How to Love Your INTJ and How They Love Back

Good news, everyone!

So, last week I covered why INTJs are loners. This week I’m flipping the script, and since Valentine’s Day is this weekend, I’ll be talking about how to love your INTJ and how they love back.

Originally, the plan was to only talk about how to love your INTJ, using the type’s cognitive functions and love languages as a guide, but the whole concept of love languages is more than just how we experience love—it’s also about how we express love.

For those who don’t know, the love languages originate from the 1992 book “The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate” by Dr. Gary Chapmen, in which it outlines five general ways romantic partners can express and experience love. They are words of affirmation, acts of service, gift giving, physical touch, and quality time.

As you may know, each personality type has four functions in its function stack—two introverted and two extraverted. And as I was writing this blog, I realized that the ways in which the extraverted functions experience love are the same ways in which INTJs express love by dint of the fact that the extraverted functions are extraverted (outwardly directed). I also came to realize that some of the functions, whether introverted or extraverted, had the same love languages. This is most likely because there are eight functions and only five love languages—expressions of love are more universal than the cognitive functions.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at how to love your INTJ and how they love back via their love languages as correlated to their cognitive functions. And, instead of breaking this down by going through the function stack, let’s go through the introverted functions (Ni and Fi) first followed by the extraverted functions (Te and Se).

Ni and Fi – A Deep, Meaningful Connection

Starting with the introverted functions, we have Ni, introverted intuition, and Fi, introverted feeling, an INTJ’s dominant and tertiary functions, respectively.

Well, with words and quality time, both can hide a lot of meaning within them. Words can drip with meaning depending on their context and their tone. And as for quality time, if someone didn’t mean anything to you, would you spend time with them? There are some things you can only learn about how a person feels about you from how they interact with you, such as in how they look at you or how they carry themselves around you. INTJs will pick up on these little signs, and without knowing how they know, they’ll know they’re loved. Of course, though, with a more forthright partner, an INTJ will know they mean a lot to a person if the partner just says “I love you”, which will hit an INTJ like a ton of bricks. But there’s something else.

I know I keep banging on about meaning, but meaning is important because in order to know the meaning behind an action as it relates to something or someone, you have to understand that something or someone in order to know that those actions would have that meaning. To put it more simply, INTJs want to understand. With Ni, they want to understand the cosmos, while Fi wants to understand the self. So, because they want to understand, both functions want to be understood. Some of that understanding takes place in the sweet things spoken by the INTJ’s partner, and in the quality time spent with an INTJ, but the best way to show your partner that you understand them is through acts of service. When you do things for your partner that validate them or show them their worth to you, you are performing an act of service. In fact, when thought of in this way, all the love languages could be thought of as acts of service, especially if the partner uses a love language they’re not comfortable with using, but they do so to show their affection for their partner. But getting back to INTJs, because they have some unusual needs, such as a lot of alone time, their partner that can fulfill their needs by giving them a lot of alone time, showing they understand their INTJ.

But then, this all begs a question: as words of affirmation, quality time, and acts of service are love languages INTJs have, would they ever express their love in these ways despite these being the languages of their introverted functions? For quality time and acts of service, yes, but that’s because quality time and acts of service are also some of their extraverted love languages, whereas for words of affirmation, the answer is a bit more complicated.

It is well-known that INTJs aren’t good at expressing their feelings. They may feel embarrassed to say “I love you” or say any gushy, lovey-dovey things. They would much rather show their love, but if an INTJ were to use their words to express their love, it would be either through intellectual discourse or through heavily symbolic poetry. Ni is introverted—it’s looking for hidden meaning—it’s not used to being direct or looking for direct truths, and with Fi being buried in an INTJ’s tertiary function, they fiercely protect their feelings, hence, an INTJ will use words of affirmation, but in an indirect and guarded way.

Te and Se – Show Me that You Love Me

Now, we come to Te, extraverted thinking, and Se, extraverted sensing, an INTJ’s auxiliary and inferior functions, respectively. Here, things get interesting because Te is probably the least romantic function and Se is the most sensual function. Te is rational and logical, and Se wants to experience the finer things in life. As a result, Te wants logical proof for love, so its love languages are acts of service and quality time, and Se, which wants to experience love, likes touch and gifts.

There’s not much to talk about with regards to Te when it comes to experiencing love. Like I said, it’s looking for proof of the feelings being expressed for the INTJ, so it says to itself, “If my partner loves me, she will want to be around me and do things for me”. That last one may seem a bit selfish, but love is sometimes a choice, not a feeling, and it takes sacrifice. To love someone means putting their needs ahead of your own, and those sacrificial acts often manifest as acts of service. 

Moving onto Se, this again doesn’t require too much thinking. Se is a sensual function. If an INTJ is being loved, they’ll expect affection and gifts to come their way. Those are common methods by which people express their love for another, so Se is going to expect these two as much as Te will be expecting quality time and acts of service.

But as I said above, the love languages for Te and Se, due to these functions being extraverted, they are not just the ways in which an INTJ experiences love, but they are also—and more likely to be—the ways in which an INTJ will express his love. An INTJ will go out of his way to spend time with you, do things for you, figure out what you like and buy it for you, and figure out how you like to be touched and touch you in that way. INTJs go through all this trouble because they want to prove their love for their partner so that their partner doesn’t doubt or question their love, and further, because INTJs aren’t good at expressing themselves. Like I said, it can be hard to say “I love you”, so why not show it by spending some time with their partner (INTJs value their time, so this is big), helping them with whatever they need help with (INTJs fix problems), giving a small gift (to display how well they know you), and showering their loved one with affection (to an INTJ, it’s easier to make love than it is to say it).

Side Note on Se and Touch

An interesting thing I realized about Se and touch is why it is that INTJs are so stand-offish when it comes to touch with everyone except their beloved, with whom they can be very affectionate, and even cuddly. I believe it is because that while INTJs do enjoy touch and long for it, since it is a part of their inferior function, a function they’re not used to using, it’s uncomfortable for them to be touchy. But when they’re with someone they know, like, and respect, they have no issue letting their guard down and indulging weaker parts of their personality because they know they are loved and accepted.

Forever and Always – Conclusion

Okay, so I hope that was understandable. I’m sorry if it was too complex, but INTJs are complex creatures and love is a complicated subject.

In the end, though, if you don’t understand what I’m saying, just remember to listen to your INTJ when they are expressing what they need from you in a relationship, and just know that an INTJ will do everything in his power to understand you to make sure you are loved in the best way you possibly can be. An INTJ won’t take a relationship lightly, and once they are committed, they’ll be committed to you forever. (Unless you betray them.)

What do you think? Did I get this right, or am I missing something? Or did I forget to mention something in my analysis? Let me know in the comments below.

Thank you for your patronage.

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