5 Things the INFJ Male Really Dislikes

From bad manners to people with a low integrity, the meticulous INFJ male tends to dislike them.

INFJs are one of the eight introverted Myers-Briggs personality types that only make up 1-2 percent of the population.

No doubt, they are rare. So what are some of the other things this rare group has little tolerance for?

Being an INFJ male myself, this article contains some pet peeves of mine too!

They could probably write a book about it, but let’s start with looking at 5 Things the INFJ Male Really Dislikes.

What the INFJ Male Really Dislikes (5 Things)

1. INFJ Males Tend to Dislike Bad Manners

It’s a known fact that one of the INFJ superpowers is fostering harmony within their social interactions.

INFJ males are finely attuned to the feelings and needs of others.

Extraverted Feeling (F) (the third function in INFJ), grants them the ability to be aware of other people’s feelings as if they were their own.

Much warmth and compassion is injected into the communication, which is driven by their altruistic nature.

INFJ males tend to have good manners as this is conducive to preserving that harmony they so much strive for within their social interactions.

What’s more is that they like that harmony themselves as well.

Their sensitive and principled nature makes them want to be treated with that same thoughtfulness and respect.

It’s totally fine if that treatment from others isn’t exactly the same level of quality as what the INFJ male aims at when they interact with people.

We understand that not everyone values what we value, or with that exact same spirit.

As such we wouldn’t be snobs, demanding nor feeling entitled to some kind of special treatment.

However, there does need to be a minimum of respect in the way you treat us.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels

Why do INFJ males tend to dislike bad manners?

Maintaining harmony within human interactions is a delicate practice, due to the complexity of social interaction and the fluctuating feelings and needs of the different types of personalities you encounter.

As such, someone’s mannerisms can easily taint that carefully crafted harmony.

This is why INFJ males tend to dislike bad manners.

For example, farting while you eat with us, being on your smartphone constantly when it’s your turn to listen during our conversation, or speaking to us with an uncalled for authoritarian tonality to up your sense of so called status.

Those behaviors will get you banned from our La-La land we are trying to build for sure.

We hold ourselves very much accountable for the manners we display.

If there was a situation in which we showed any form of bad manners or inconsiderate behavior, we can ruminate on that shortcoming for days.

The idea that we made other people uncomfortable by being obnoxious induces significant shame in us.

Being seen as a brute or unsophisticated person hits right to the core, as it stands opposite to our core values.

Like was mentioned earlier, as INFJ males we have little tolerance for bad mannered people.

After such a display we’ll give them a handful of chances to recover. We might even address it when it’s needed.

However, when we observe over a longer time period that these bad mannerisms are a consistent aspect of your way of interacting, don’t be surprised that we won’t return your phone calls.

2. INFJ Males Tend to Dislike Being Taken for Granted

Being generous at heart is a beautiful trait INFJ men tend to have.

We might be spending a lot of time in solitude, but when we have set aside time to be with a loved one, we’re really present.

There’s a real joy to be found in giving.

Helping someone move, cooking for friends or going the extra mile to find the exact right gift for a family member’s birthday are just a few examples of what our generosity looks like.

Due to the fact that this generosity is in our nature, we can easily give too much to others.

Now this slight imbalance is not a problem if we don’t burn ourselves out and our efforts are appreciated.

It does become a problem however, when we exhaust ourselves trying to please others and when they take us for granted. (Read more in Why Do INFJs Get Taken For Granted? 6 Reasons You Should Know)

One thing INFJ males really tend to dislike is being taken for granted.

The way INFJ men handle this problem differs depending on the stage of INFJ development they’re in.

In our early INFJ male stage of development (before the age of 25) we often go naively through life with our INFJ hearts wide open.

We give a lot to friends and family, and this tends to spoil them.

What was first seen as generous acts of giving and showing our love are now merely to be expected of us.

Why do INFJ males tend to dislike being taken for granted?

The INFJ man in his early stage of development, might sense this right away, but he might not have developed the assertiveness yet to set appropriate boundaries or handle the situation tactfully.

The more matured INFJ man has little tolerance for being taken for granted.

He understands that his generosity is an act of free will.

He understands that what he gifts others, be it time, attention, money or items, are for them to keep.

As such he wouldn’t ask others to return what he has given them, even when he realizes he’s being taken for granted.

However, what the more developed INFJ male is strongly aware of is that his generosity is and always will be an act of free will.

He understands that he isn’t obligated to give his time, energy or love to anyone (even family members).

The moment he realizes people take him for granted he stops his generosity immediately.

He can have an intense visceral reaction to being taken for granted. It has to do with the INFJ man’s strong need for justice.

When we encounter something unjust we can fly into an INFJ rage.

Which is often a quiet but strong rage in which we instantly decide to cut everyone off who’s taking us for granted.

We realize that some people will only appreciate something when it’s no longer as available.

We gladly help them with this by showing our generous hearts elsewhere.

3. INFJ Males Tend to Dislike Being Used Emotionally

While being taken for granted is often benign and unintentional, being used is many times the result of someone’s deliberate malicious intent.

Now obviously no-one likes being used.

There are many clear situations where this is happening, like when somebody only hangs around you, because of your money, or always drops by around dinner time and eats up all the food in your house and soon after leaves.

But there are also many subtle ways in which someone could be using you emotionally.

Identifying a person who’s using you emotionally isn’t as clear as the tiptoeing Scooby Doo villain who’s up to no good.

These subtle ways have more to do with the unconscious thought and behavior patterns that people act out and are often only visible to the more spiritually awakened eye.

INFJ males often have an affinity with psychology and spirituality as they tend to be deep thinkers and feelers.

They are prone to introspect a lot and try to better themselves and their relationships.

This makes them often more aware of the unconscious unproductive behavior patterns in themselves.

For instance, people-pleasing, to feel better about ourselves is a known INFJ pitfall.

Additionally, INFJ males might recognize unconscious patterns in others.

What’s an example of how an INFJ male is used emotionally?

For instance, it seems that in the Western world, the general paradigm in romantic relationships is still to expect from your partner to make you happy.

Often this dynamic plays itself out, by the first few months being the honeymoon period where the partners still believe the other is going to make them happy.

However, later on in the relationship when the honeymoon period subsides, many discover that they might still be unhappy.

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This is often still the case when someone entered the relationship as an unhappy person.

But now, they risk blaming their partners for the unhappiness as the unrealistic expectations weren’t met.

In other words, the partner is now made responsible for the other’s happiness.

Spiritual teachings like Buddhism, teach us that happiness can’t be found outside of oneself.

Many more spiritually active INFJ men, might be in the midst of adopting a more spiritually advanced approach to relationships, because of past painful failures in love.

They might’ve become aware of the fact that they have a high tendency to attract wounded people who really enjoy their INFJ kindness and caring.

As such they might realize their partner is latching on to them in an unhealthy way and expects to be healed or made happy by the INFJ.

Now, if the INFJ male senses an opening for their partner to grow with them, they would carefully introduce to practice transcending those unconscious patterns together.

By taking responsibility for their own happiness and feelings in the relationship they might be moving towards a more enlightened relationship.

But, if that opening for growth isn’t there in our partner and any signs of it coming anytime soon are missing as well, we’ll most likely leave the relationship after a while.

Once the more matured INFJ sees that they’re in an unhealthy relationship, be it with a lover or a friend, it can’t be unseen.

Our idealistic and holistic hearts always strive for authenticity and wholesomeness. Anything else we’ll have to renounce sooner or later.

Photo by Alex Green on Pexels

Why do INFJ males tend to dislike being used emotionally?

It is not uncommon for the INFJ male to have some past pain around being used.

Many times others saw our sensitivity as a very big weakness, because sensitivity didn’t fit into their image of the male.

I’ll bet there are plenty of us who encountered many opportunistic people trying to take advantage of us.

More so than perhaps the stereotypical macho male who wasn’t as sensitive.

Those INFJ males might have learnt to stand up for themselves the hard way, but could still feel hurt or anger when they have the slightest hint of someone intending to use them in whatever way, triggering our old feelings of betrayal or sadness.

Therefore we might be extra unforgiving and cut those suspects out of our lives forever without losing sleep over it.

As emotional beings and our sensitivity for other people’s emotions, being used emotionally can really wear us down.

We are possibly too vigilant when it comes to identifying emotional vampires, but we are often very successful at weeding them out early on and for good reason.

4. INFJ Males Tend to Dislike People with a Low Integrity

A key aspect of INFJ men is that they tend to be high integrity individuals.

Dreamers who take radical action towards their dreams at the same time.

When we are not making progress with our dreams and life goals, we can be overtaken by a deep sense of unrest.

Retreating to our beloved INFJ man cave (which is our introvert-sanctuary) we envision, plan and work towards what our hearts would like to manifest.

As principled, moralistic and idealistic beings we are strongly devoted to our envisioned goals for a greater good.

When we say we are going to do something, we mean it.

It might take a long time for us to achieve our goals, but that doesn’t matter.

When we’ve made up our minds about what we want, we move towards it at all costs.

We live by a moral code which is: Word is bond. This code applies to the promises made to others, but also to the promises made to ourselves.

We don’t take this lightly. However, this tends to make us allergic to people with a low integrity.

Why do INFJ males tend to dislike people with low integrity?

We don’t like low integrity people, because we can’t trust them.

We foresee that these individuals will cause a lot of emotional drama in the future if we stay relating to them.

Since, we are very sensitive to emotional turmoil because of constant arguments or stress, we want to avoid that.

For example, people who don’t take responsibility for their mistakes.

INFJ males are prideful themselves, but when we’ve made a mistake we very much try to own that and take responsibility.

When we encounter an individual, who’s always blaming others for the mistakes of that individual, we already are moving out of that relationship.

It is exhausting to be caught up in these recurrent fights about who’s right or who’s wrong.

Another example, are people who constantly say they’re going to do things, like better their lives, or eat more healthy, but fail to do so.

We understand that life is hard and granted that we’ve come up short many times ourselves.

However, if we notice that someone keeps making false promises about what he or she is going to do, but isn’t even trying to follow through, over a long period of time, we won’t take them seriously anymore.

We might dissociate from these people too, because their energy isn’t helping us with the ambitious goals we are trying to achieve.

5. INFJ Males Tend to Dislike Men Who don’t Value Women

In my article 5 Common INFJ Male Problems, I’ve mentioned how many INFJ men might’ve had trouble fitting within the more socially accepted stereotypical macho male persona role.

Growing up until now, we’ve likely experienced we couldn’t level with other guys who did fit in this stereotype.

Due to our sensitivity and interest in unconventional male interests, like psychology or the arts, we were perhaps ridiculed or misunderstood by our male peers.

During high school we were often a misfit, or lone wolf, destined to travel solitary with a few other lone wolf outcasts as friends.

On the bright side, in this way we were spared having to play all the so-called alpha and beta male power games with the rest of the high school male monkeys in an attempt to impress the ladies.

As we’ve matured, our empathy and curiosity might’ve even given us an edge when it came to relating to women. 

Why do INFJ males tend to dislike men who don’t value women?

Many heterosexual INFJ men like me, were perhaps timid during high school, but developed their own unique social charm during early/late adulthood by developing our social skills.

As lovers of beauty in life (art, philosophy, nature), heterosexual INFJ men are also drawn to the undeniable beauty of women.

The way individual women walk, talk and see the world intrigues us sincerely.

Our empathy, warmth and sincere interest drives us to understand a woman’s soul.

However, talking about this sincere interest and love for a woman’s personality wouldn’t have led to any respect in the high school male monkey tribe we were cast out of.

Within this male monkey tribe you must prove your masculinity by how many women you can conquer with sleazy tactics and once you’ve steered them into your bed, update your body count score on the arena scoreboard for everyone to see and high five your buddies afterwards to collect the “respect”.

INFJ men who truly adore women have always had a problem with this kind of men vs. female seduction dynamics.

We see a romantic encounter as something intimate shared between two individuals.

As men we don’t kiss and tell. We respect our lovers by remaining discrete.

This is why many INFJ males tend to dislike the stereotypical macho guy, because in our eyes they don’t value women.

We all know those moments at a party where a bunch of men start to brag about their sexual encounters and want to size you up.

To us this buffoonery is just an ugly way to be when you’re only out to take something from someone for your own superficial sense of self-esteem.

If they only knew the romance and intimacy that could be experienced as a man if you are sincere, honest and remain discrete.

That’s why many INFJ men are highly sought after, because their qualities aren’t seen much in men. Thanks guys for making them run into our direction!

Conclusion