of this has really helped with the depression, which I've held off writing about because I don't want to jump the gun there then later relapse. But I've been finding that trying to take more concrete action has been good to get me out of my own head. I've also been coming to the conclusion that radical acceptance is the key here. I've basically stopped trying to change other people, myself, or the world and focus more on changing my approach to get an outcome I want and letting go of any other emotional hangups. Orange has been helpful here because it's enough for me to simply track metrics and see concrete improvement rather than be stuck inside the relativism hell that is unhealthy turquoise.

I'm still trying to work out how I want to structure my 2024 year, but I'm contemplating making it the Year of Orange and then taking an Orange approach to both my mental/physical health and also my finances. A lot of the shadow work I've been doing lately has freed me from my attachment to work, and now I'm able to see it as a choice rather than a forced lifestyle. As such, getting really specific with my expenses and web of goals is something I can do in a relatively short time frame (1 year) and then potentially actually be in a position where I can quit work to travel and write instead.

[7Wannabe5]

I wonder whether ability to engage in deep work is what differentiates INTP from ENTP? As an eNTP (maybe XNTP based on recent testing)I can do mental "exploration" for hours at a time. For instance, near continuous reading with a stack of 20 highly varying books, some of which might be quite "thick" to choose from. But, I have to prime and bribe myself with pots of coffee and far too many cookies to make it through 4 hours of mental work on one topic/project not of my choosing, and those 4 hours will generally be broken up into 15 to 25 minute segments. And I do start experiencing nihilistic (cold)and physiological (slow) depression the more I force/find myself in "brain in a box" mode. Going to the gym might be a good solution towards balance for an INTJ or ENTJ, and I agree that "movement" is key, but the problem with "trip to the gym" is that not unlike some boring-to-me mental-work problem assigned by other, it offers no novel or lively inputs for my Ne, unless it is purposefully combined with novel/lively inputs for my Ne, most likely in the form of music. OTOH, going on a Scavenger Walk fulfills both needs for me, because my body is moving and my brain is purposefully focused on the task of discovering novel inputs in the real environment. IOW, the brain chemical that shoots up when a primate spots the color red in a tree in some new-to-her territory she is exploring is one of the cures for brain-in-the-box form depression. A Scavenger Walk can also be combined with Zen Tidying. For instance, the practice of cleaning up all the beer cans the stupid-head frat boys left on the Frisbee golf course by the nature path every day will give you a calm sense of ownership of that small piece of the world along with the $1.20 when you cash them in.

[AnalyticalEngine]

And I do start experiencing nihilistic (cold)and physiological (slow) depression the more I force/find myself in "brain in a box" mode. Going to the gym might be a good solution towards balance for an INTJ or ENTJ, and I agree that "movement" is key, but the problem with "trip to the gym" is that not unlike some boring-to-me mental-work problem assigned by other.

That's actually really interesting because "brain in a box" mode is my default mode of operating, so much so that I have to make an active effort to pull myself out of it on a near daily basis when it becomes pathological. It's the high Ni combined with a vivid imagination that makes it much easier for me to just sit there and experience life through daydreaming rather than doing anything. Since doing things requires Se activation and therefore is a pain in the ass for me, which is also why I struggle sometimes with logistical or maintenance tasks.

Mind you, "brain in the box" mode does have some genuine advantages. It's why I'm good at programming and writing, and also why I can survive corporate, because I can just dissociate from whatever I'm doing. The issue is when it happens in situations that aren't appropriate. One of my big self-therapy practices has been to learn to control this because I've realized my less-than-wonderful childhood as well as dogmatic religious programming as a child basically trained me to sit there and zone out rather than engage with my own emotions and reality. When you aren't allowed to have any agency because you're in extremely controlling external circumstances, you quickly learn that dissociating through everything is easier than being present in a painful reality that you aren't allowed to control or engage with.

However, going to the gym is enough of an Se challenge for me, and I usually listen to audiobooks while I'm there, so it's a good level of physical engagement to pull me back to reality. It probably would be more boring if I had better developed Se or a higher level of fitness than my current level. One of the reasons I want to either hire a trainer or take some classes is that I'm hoping developing Se through physical fitness helps with staying present and not defaulting to "brain in the box" mode 24/7.

[jacob]

However, going to the gym is enough of an Se challenge for me, and I usually listen to audiobooks while I'm there, so it's a good level of physical engagement to pull me back to reality. It probably would be more boring if I had better developed Se or a higher level of fitness than my current level. One of the reasons I want to either hire a trainer or take some classes is that I'm hoping developing Se through physical fitness helps with staying present and not defaulting to "brain in the box" mode 24/7.

In that case, consider other sports. "Going to the gym with headphones on" is but another variant of brain-in-a-box dissociation with the mind being distracted by an audiobook while the body plods along on an elliptical. This does not develop Se---it might even prevent it, see viewtopic.php?p=281615#p281615

Sports that integrate the mind with the body usually involve DYNAMICALLY competing or collaborating with other people. You can fight one opponent (e.g. boxing) or you can collaborate with a team (e.g. soccer) or even with a partner (e.g. dancing). This is entirely different from the "only compete against yourself"-mentality often found in solo-sports (e.g. marathons). A sport that is interdependent on other humans provides more complexity and engagement for the mind. You can run a marathon by yourself against your previous time or someone else's time. You can't play a hockey match with yourself, though.

(I did a lot of sports growing up (thanks Mom!), so my Se is pretty developed for an INTJ. However, it wasn't until I was 30+ that I started playing team sports. Creating "assists" was satisfying in an entirely different way than just personally getting "faster, higher, better" or beating an opponent.)

[daylen]

As an INTP, I experience something similar, but the box is always changing. So, one day I'll be exploring a geopolitical box or a quantum computing box and the next day it will be a history of warfare box. If I don't have any constraints on my time, which are typically minimal by design, I will happily research all day every day. Still trying to figure out how to hack this pattern to get stuff done every now and then. Usually, it requires convincing myself that I am the most fit person to pursue a necessary task. Which is extraordinarily difficult for me given how many people I am aware of in the world doing stuff already with momentum.

[7Wannabe5]

@AnalyticalEngine:

My bad. For some reason, I thought you were INTP not INTJ. Disregard my advice. I do empathize with what you communicated about disassociating in an oppressive environment. I think of this as being forced into my introverted "little library mouse" mode.

@daylen:

Interesting. I can "research" happily almost all day every day, but I do eventually get the urge to do something. For instance, when I was a child, I read several books on hypnosis, and I then felt compelled to round up other humans to hypnotize. Two years later, I read several books on genetics, and I then felt compelled to beg my father to allow me to buy a white mouse and a black mouse from the pet store. Two years later, I read several books on human sexuality, and I then felt compelled...etc. etc. etc. And this compulsion DEFINITELY is NOT based on thinking I am the most fit human to pursue the task. Much more that there are just some boxes that I just have to experience opening in the "real world."

[AnalyticalEngine]

@Jacob - Thanks for sharing that link. I'm going to read that "Body? What Body?" article after work because it seems like it has some good insight for what I'm trying to do. Based on that link, I can do Emoting/Thinking/Visual imagery, but my body focus is not great. Developing that would probably go a long way toward avoiding the chronic dissociative experience.

Also a good point on sports. It seems like there's a spectrum here where "headphones on the treadmill" is going to still be pretty dissociative, training for solo sports will engage Se but not Ne/Fe potentially, and playing team sports will hit more development targets.

That all tracks with my personal experience. Hiking, for example, is a more intensive experience than running on the treadmill, but it's still possible to zone out on a long hike. Whereas when I tried to learn how to ski, I absolutely had to pay attention at all times. So maybe investing in those fitness classes, ski lessons, and co-ed softball league would all be good for me, even if it means having to drop some "brain the box" hobbies temporarily, like an extensive focus on writing or programming.

(Side note, I have found learning Russian can be "brain in the box" if I'm just watching videos, but actually trying to talk people or take the class is way more of an Fe experience because trying to figure out what people are saying/making myself understood is very social)

@7W5 - No worries, I have often scored between INTJ/INTP in the past, so I really can relate to both types. I function at a higher level as an INTJ (probably because my Te is better than my Ne), but I don't think my Ti/Ne are so underdeveloped that I can't have the INTP experience. In may ways, it's like my high functioning personality is INTJ, whereas my less functioning personality is INTP. This might also be a consequence though of having had to overrely on Te to solve problems in my life. Being in a relatively oppressive social environment has made it easier to use Te over Ne because being overly analytical lets me solve problems without needing to relate socially or emotionally in the same manner Ne might require.

@daylen - That definitely tracks with my experience, including the fact I have a difficult time coping with constraints on my time or having to deal with Se logistical details. My preferred experience is definitely to just sit there and experience the box, even when the box changes between whatever special interest of the day I have. I am told by the kids these days that this is called "hyperfixating," where whatever niche box interest I have seems more compelling and enjoyable than dealing with the real world. I'm trying to reach the point with it where I can use it for the genuine strengths it does bring me (ability to focus on technical details, learning quickly, etc) without getting stuck there and accumulating pitfalls (lack of a social life because no one else wants to talk about 18th century economics, poor ability for maintenance, etc)

Actually, this is making me think about how I might combine this with spiral dynamics in order to better structure the improvement of my inferior functions. Specifically, Se+Orange seem like I can explore both as a growth area, as does Fe+Green. If we go back to the Plotkin subpersonality framework, it's like my Se-self is stuck at Beige, my Fe is stuck at Blue, where as I can access Yellow/Turquoise with Ne. This is probably why my experience of Yellow/Turquoise is sometimes too theoretical to be useful because it's like I understand it but I can't actually do anything with it. With this in mind, I might make the goal of 2024 to develop Se+Beige/Red/Orange (and save Fe+Purple/Blue/Green for the next year) because I think that would help a lot with the things that keep tripping me up.

[7Wannabe5]

Being in a relatively oppressive social environment has made it easier to use Te over Ne because being overly analytical lets me solve problems without needing to relate socially or emotionally in the same manner Ne might require.

I think it is my tertiary Fe that relates socially and emotionally. I mean, Ne does interact with other humans sometimes, but mostly in kind of obnoxious ways such as provoking debate, or by recruiting other humans as fellow lab rats in social experiments, or by pulling Tom Sawyer schemes/stunts, although mutual enjoyment/enlightenment would be the ultimate goal. More generally, as in "What if we...?"

[AnalyticalEngine]

@7W5 - That all makes sense. This has me wondering now if the reason that I'm usually playing a leadership role in basically all of my social interactions is because I am using Ne instead of Fe, and without Fe, it becomes quest to link people together to achieve some goal rather than relate socially or emotionally.

[7Wannabe5]

Not exactly. Ne wants to have fun and be mentally stimulated.When I am strong in both my Ne and Fe functioning I am a great hostess, because I care for my guests' basic emotional and physical comfort and I try to make things fun/interesting for everyone, but I will err a bit on the side of making the event interesting for me vs. comfortable for my guests.

I think what you just described is pretty much exactly the difference between ENTJ/ESTJ and ENTP. ENTJ executives and ESTJ supervisors generally have a great deal of difficulty with being retired, because they are core compelled to socially lead towards objective. IOW, they need to have someone(s) else to boss around, whereas Ne just needs someone(s) else to play around with sometimes. IOW, it likely is the lack of Fe, but it definitely isn't the presence of Ne. It's the presence of Te.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@7W5 - That all makes sense. I suppose it would be natural that my default interpersonal style is going to be my primary extroversion function (Te). The fact that also all of my external social environments also have a high Te demand probably encourages it too.

Unlike developing Se, I think I might actually just accept this and instead try to leverage Te as a strength instead of trying to build up Fe. I eventually do want to develop Fe, but Se seems a higher priority as the anti-dissociation function. Plus I feel like my use of Te is pretty skillful and I've done a good job when I do have a leadership role. This probably means all the Fe-centered "how to make friends" advice is going to continue to frustrate me while the "how to build your professional network" Te-centered advice feels a lot more natural to how I actually work.

The issue is, of course, that sometimes I get sick of playing the same role, but given it's skillful/functional, I will vastly take it over being a brain in a box. And in the future, I can always open myself up to new roles intentionally once I have better headspace for it.

[grundomatic]

Te is 100% the bossypants function, especially as the primary function. I can't find the article easily, but I remember reading that auxiliary Te is known as the reluctant leader, which seems to fit what you are saying here. In that same article (I think), tertiary Te was known as the charismatic commander, which fits my experience. I was somehow viewed by the students as the "fun" teacher, but also "strict". Compared to my one ENTJ colleague, however, I was a downright clown. Guy Fieri rather than Gordon Ramsay.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@grundomatic - Lol! It is definitely the bossypants function for sure. I suppose it also explains why business settings are sometimes easier for me to navigate than other social situations because bossypants is the expected behavior. I'm finding it much easier to just organize people for what I want to do than wait on getting invited by others, and this is also probably why I'm starting to collect a lot of introverts as friends because introverts usually prefer someone else to do all the coordinating. I feel like this is working well enough for me for now, but maybe in the future, I can try to intentionally cultivate Fe/Ne/Se to see how it changes my relationship dynamics.

I've found with relationships lately is that there are two paradigms here: opt-out and opt-in. Opt-in is the only strategy I'm finding that works because opt-out only works when you're in a high target environment, like the 1920s or high school. Opt-out is when you have so many people around you all of the time because of your life circumstances that you can just wait for relationships to randomly form via familiarity, and you have more luxury here of putting in minimal effort to connect with others because it's a byproduct of your lifestyle. However, much like how staying slim in the contemporary environment requires very mindful lifestyle design because our food environment is flooded with sugar, it's incredibly easy to lose social contact with everyone if you follow opt-out. Again, unlike ye days of oldde, you can get pretty much all of your needs met via internet shopping and spend all of your time playing video games. So much like staying in shape, having a social life requires very mindful lifestyle design due to the lack of social opportunities in some contemporary environments.

So what I'm finding here is that it helps to be in a high target environment full of other people looking for new connections, which is why happy hours work better than book clubs. People at a happy hour might want new friends but people at book clubs are usually more reserved. Likewise, while maybe it worked growing up to do nothing and have one's social life come to them via basic Kegan3 socialization, this strategy does not really work in adulthood because everyone moves and has other life commitments.

So I'm finding building a support network from scratch requires drastically changing my behavior. This is what I'm trying now:
1. First, try to approach everyone from a position of "what can I offer them?" It's way easier for people to want to be with you in the beginning if there's some value to them.
2. Talk to as many people as possible and get phone numbers.
3. Invite people to coffee dates or meetups or other events to get to know them better.
4. At this point, you should have a lot of social connections, so you can redirect energy toward people who reciprocate more or who you enjoy spending time with. Stop putting energy into relationships that aren't a good match and try to put more energy into the ones that are.
5. Eventually you will have enough friends they will invite you to things back.

At this point, hopefully you have enough people in your life that you aren't reliant on one person for everything, which means when people drift away or get busy or you have some interpersonal incompatibility with them, it doesn't derail your entire social life.

Honestly I wish someone had taught me this 20 years ago, but the lessons of my past assumed that opt-out Kegan3 is how the social world should still operate because it's how it operated 50 years ago in smalltownville, so the lessons for how to act in the more difficult adult environment were never taught to me.

[7Wannabe5]

In that same article (I think), tertiary Te was known as the charismatic commander, which fits my experience. I was somehow viewed by the students as the "fun" teacher, but also "strict".

Yup, this is why I top out exhausted at 2 days/week maximum classroom management with my Te in 6th position. Even if I act "as if" I am a drill sergeant, the intuitive little monsters very quickly suss me out as fun-freedom-curiousity loving (dominant Ne) soft-touch (tertiary Fe), although competent (secondary Ti.)

@AnalyticalEngine:

I'm curious how your secondary Te plays out in your dating life? I find that if/when I follow conventional dating practice in the heterosexual female role, my "dance card" tends to fill up with men with dominant Te with whom I am not long-term living-together-in-close-quarters compatible due to the "bossy pants" conflicting with my " liberty loving pants."

[AnalyticalEngine]

@7W5 - That's an area where it's really hard to know if the biggest driver of my experience is Te, gender/sexuality dynamics, or unhelpful behaviors I learned as a child that I've been trying to unlearn. Specifically, my dad was in the army and gone all the time while we also moved a lot, and being the oldest daughter, I was responsible for basically everyone all of the time. So now I have a really hard time "having fun" and not immediately taking every task or relationship with 100% optimized seriousness. It's something I've been trying to unlearn.

As for dating, Te usually comes across as competent and intelligent, both of which are qualities people want in a partner, so when people are attracted to me, I find those are often two of the biggest reasons. Conflict normally happened in the past when I've allowed myself to be "over-competent" and try to run the other person's life for them (again, this is where it's hard to know if it's Te or how I was raised, because needing to be responsible for everyone and everything was my childhood.) That usually results in two outcomes:

1. The person wants someone else to run their life because of their own unresolved issues. I start to feel like their mother and not their girlfriend at this point because I feel like I am picking up pieces for bad decisions, and then the relationship usually falls apart. (I've done a lot of personal work with boundaries, so I fall into this trap much more rarely these days.)

2. The other person is "fun loving," but from my perspective, it starts to feel like flakiness. If I've made time and space in my life and schedule for someone, I want it reciprocated because otherwise I'm left hanging. However, not everyone runs their life like a business meeting, so they'll run off to do whatever they find interesting spur of the moment, and I can get resentful or jealous. This one I've been trying to address by having more people in my life (friends, romantic, or otherwise), such that if someone feels the calling of their own interests, I have a backup plan and aren't so reliant on one person.

A growth area for me is to figure out how to "have fun" because being super serious all of the time can be exhausting, and the element of spontaneous play is a major component of courtship that I still feel like I'm failing to understand or experience.

[7Wannabe5]

Te usually comes across as competent and intelligent, both of which are qualities people want in a partner, so when people are attracted to me, I find those are often two of the biggest reasons.

Yup. Usually for me it's something like "Wow! He molded a replacement part for the plastic doohickey missing on my car in his basement workshop." combined with noticeable biceps.

A growth area for me is to figure out how to "have fun" because being super serious all of the time can be exhausting, and the element of spontaneous play is a major component of courtship that I still feel like I'm failing to understand or experience.

Well, there are different flavors of fun, which I believe are motivated by Ne vs. Se. For instance, since INTJ has Se in 4th position, while ENTP only has it in 8th position, INTJ folk seriously enjoy serious games like chess, D&D, or team sports more than eNTP (or at least my take on eNTP.) I'm too easy-going to take "just a game" seriously, and I will sometimes purposefully lose at games in highly-wrought competive environments in order to maintain (tertiary Fe) social harmony, although I know this is inherently disrespectful, bad practice, on another level.

I very much enjoyed dating a high-functioning, high-IQ ESTP for around a year, because he had a way of making everything into a fun game. Like even taking a walk with him down to his mail-box was a big adventure. So, maybe attempting to flip Ni and Se could go towards that direction. For instance, just verbalizing stream-of-consiousness Ni would probably serve the purpose, especially in alignment with shared value of Curiousity with anybody with dominant or secondary Ne. Like engaging the other person in your strategy for successfully accomplishing the task of collecting the mail like it's an actual exciting mission which might require that they are alert in the moment instead of just telling them what to do or not do next (Te.)

Anyways, I am thinking that one of the biggest potentials for misunderstanding early in relationships is not picking up on other's primary or secondary introverted function. For instance, until/unless I start verbalizing my secondary Ti, I am often mistaken for a Dumb Blonde because superficially soft, smiley, and absent-minded.