Does anyone else keep getting misinterpreted by everyone?

[u/pamjengadeti]

I don't know if this is something that only keeps happening to me,but I always get misinterpreted. People assume motives that aren't there. I have this thing when i discuss topics with people that make me want to be very objective without me having any personal feelings attached to the thing I point out.However,most don't seem to understand this and I get called arrogant or selfish a lot lol.Anyone else on the same boat?

[u/oclsc]

Vibes > logic - 90% of population

[u/SleepyMusicNerd19 → u/oclsc]

😭😭🥀🥀

[u/MyNameTeb]

Ahh yes, the old talking to people trap

[u/Mariomaelkhtib25 → u/MyNameTeb]

Talking to old people is a special kind of trap

[u/notthatfunny_1821 → u/Mariomaelkhtib25]

Somehow for me it has been the opposite. With the exception of my teen years, I always got along properly with people a generations older than me.

I always attributed the fact to just being a slightly more polite than my contemporaries.

[u/Mariomaelkhtib25 → u/notthatfunny_1821]

I mean someone significantly older. I can get along with people that are 5 years or less older than me and I can get along with younger people (even though it heavily depends on the person), but the ones that are like 10 or more years older are harder for me to communicate with.

[u/entropicdrift → u/Mariomaelkhtib25]

I don't know, I feel like I was born old, in terms of my emotional self. It's sometimes nice to talk to elderly people who seem to better understand my brand of bemused cynicism mixed with appreciation of the good stuff.

Personally I've never had issues talking to elderly people. It's middle-aged people who think they have it all figured out who are the worst, especially if you poke holes in their arguments/worldview. Old people are either intolerable or their hard-won wisdom has gotten them closer to our wavelength on the emotional spectrum, where they just want to appreciate life and try to understand the world a little better each day.

Basically I think what I'm getting at is that most people don't approach life with a sort of zen/philosophical humility, but old people who life has humbled tend to actually understand our good-natured inquiries into the whys and hows of things because they're not trying to out-do anyone anymore. Middle-aged and young people who have bought into the rat race are the ones who are always trying to keep up with the Joneses and thus see our apparently lackadaisical attitudes as an inherent criticism of the efforts they have been putting in. It's just that we're the types to be impressed by knowledge and wisdom, which aren't things you can buy so much as work that you have to have put in on yourself.

Imagine if you put all of your time, effort and money into having the nicest car and house that you could afford, and you went out and met someone who didn't care about any of that really and was super crazy fit, like they do triathlons regularly, and every time you talked to them they were actively working out. Basically, I think what happens with those types is, they see us seemingly competing on a different aspect of life from them and any perceived success we have in that is, to them, a form of bragging. Like our very existence as compulsive knowledge/wisdom seekers is a form of social pressure we're applying to them unknowingly, shaming them for their lack of mental fitness.

Apologies for the long ramble, I'm still waking up so I wasn't able to effectively condense my thoughts.

[u/Mariomaelkhtib25 → u/entropicdrift]

I didn't see it this way. It's hard for me to communicate in general, so I depend on the idea of interests and mentality. The older people are the harder it becomes for me to find common interests since I'm a child-like person when it comes to my interests and mentality. It's easy to say or do the wrong thing and the older ones would think of it as disrespectful. That's why. 

[u/entropicdrift → u/Mariomaelkhtib25]

That makes sense. I've always found it pretty easy to follow an explicit protocol rather than adapt to a bunch of implicit expectations that people closer to me in age hold, so when I was a kid I found it really easy to talk to elderly people since they had much more specific and explicit expectations of what made up good manners, whereas people in my age group who aren't big nerds like me tend to read ulterior motives into my awkward social fumbling whenever I'm less-than-graceful in my read of/reaction to a given situation.

Basically, I think it's easier for people who don't see me as competition to understand where I'm coming from. I think the people who call us arrogant are coming from a competitive mindset, y'know? Like they're trying so hard to compete with me and I either don't notice or pretend not to because I don't care and don't want to compete, and that's what's considered arrogant. That and the tendency towards individualism rather than trying to ambitiously recruit everyone we meet into an epic team-up in order to reach some grand goal the way an ENTP or ENTJ might. I think that epic team-up style is somehow considered less arrogant because by asking for help they're seen as humbling themselves, whereas we don't like managing people especially so to us it seems like it would be a hassle and an undue burden on others.

[u/Mariomaelkhtib25 → u/entropicdrift]

Good point. Especially that last part. Not exactly my experience but I can see that and relate to some of it.

[u/saliii]

People really object and find it strange when I don’t take sides. I didn’t realise this was the main reason why I have superficial acquaintances and no close friends. I don’t need to take sides something about it is so childish and I can’t get over it.

[u/rottingdoeeyes → u/saliii]

Yeah I've been called a devil's advocate or pussy before for literally just not caring or wanting to side when I see both sides and they both make sense

[u/wool_warrior]

I think a lot of us run into this because most people read emotion from tone and face first, words second, and INTP-style "detached analysis" feels cold or judgmental to them.

Framing helps a bit: starting with something like "I'm not attacking you, I'm just trying to understand the logic of this" softens how the exact same point lands.

[u/DescriptorTablesx86 → u/wool_warrior]

Id skip the „I’m not attacking you,” part lol that’s almost like saying „calm down please” during an argument

[u/rottingdoeeyes → u/DescriptorTablesx86]

Depends. If you preface it and the person isn't mad, it's fine. If they're defensive and you say it, they may get more defensive.

[u/Intelligent-Boss-156]

Sort of. I've had people think I'm the con artist type when they are getting to know me.. They don't know I'm holding back thousands of ideas related to philosophy and psychology, not conning

[u/crucifysal]

My friend that apparently gets a lot of people to talk to him about me and other dudes from our faculty keeps saying people keep taking me as mysterious and it's the most confusing thing I've ever heard

[u/rottingdoeeyes → u/crucifysal]

My best friend calls me aloof and I'm like... I've told you about the color of my poop before wdym aloof

[u/Tommonen]

Not by everyone, but a lot by Fi/Te types with N dom/aux, and dumb people who are not able to process complex stuff.

[u/Blancandrin__]

Yes. I hate it. It makes me feel like nobody knows or understand me.

[u/akabar2]

Cuz people hate facts, logic, and truth. They wanna hear things that reaffirm their beleifs

[u/Disastrous_Swim_4956]

Yes, all the time.

It feels like it's become a game to deliberately misunderstand something said so that you can claim to have been hurt or offended by it.

[u/Kreymens]

Yeah but I also kept misinterpreting what people meant so it checks out.

[u/Pandelein]

Perceived arrogance just comes with the territory, sadly. It’s hard being in the smartest group ;)

[u/DescriptorTablesx86]

People don’t believe me when I take a neutral stance and accuse me of having a veiled agenda, yes that’s normal I guess.

[u/vodkaZoomsIn]

My motives are known only by me. Whether it's good or bad isn't really anybody's business. But when someone misinterprets me despite having received a clarification, I give them what they want, lol.

[u/SianBeast]

Yeah... I mean, the biggest one for me is that you'll be talking about what you might do in a specific hypothetical scenario, and suddenly that's apparently what you do in all variations of said scenario and I'm there like, well no, because X factor changes things significantly....

[u/t045tyy]

I tend to assume the problem was me and I misinterpreted the situation/context atp. The ol 'if everyone you meet is a jerk, then maybe you're the jerk' logic

[u/rottingdoeeyes → u/t045tyy]

Same

[u/nooneneededtoknow]

This happens to virtually everyone and undoubtedly you have done it to others without thinking twice about it.

[u/awarENTP]

Get to used not being understood by most, it stinks, but u can crack some jokes to help yourself cope and get people to like u along the way xD.

Also you actually will find your people and not feel so alone, just gotta focus on it.

[u/Unlikely_Cricket9758]

This happens to me almost exclusively with my wife. But it happens a lot and it's really exhausting/frustrating. I feel like I have to use more words to explain what I didn't mean than what I was trying to say in the first place.

Not sure if this is a male/female divide or the almost opposite MBTI ratings we have (I'm INTP; she's ISFJ). Whenever I've taken it in always on the cusp between I/E and T/F, so I understand and value feelings and others' perspectives, but with a consistently high N and P, I think it sometimes feels like we're just not able to speak the same language.

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[u/MrPotagyl]

Yes, a really common problem for me.

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[u/Elliptical_Tangent]

All the time

[u/Titania_Fairy]

I get that a lot too, like…look at how often ENFJs get called manipulative, when i just try to stop bad things from happening, with the extra handicap i don’t want people to know, what nasty games were played behind the curtains often. If they knew all about it, people might go mad of stop trusting everyone forever.

Or when i step in more actively, i get called cruel or a witch. Even if i only did that to for their sake too. Things are often not, what they seem to look like.

[u/rottingdoeeyes]

Yeah constantly. But I, an INTP, also misinterpret people when I'm not thinking hard, or in the inverse, thinking way too hard. I blame it on the autism but idk.

[u/Ok-Nobody-5802]

Sigh.....go get diagnosed.

[u/ExistentialYoshi]

Are you fairly young? Like late teens, early 20s? That would certainly go some way to explaining it a bit. It's very fucking frustrating and I still deal with it even in my 30s, but I find that over time one learns how to play the stupid word games necessary to minimize these instances from occurring with such high frequency. People are dumb n shit.

[u/No-Garden-4354]

My husband told me that most people don’t get the devil’s advocate concept and that’s why they argue with me

[u/Cheepshooter]

I can see both sides of a lot of issues. I do this because I try to think like the person making both arguments and use objective logic That makes me agnostic on a lot of issues. It also firms up my position in some issues. A lot of people don't get it. Oh well.

[u/AHintofSilverSparkle]

Yes. All the time. I've been told I'm arguing when I'm not. I've been told I'm interrogating when I'm just curious. I've been told I'm angry when I'm not. My words are always twisted and taken out of context.

[u/Accomplished_Cry4923]

part of the reason is I feel like as young adults we seem 80, in fact my friends have commented I am (insert age) going on 80. Due to my rants, so I would just accept it for I find as we get older we mature.