What Twitter Says About Your Relationships, Part 2
If you haven’t read Part 1, you missed the other types of Tweeters.
The Reciprocal Tweeter
Tweet: @ToWhomEver I thought your new blog post was great. Here’s a link to mine.
To be fair, it’s sucks to give without getting. But that’s not how Twitter works. That’s not how relationships work. Nowhere does it say if I like you, you have to automatically like me back. Reciprocal Tweeters thinks a Rule of Reciprocation should exists. If they follow you, you should follow them. If you don’t reply when they reply, if you don’t retweet if they retweet, if you don’t comment when they comment, they’ll consider it a slight. Enough slights added up and they unfollow you.
Reciprocal Tweeters are the it’s-not-me-it’s-you people in relationships. They can’t understand how they end up dating so many jerks. What they don’t realize is that the quid pro quo approach to relationships ends up creating heavy expectations. When those expections go unmet, then it’s never them being wrong for having expectations of another person’s behavior, it’s the other person not changing into someone more suitable.
Jerks have always been jerks. It’s not their fault that they’re a jerk to you because they’re a jerk to everyone. Who’s fault is it really to decide to try to have a relationships with one in the first place?
The Common Interest Tweeter
Tweet: I’m an INFP, what about you?
Common interest tweets are the most common tweets. It could be about INFP or it could be tweets about favorite films or favorite poems. Common tweets can be associated with topic hashtags. Unfortunately, common interest is only the start of relationships.
Common Interest Tweeters are the ones that join the latest Facebook fan page and takes the latest test. They join clubs and attend social activities whether it be ballroom dancing or coed naked slam poetry readings. They hangout with buddies as much as they can, but they can’t understand why they aren’t forming more meaningful relationships.
I can talk all about INFP and geek stuff, but if that other person stalks their ex as a hobby, I don’t think the friendship will be going anywhere. Having lots of common interests doesn’t really denote compatible values. Common Interest Tweeters seem endlessly surprised that a mutual love for 19th century Romantic poetry doesn’t preclude someone from being an axe-murderer.
Relationships Begin With You
It’s not looking to meet the right people.
In Twitter, whether people follow or unfollow really starts with us. Friends, acquaintances and Twitter followers are a reflection of us because these are the people that we attract into our life.
I have so much to give to the right person is a wonderful in theory.
However, if all the baggage and all the things currently going wrong in our life leaves us a bit broken and we don’t fix it first, we’re a crappy gift. What we’re basically saying is, “hey, this doesn’t work right, but I want you to have it anyway.” Gee, thanks.
Someone who love me should love me for who I am even slightly broken is also wonderful in theory.
I have a slightly broken dryer who’s timer I doesn’t work. So I have to wait and manually turn it off. I can’t just set it and go to bed or leave the house. That’s the problem with slightly broken things. It creates an unbalance in the relationships because whatever is slightly broken requires more time and resources. Unbalanced relationships fail.
Sue London
Feb 2, 2010
3:13 pm
Unbalanced relationships fail.
Nobody’s perfect, I think that’s why this quote from Sleepless in Seattle is so priceless:
“So what we think of as fate is just two neuroses knowing that they are a perfect match.”
Apparently the neurosis that everyone matches with on Twitter is Ashton Kutcher’s… I’m not quite sure what that says about America and the Twitter-verse at large.
[Reply]
ockhamdesign Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:19 pm
I don’t think it’s a matter of being perfect. It’s okay if you’re patched and a little ragged on the edges. That gives you character.
However, some have gotten into relationship fender benders and things don’t work. Some have trust issues and they end up being paranoid by having to know where you are every moment of the relationship. Some withdraw completely when confronted about even minor bumps.
Some issues need to be fixed first.
[Reply]
lelestar Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
i’m currently trying to deal with/possibly get OVER a guy who COMPLETELY withdraws for no apparent reason!
agreed, some issues – no matter HOW safe of an environment you try to create for this person you care deeply about – need to be fixed on their own.
but if that person was actually willing to accept help, it might be different.
-alas-
[Reply]
ockhamdesign Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Something I said on Twitter a few days ago was this:
INFPs forget that the choice to love someone and the choice to have a relationship with that person are two different choices.
Life gets really hard when those decisions are different from each other. If a significant other doesn’t communicate then the onus of the relationships falls upon you and that’s a very heavy burden to bear and ultimately degrades your quality of life.
Seth Phillips
Jun 20, 2015
3:26 am
I heard from a reliable source that Ashton Kutcher is INFP but now I can’t find it anymore. From my own investigation it does seem likely. INFP’s are the most misunderstood of all the personality types because like ISFP’s our thoughts and feelings are deeper than all others, but unlike the ISFP, we are also more considerate, and even more intuitive – not in touch with the now and fitting in easily like the ISFP because of their more typical Se Ni Te consciousness. Cognatism runs against us. We are like Joseph and his older brothers – dreamers that see clearly those important matters of the heart they overlook. Women occasionally love us, but we value morals, and have higher ones, although we may be somewhat adventurous in that area, because we do see it more clearly (just as an ESTP or ESFP take risks in action at the moment – because Se is their strength, and they trust it to get them through as it always has), just the same, INFP’s tend to pioneer beyond the common morals of the day, for better and occasionally for worse – as ISFP’s often do themselves, because of our strong Fi talent.
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