Elusiveness of a satisfying relationship

Yes, but not for the same reasons. I'm a man, and I'm not very busy in my career. As an ENTP, I'm kind of an asshole. I push people's buttons to see how they work, because it's fun for me. I can make it fun for them, too, for at least a little while. But, eventually, I get on people's last nerve. They close themselves off to me, because I wear them out. This leaves me emotionally unsatisfied, so I go off and find someone else to play around with. That can lead to inappropriate feelings, sometimes inappropriate relationships, and then hurt feelings and broken relationships. And everyone is shocked, because I'm such a sweet, honest, emotionally-open guy. I've been through that process enough times to be bored with it. So, I connect much less often and much less intimately with people. I'm more likely, now, to run away from anyone too interesting. I have a loveless, sexless marriage of convenience with little to no communication or demands. I'm free to do whatever I want with whomever I want. But most days, I'm content to do nothing with anyone, but reddit.

And that probably sounds sad to you, but the only reason I've ever worked was so that people would leave me alone. I got good grades so that I wouldn't be punished for bad grades. I established good credit so that I wouldn't be punished for having bad credit. I pay my bills so that I don't have to deal with collection agencies. When I have a job, I do a good job so that my boss and co-workers won't nag me about my performance. It turns out, the best way to get my wife to leave me alone and give me all the autonomy I could want was to be a bad husband. For the first time since I was five years old, I do what I want all day. I'm just bored with most of the things I've already done, like having a large social group or close friends or intimate relationships. I do like arguing with strangers on the internet about nonsense, though.

I think, to some extent, to be ENTP is to always be alone in a crowd of any size-- even just two. If aliens ever zapped me into their spaceship to conduct anal probes on me, I might at last feel like I've found my people.

/r/entp Thread