A Little TOO Alike

Like with like personality friendships makes sense because you get each other and can finish each other’s sentences half of the time. But, these friendships are not all sunshine, gumdrops and rainbows. The drawbacks? Say for example when two stubborn Smart Structures (NTJs) are angry with each other. Whoa nelly. Now, there’s an impasse that can be impossible to break through. 

It’s not to say two Smart Structures cannot work out their differences. They’re just more likely to have a tougher time opening up about their emotions and are more easily able to ignore disharmony. Or rather, often don’t notice disharmony in others. So hurt feelings might linger longer than it would for two Organics (NFs) who wouldn’t be able to stand the disharmony and would try to resolve their hurt feelings. Likewise, two Organics could get into trouble because they have a tendency to take a lot of things personally and might hurt each other’s feelings unwillingly in a way that wouldn’t happen in the same way with Smart Structure and an Organic since Smart Structures tend to take things a little less personally than an Organic. 

Yesterday, we talked about the benefits of a like with like Organic Freedom (NFP) friendship. My sister Katie, an Organic Freedom, said she can often go a year without seeing, talking to or even emailing with a close Organic Freedom friend and it’s never a problem between either one of them when they finally do make contact. So, I asked her what’s the downside to that type of friendship and she said, “I never see my Organic Freedom friends!”As a Classic Freedom, I kind of laughed about the circular logic of that comment but I get it. They’re SO loose about not communicating that it means they don’t do it very often. The benefit of an Organic Freedom being friends with a Classic Freedom would be that’d feel more compelled to reach out to their Classic Freedom friend for fear of offending them. This might create angst but then they also might see their friend more often!

The trick to avoiding problems with like with like friendships is to recognize that sometimes you’ve got to flex your non-preferences to plow through an impasse — almost channel a different personality type to resolve a conflict or a problem. So Smart Structures, realize that if you don’t make the first move to reconcile with a Smart Structure friend, it might never happen. Organics, well, stop taking things so personally and Organic Freedoms, pick up the phone more than once a year!