hm, i can be pretty blunt too, mostly however quite sensetive, tactful and diplomatic....I believe there is moments of bluntness when i sense something that is hidden/a lie/ a subtle weird vibe/something that is off or rubs me the wrong way .....

blessings
Sue

"This is one of the INFJ traits that makes me second guess whether I am an INFJ."

I've used this metaphore a zillion times (enough that most folks on Tribe are sick of hearing it), but a personality type is like a color in a 16 pack of crayons. I don't think I've ever seen anything in the real world that was the exact same color as Crayola Red, but it's still useful to have those colors in my vocabulary for describing things. You can use the colors in a 16 pack to describe just about everything in the world. On the other hand, just looking around my desk here I've counted 34 things that I would describe as "red", but no two are the exact same color. In fact, some are very different from others, but they still have some sort of "redness" to them, or at least enough redness that I woudn't describe them as pink, purple, or orange. So not everything in the INFJ description will always apply to everyone (since personality types are descriptions, not all-encompassing boxes that define every aspect of our lives). It's just a matter of figuring out which of these "colors" best describes you. You might even eventually decide that you're more red-orange and fit snugly in between two colors.

I *completely* feel you on every aspect of this, even the insensitive parent. We might be long-lost twins or something. :-) Anyway, I'm defnitely an INFJ, and my tendency to really respect honest communication sometimes leads to bluntness. It's never intended to be hurtful, but if I have to choose between honesty and diplomacy in an important situation, I always tell the truth. I think this goes along with integrity being a major value for many INFJs.

I'm getting better at knowing *how* to say what I want to say so it is accepted better instead of offending someone. I'm 25 and still learning this also. It seems like the 20s is a time for major secondary personality characteristics to grow.

I also think there's often a big gap between reading people and knowing what to say to help/diffuse difficult situations. You are definitely not alone in that, either! I am pretty good at knowing what people are feeling, but often don't know how they will react to things unless I am close to them. Also, sometimes people just get irritated if you hit too close to what they're actually feeling!

I don't think you lack the ability to talk to people. Your bluntness is an aspect of the natural "counselor" in INFJs. I mean, we have to bring a bit or reality to a situation when telling people what's going on. However, I am a firm believer that your environment has a dramatic impact on shaping you. You surround yourself with people who are uplifting, you pick up uplifting traits. You surround yourself with people who are not uplifting, it has the opposite effect. Why do you think people feel more comfortable in a good neighborhood than a bad one? Why is it that certain cities just "do it for you" versus others. And most commonly, why is it certain jobs just suck and others are "life-changing?"

I just got of the military, and just by nature of the position, it brought all the bluntness and directness I could handle and then some. It was part of the job. I understood that. But spiritually, I was dying. Now, I'm a full time Grad student pursuing Writing or whatever is out there better for me, and I love it far more than the military. Change of environment, I tell you.

You know how to talk to people. You just got to get away from the distraction and key up the way you're naturally wired and go with it.

No, i think tactfulness comes with experience in how you deal with various types of people. understanding their emotions is the first step, knowing how to act upon that understanding correctly is the second...

Treating others how you want to be treated is a good generic start. INFJs are rather sensitive... if you can treat others the way you want to be treated, you'll be okay in most cases. The next thing you should do is to try and understand what people actually want and not just their current emotional state. Some people are seeking comfort and understanding, others for help. Make sure you understand what they are looking for from you... and finally what you want to do for them. giving something they don't want will upset them, but it may in fact be exactly what they need.

I am a naturally very blunt person. But I know how to shut my yap when people don't want to hear anything I have to say, or if the thing I have to say is truly nasty.

But if someone's being absolutely stupid, making bad decisions, then i'll get very very blunt. It's a conscious effort to jar them back to reality and making better decisions for their lives. It generally makes them think, and come to my conclusions, but people make bad decisions because they WANT to, and it reaches some strange, maladaptive comfort zone for them. Oh well, at least they know they're being stupid.

Talking about colors, the test results are just your preferences in a percentage Scala. So i guess not everyone of us is that much intuitive or in my case i sometimes feel I'm some kind of chameleon :D since my percentage is rather in the middle. I find this peculiarity to be the result of me growing up quite fast, and my ability to adapt perfectly to any given situation. I remember how i always tended (since i was a kid) to interact with people older then me, specially with grown ups and actually i kind of found old people rather interesting and wise :D (they always told me how i was quite "old" for my age :P)
Still i find most of the traits in the INFJ to be present in my character/personality. You will notice with the time you will tend to be more in the middle of the Scala (My test results are still the same as 5 years ago, only not that much extreme anymore); that doesn't mean you are losing yourself, it is to some extent the process of facing directly your fears and weakness. That's what maturity is all about. (in my opinion :D)
In my case i was actually kind of forced to face my problems, my father being an ISTJ and my mother ENTJ they had always so hard expectations for me and my brother (a little more in me since I'm the eldest one...). Well they actually still have, I've always have them in my back kind of pushing me to reach my goals faster, and make quick decisions.
It's not easy to have insensitive parents, i feel you, they were always comparing themselves with me and each other, as some kind of challenge to see who was the utmost intelligent. That was (is still) really harsh specially for an NF child who was looking for emotional acceptance the whole time, and didn't get least a bit.
Anyway i don't cry for myself (at least not anymore :D), the thing is i had to push myself to be a ST and find out quickly enough it is for us really easy to put ourselves in any kind of position, using Introverted Intuition we understand things rather easily and spontaneous without us knowing exactly why.
So when we socialize with someone we get bombarded by infos and seriously thats quite disturbing so we usually tend to not care about who we are talking with; we focus ourselves in getting as much infos as possible and then use our extroverted feeling to neglect ideas we already had heard without giving them a chance to be a part of our general frame we are about to give the individual with whom we are talking to. Now that's the problem since we are using our judgment to give ourselves a rather false interpretation of the character we are having a conversation with and by this means we are discriminating his personality, not giving him/her a chance to interact with us; and since we usually are right (because of our high intuitive level) we are cheating ourselves without even noticing it!!
So when socializing you should do two things:
1) Pay attention who are you talking to, think about how this individual has personality traits of his/her own and try to identify which portrait is the one he's most near to. You will then see conversations will turn quite interesting you will start asking more questions (please no small talk here :D) to find real answer and interest; if something is not totally clear stop (here come the second step):
2) Use your judgment to judge your own intuition about what you are perceiving, don't suppress information with your Extroverted Feeling! if it's not clear enough ask again! if you cut off information then your aren't really understanding what you are treating with. Let the infos flow trough your intuitive self and just when they all have been processed use your Extroverted Feeling to judge this perceptions.

In this way you should become fast enough a social person; remember the only thing you need to do is suppress your judgment until you are fully aware of who you are talking to and what the concept idea is all about.

You will soon enough find yourself in internal duels, challenging your own intuition :D which only could be for good, by this means your intuition level should become better and better.



at this point we should use our blessing Judgment in the right way

I was absolutely terrible at small talk until, hm, my thirties?! I still am not great at it. I think INFJ's (and INFP's, and INTJ's, for that matter) tend to feel like we lack social skills simply because we cannot stand small talk--we're no good at superficial, casual chatting. I remember as a teenager, I was so distracted by what I was "reading" off a person--so distracted by their tone of voice, the subtly shifting facial expressions, etc.--that sometimes I literally could not talk AT ALL, because I had too much information (I knew how they were feeling) and I was confused by the difference between what they were saying and how they felt. It's very hard to have normal social interactions with people you don't know well when you're picking up on their emotions and you don't WANT superficial interactions.

But being able to make idle chit-chat or small talk is just one type of social skill. (It certainly is NOT the social skill that good therapists have!). The kind of social skills we INFJs have are much deeper. We empathize, we listen better than almost anyone else, we can make people feel comfortable, we understand what makes people tick.

And, one final note--we tend to grow into these skills, rather than having them right off the bat. As kids we're sensitive, and this culture is not a great fit for us. So unless we grew up in a family that WAS a good fit for our personality type, we didn't really learn how to be ourselves; we learned how we were "supposed to be"--i.e. we tried to learn to act like a "normal" person, which just does not work for us. (How can the rarest of all personality types possibly be a "normal" person?!). So it takes time for us to grow into ourselves--by which I mean, to really get to know and accept ourselves, and become comfortable in our own skin. That's the first stage of our growth. The ability to interact easily with other people comes as a result of that first stage.

I am the same, I speak my thoughts and wear my heart on my sleeve, and it is really disliked by other people. I have learnt to refrain from speaking though if I think something horrid or very very inappropriate. I am hopeless in conversation with most people and don't really know what to say, it all seems quite superficial to me most of the time. My childhood was not great at home and I withdrew inside. I am more empathic and intuitive than I used to be but I think it is underdeveloped as a result of withdrawing too much. How can I strengthen my intuitiveness or will it just get stronger as I get older?