How To Spot An INFJ Male (Signs You Should Look For)

INFJ males are in general seen as these “enigmatic unicorns” that are hard to spot in the wild (read Where to Find INFJ Males? (6 Places You Should Look)).

The INFJ is one in 16 Myers-Briggs personality types, making up roughly 1-2 percent of the population.

“INFJ” is an acronym which stands for Introversion (I), Intuition (N), Feeling (F) and Judging (J).

These four core characteristics describe the cognitive functions INFJs use the most to navigate through life.

In this article we’ll dive into the signs you should look for to spot an INFJ male.

These are based on my experiences as a highly sensitive INFJ male, my INFJ friends and the INFJ online discussions!

Let’s take a look!

How To Spot An INFJ Male

The INFJ Male’s Family of Origin

INFJ males are prone to be real momma’s boys, because their sensitivity loves the unique soothing quality of motherly affection.

You’ll probably see them have a close relationship with their mothers throughout their lives.

However, because they are so sensitive (many times highly sensitive), empathetic, and cooperative they have a high risk of becoming their mother’s emotional support if she’s particularly stressed out and unable to cope with significant life events.

Children can easily pick up on their parents’ emotional states, and INFJs in particular have all the tools to become experts at this.

INFJ boys might try to take care of their stressed out parents and this can lead to an unhealthy relationship dynamic i.e. role reversal if the parents let them.

High Risk of Parentification

You’ll often see that the INFJ son became the “new man of the house” when his parents divorced.

Emotionally, physically or financially he might be supporting one or both of his parents from an unhealthy age.

This is called parentification i.e. role reversal where the child now takes care of the parent.

Short term, this coping strategy might help getting the INFJ boy’s needs met, because when his parents are less stressed because of his support, they are more capable of taking care of him.

Sadly, long term this coping strategy often leads to an unhealthy sense of responsibility, depression and resentment.

A great part of their childhood was lost due to the role reversal.

They have a high chance of not getting their needs met in childhood, because parenting such a child requires more special care.

It is almost in the same way that an orchid flower needs different treatment than a cactus.

Heartbreakingly, you’ll see that INFJ males often have a complicated relationship with their parents when parenting was lacking too much.

For instance, if they weren’t accepted for who they were as children, you’ll see them avoiding their family.

If they had to emotionally take care of one of their parents, as an adult you might still see them supporting their parents a lot.

When they weren’t accepted and also made into emotional counsellors as children, you might see the INFJ male vacillating back and forth between avoiding his family and taking care of them due to an overgrown sense of responsibility and guilt cycles.

You’ll need to be particularly close to someone to be able to observe their relationship dynamic with the family of origin.

But, if you see the above mentioned dynamic being played out by your male acquaintance or friend, there’s a chance he’s an INFJ who’s needs weren’t met in childhood.

Read in depth about this dynamic in the INFJ Male Bio Series.

The INFJ Male’s House/Bedroom

You can recognize INFJ males by their need for order around them.

According to Myers-Briggs Typology, the cognitive function underlying “Judging” (J) propels INFJs towards order.

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You’ll see that their house, bedroom or personal spaces are very neat and clean.

Every important item in their house has its place.

You’ll probably see his keys always in the same place.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels

He seldom loses anything important to him or anything at all in fact, because of this habit.

Because their minds are pretty chaotic from the inside, with all the day dreaming and random thoughts going around, they must have some order around them.

By creating order around them, they feel like they actually free up space in their heads.

An untidy room actually causes more unrest inside their minds. A typical INFJ male desk has only a few things on it.

His clothes are typically inside his closet, probably color coordinated or ordered in another meaningful way to him.

His bed is most likely made.

The INFJ Male’s Fashion/Taste

Obviously, not all INFJ males have the same fashion or taste when it comes to clothes.

There are so many clothing styles to choose from.

What you do want to pay attention to is how the men in your social circles put themselves together.

Whatever the INFJ male’s style might be, they like their outfits to be well put together, complete and make sense in a styling sense.

When it comes to styling outfits, it’s in the details. For instance, we like it when the colors of our clothes go well together.

We don’t mind from which brand the clothes are, but if a certain piece of clothing captivates us when we see it we’ll buy it!

Quality of clothing is very important.

We enjoy beautiful things and wish for it to last forever.

We easily pay perhaps 30% more for a T-shirt if we are certain the quality is built to last!

Oftentimes, we like colorful clothes or unique expressive clothes.

We enjoy spicing it up with some fitting accessories, or we wear it in a certain way.

Photo by Maksim Goncharenok on Pexels

As introverts, INFJ males aren’t super flamboyant of course, but we do find it important to express parts of our personality through our clothing.

Our creativity can be seen in our outfits by how it’s put together and how we play around with a lot of different styles.

For instance, from streetwear, vintage hipster, casual, preppy to a more chic suit look or a mix of all those different styles at one point.

Whatever crowds we choose to mingle in from time to time, it is important to us that our outfits still express who we are.

We don’t want to be just a mere copy of those other crowd members (skaters, hip-hoppers, hipsters, goths, prep et cetera).

As a result we occasionally stand out.

A close INFJ male friend of mine told me that people sometimes think he’s gay, because for a man he dresses too well!

We both laugh at this, because he is as heterosexual a man can get.

Just shows that society still has a long way to go.

Pay attention to the well dressed men out there, because they might be INFJ!

The INFJ Male’s Daily Routines/Mindset

INFJs are known to be dreamers who also take actual steps towards making those dreams reality!

For INFJ males it is very important to work towards their life goals on a daily basis to maintain a sense of purpose.

Our days might be carefully planned with different time slots for whatever we need to do.

To speak a bit personal, my iCalendar has 15 different categories with each its own color!

Yes, absolutely crazy I know! Color coordinated schedules are a thing for us.

But, it can also be coordinated differently, as long as it makes sense to the user.

We like structure and efficiency to be able to do as much work as we can.

In general INFJ males are prone to be growth oriented and organized in their goal achievement.

Yet, the amount of structure varies between each individual of course.

Not every INFJ male has obsessive compulsive tendencies, but it can definitely reach those levels.

The downside of the paradox of being structured and creative/open at the same time is that we can dwell on how well we categorize everything.

Our creativity and perfectionism might push us to such a granular level of categorizing and structuring that it distracts from the actual execution of the action plan.

Creatives are known to be night owls, so many INFJ males tend to be night owls too.

We enjoy the calm and soothing quality of night time to do a lot of our thinking.

What’s more is that we get a lot of energy from our creative thoughts.

But, by being particularly inspired by certain creative thoughts at night we have trouble sleeping.

With society at large running on an early bird schedule we INFJs (males) are in many cases sleep deprived.

Do you recognize these things in a male acquaintance of yours? Perhaps an INFJ male? Just saying!

The INFJ Male’s Interests

In general INFJs enjoy complex and abstract subject matters around philosophy, psychology, art and science.

Many personality types like these subjects, however.

A telltale sign that a man might be INFJ, is that he can easily hold two seemingly opposing belief systems.

For instance, he might be a scientist, but still is spiritual or religious.

Typically, the INFJ male is a philanthropist, politically on the left end of the spectrum and encouraging sustainability and pro environmental causes.

Many other personal interests they have might make them come off as hipsters.

Hipsters are known to like obsolete things ironically, like vinyl records, VHS, 8-bit Nintendo games, clothes from the 80s & 90s et cetera.

Granted, that the hipster movement nowadays is more of a mainstream thing.

Some people might like those obsolete things ironically just because it’s edgy, but will move on to wherever the trend goes eventually.

INFJ males usually don’t like to follow trends however.

They will many times like those same obsolete things, but genuinely.

With some things they might seem trendy all of a sudden, but this is most likely random.

Probably, some peculiar interest they already had became popular all of a sudden.

For instance, they might have been collecting vinyl before it was “cool” and still will be long after it’s not so “cool” anymore.

Or the trend inspired them to dive into vinyl and still are into it long after everyone moved on so to speak.

They are many times very early or very late to the party when it comes to trends in fashion too.

Now, many times this is a result of them deliberately resisting following trends, because they don’t like to follow the herd.

They don’t really care to be seen as current.

What they care about is sincerely enjoying something regardless of what anyone else thinks, because what they express needs to be part of themselves before anything else.

Not just something they do to impress others with.

The INFJ Male in Conversations

During conversation with others, INFJ males tend to be excellent active listeners.

They allow the other person a lot of space to talk and are sincerely interested in what the other has to say.

You’ll notice that he will be attentively listening to you like there’s no-one else around.

He will nod a lot to encourage you to talk and to communicate that he’s listening, creating a warm receptive atmosphere.

He’ll keep strong eye-contact mostly, but will also break eye-contact abruptly when it gets too intense for the both of you.

You’ll see him actively think about what you said and interrupt you gently to ask deeper questions about those things.

This might be prefaced by paraphrasing what you were saying for greater clarity.

You’ll notice that the conversations with INFJ (males) tend to drift towards a more underlying core layer of whatever you are talking about.

For example, you might start off talking about your clothing style and end up talking about why you should pursue your dreams as a clothing designer (meaning he uncovered your underlying burning passion).

INFJ males are good at uncovering your core essence and will celebrate its beauty.

You’ll notice that in conversation with an INFJ man you’ll feel seen and understood.

You might even tell him things you haven’t told friends even though you just met him.

Afterwards you’ll realize that you actually know very little about the INFJ man, because you were talking 90% of the time!

You try to remember asking him all the questions next time to show more interest.

But after the second time you find yourself talking the whole time again!

What is happening?! An INFJ male.. that’s what’s happening!

The INFJ Male at Social Events

Despite being predominantly introverted, INFJ males can all of sudden appear fairly extraverted during social events.

It depends on the setting of course, but at parties they can actually be pretty lively.

They won’t be seeking to be the absolute center of attention, but tend to do their own thing.

Look closely at the party scene. For instance, you might be at a backyard party.

In the yard there are different groups of people hanging out, drinking and socializing.

You’ll notice that there’s a core group somewhere in the middle of which the central figures are part of.

Pay attention to the groups of people in the periphery.

You might see a man initially standing there alone having a drink and some time later there are a bunch of people at his side and having a blast.

He might bob and weave in and out of the different groups with an enthusiastic and open presence.

You’ll see him connect with a lot of different people he never met before through his humor, charm and curiosity.

You’ll see that people keep coming back to him wherever he goes.

The INFJ male can genuinely enjoy himself socially and even get energized like an extravert from the social interaction he's engaging in.

As social chameleons relentlessy striving for a peaceful and nurturing social atmosphere, they often use their extraverted side also for the greater good.

When they sense that at the party people only stick to talking to their well-known friends, INFJ (men) may try to break open the group's energy by talking to all the strangers.

By leading this way they hope to take away everyone's social insecurities and awkwardness and inspire others to mingle within the entirety of the group.

They can be socially very courageous if they know it will contribute to social harmony.

If you observe these things chances are it is a socially developed INFJ male.

Photo by Monstera on Pexels

The INFJ Male’s Friendships

The group of friends of the INFJ male, is a carefully handpicked bunch of people.

Typically his best friends are trustworthy, authentic, open-minded, inspiring, empathetic people with integrity.

As the mature INFJ male is a treasure hunter or beauty seeker himself, he likes to band together with others who are in love with life just like he is.

Becoming friends with an INFJ male might take a long time, because he has to screen your essence on being pure hearted.

Once you’re in, the friendship is formed with the intention to last a lifetime.

As such INFJ males will do almost anything for their friends and will protect them at all cost!

The INFJ Male’s Romantic Relationships

There lies enormous potential to be a great lover to whoever the INFJ male chooses to be in a relationship with.

Being sensitive, empathetic, creative and responsible (if matured enough) he will use all of his gifts to make sure his beloved feels seen and celebrated on a consistent basis.

Heterosexual INFJ males who are matured and socially developed are often loved by women.

Their romantic spirits and feminine traits give them an advantage over most other guys, if they can balance it with their masculine traits too.

A matured INFJ man showing up embodying the full spectrum (his masculine as well as his feminine traits) is a very rare breed of a romantic man.

A romantic encounter with such a man won’t be easily forgotten.

An INFJ male’s love can be passionate in every aspect (dating, sex, romance, relationship) and is a very generous kind of love.

Sadly, this often gets taken for granted by others.

If the INFJ man isn’t mature enough, he won’t set boundaries when this happens.

It’s often the case that they get trapped in toxic relationship dynamics where they are getting drained out.

Luckily, he learns from those experiences in the long run.

When he discovers his worth and knows how to stand up for himself, any hint of entitlement of his love will be met with his absence, because he lives in abundance.

Read in depth about the INFJ males romantic traits in my article 7 Essential INFJ male Relationship Needs.

Dated a guy like this in the past perhaps? You might wanna call him back asap!

Conclusion

In this article we dove deeper into different aspects of the INFJ male. By paying attention to these different signs you might be able to spot an INFJ male in real life!

Like always, these examples aren’t accurate for every INFJ male.

Many might also be applicable to INFJ females.

However, discovering where we are similar is as helpful as discovering where we are different!

Good luck spotting INFJ males out there! Let me know if you found one!

Food For Thought

1. Which other signs are there by which you can spot an INFJ male?