INTJs, how do you respond to “guilt tripping”?

Ever wonder why INTJs are considered anti-social or sociopathic personalities? Watch them not “give a crap” about your machinations.

It isn’t impossible to “guilt trip” an INTJ but many of us see it for the emotional manipulation it is and we resort to one of our personality traits that people really can’t cope with: ice-cold indifference.

That will usually be followed by distancing to outright removal from one’s life the source of the guilt trip. Up to and including family. If we choose to not go along, accept it. Laying a guilt trip for the purpose of achieving your desired compliance often results in the exact opposite effect. Not only do you not get what you seek, we’ll call you out or cut you out to prevent any future attempts.

One of our greatest traits, our loyalty, is counterbalanced by the fact that, when push comes to shove, we will detach ourselves from a no-win situation so fast it will leave you wondering what happened. It isn’t hate. It is just “do not care”. Your protests and attempts become water off a duck’s back. Immaterial. Persist and we’ll tell you to fuck right off. Maybe tactfully. Maybe not. Either way, you won’t succeed.

There’s a reason we don’t play politics well. We see right through it and really can’t be bothered to “play the game”. Guilt tripping is just another mind game that doesn’t interest us at best and offends us at worst.

Try it once and I’ll ignore it. Try it twice and I will make sure you don’t try it again.

Not only is it always obvious, distasteful, manipulative, disingenuous, unintelligent, and displaying poor tact, as someone who was raised with fundamentalist religion that made guilt tripping a part of its MO, it is a fantastic way to guarantee I will lose respect for you or potentially get angry. The Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid you try to guilt trip me according to some arbitrary religious inclination. On top of that, guilt tripping is a form of weakness. It shows you have no more cards to play other than pathetic cheap shots leveraging some power other than your own mind.

What is almost worse than guilt tripping, however, is when a person tries to paint you as an asshole for refusing to give in to their guilt trip and tries to manipulate group dynamics against you. I’ve had times where I refused to give in and someone else is like, “Come on man, you hurt their feelings. Just do it/don’t do it this once.” No. Flat out no. Do not reward bad behavior. You wouldn’t give a dog a treat for shitting on the carpet. Don’t reward someone for shitting on their own self respect and wasting my time.

Try to guilt trip me, and my emotions (including any sense of guilt I might normally have felt) go into complete shutdown. Other people do not get to manipulate my emotions. I do not allow them that access, and I immediately think less of them for attempting it.

Once an attempt has been made, I take great pride and pleasure in completely blocking the person, not giving them anything even remotely resembling the response they hoped for, and presenting as completely unruffled. It drives them CRAZY, and it’s deeply satisfying.

Absolute resistance.

The second I get any sense of emotional manipulation is the second you’ve lost me. Even if the rest of your argument has a good logical structure- I have tuned you out.

In my view, the only people who resort to guilt tripping are either making a power play or have something morally deficient to hide.