There’s a topic about extroversion that I don’t think is explored quite enough.

Why is there so much confusion over whether a person is extroverted or introverted? Because we think that extroversion and an unquenchable desire to be around people and participate in social activities are the same thing. Bingo, answered that question. But that’s not the topic I want to discuss.

I’ve already talked about the whole extroversion-does-not-mean-being-social thing.

And I’ve talked about what extroversion means already too. So I’m not going to make a broken-record article restating my thoughts about that all over again.

We’ve talked about what extroversion means.

What I want to talk about is why.

Why aren’t all extroverts, well, social?

Focus Pocus

Here’s the thing—out of all of the extroverted functions (Ne, Se, Te, Fe), only one of them has anything to do with people and socializing. The rest of them have a different focus.

If you know anything about the eight cognitive functions, you can probably guess which of the extroverted ones focuses on people. That’s right, Extraverted Feeling, or Fe. Fe is energized by external harmony, as in regarding the emotions of others. Social harmony.

Dominant Fe users and also those with auxiliary Fe can likely relate to the struggle of picking up on the emotions of other people around them—constantly—and wanting to take care of everyone. It’s hard for those with Fe to stay focused on just one person in a public setting. They don’t take care of people’s needs individually, like an Fi user would be more likely to do, they take care of people’s needs collectively. Which means they could be in the middle of a deep, heartfelt conversation with you, but if another person suddenly appears to need them in some way, they are gone in a flash. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s that they do care—about everyone in the room. (Seriously, everyone.)

Who else would appear more “extroverted” than an ENFJ or an ESFJ? They are the definition of social. They are literally people-oriented. They might even exhaust themselves just trying to help others around them feel happy and content.

Funnily enough though, you do meet ENFJs and ESFJs that are not into socializing because they’ve had bad experiences with people. We could call this trauma, trust issues, social anxiety, or just plain bad associations. So guess what—personality type still doesn’t dictate whether or not you like being around people. However, I’d say that, given how dependent the Fe function is on other people, I don’t think it would even be doable to just avoid them altogether (at least not for long), in fact I think that would prove very stressful.

We all need people anyway, no matter what. We’re on this planet together for a reason, guys.
But if Fe is the only true people-oriented function, what about the other three extroverted functions, Ne, Se, and Te? What are their focuses?

I’ll start with Ne, Extraverted Intuition, since, being an ENFP, that’s the most familiar one to me personally.
Ne is focused on abstract information, such as patterns, connections, possibilities, ideas, concepts, basically a lot of brain-go-on-de-merry-go-round. Ne does not require people. ENFPs and ENTPs can be some of those most in-their-head extroverts you’ll ever meet. You know the troupe: we forget to eat, we forget to sleep, we forget to drink water, and sometimes we forget to breathe—okay just kidding, that last one’s something your body does automatically.

If I could forget that… man, I sure hope I wouldn’t.

But I live in the cosmos. I don’t live here on earth. I am a zonky alien. Regular life is boring. Its only purpose is to trigger more and more ideas, forever. That rock? Could be a pet rock. Could be a break a window rock. Could be a painted in my yard rock. Could be a polished rock for my rock collection. Could be a metaphor for life rock. Could be the start of my zen garden rock. Could be a skipping rock.

I can list more. Rock has infinite possibilities. Rock has infinite purposes. Rock does not need to be only a rock. Rock can be more.

You can probably see how I would quite possibly get into trouble when it comes to my relationships…
One does not need people to use Ne. Sure, I myself would like to vomit all of my thoughts all over everyone, all the time, but that’s not always something people are interested in (and thus why I have made a blog where I can dump out all of my thoughts about personality-theory/extrovert-related stuff). My true, deep nerdiness is really something that I keep to myself for the most part.

As an ENFP, one thing that energizes me is discussing my thoughts with other people. Asking the questions, like I’m doing here with you, and then talking about all the possible answers. The hope would be that I eventually come to a final conclusion, but sometimes I don’t. That can be really fun, because it leaves things open for more discussion, but it can also get annoying.

I will say though that I find myself very interested in other people. People fascinate me, likely for many reasons, but I think that one of those reasons is because people present so many possibilities. They’re unique and complex. You can analyze people forever, and still have more to consider. And people affect the world constantly.

While dominant and auxiliary Ne users are not necessarily people-oriented, they can take a great interest in people for their own reasons.

What about Se?

Se is a lot less people-oriented than I’d say Ne might be. Se is about experiencing what is happening in the physical world, right now. Raindrops hitting a leaf or one’s own skin, the sound of the wind rushing over your ears, the taste of a slice of pepperoni pizza from Domino’s, the color of your friend’s T-shirt, the smell of motor oil on the side of the road… basically everything I ignore until I somehow remember it all later (thanks to my having Si in my top-four stack instead of Se). It’s about all that objective, detailed sensory information.

Dominant Extraverted Sensors are the most present-minded people you will ever meet. They’re also very sensual. You feel more alive, just being in their presence. They love to have fun, and they’ll make basically anything fun somehow. Those with auxiliary Se also have these qualities, just with a different intensity.
(Side note: I find it very interesting to read the writings of those with dominant or auxiliary Se. They seem to naturally know how to make an impact with their words.)

However, Se just doesn’t need people. There are loads of experiences out there that aren’t people-related. You could get a dog or a cat. You could go to the gym, or download tiktok and watch endless videos. You could eat food, or just sleep. It’s whatever you feel like.

Sure, those with Se as their top function might really enjoy hanging out with friends, but I have yet to met an Se dominant that is actually truly interested in people specifically, and doesn’t get incredibly impatient with them on a consistent basis (I’m not calling you guys out for that second part—but actually no I’m totally calling you out).  It seems like a lot of Se users I have met are very stressed out by customer service, even when they say that they are not. Se users also crave freedom, and relationships, especially the closer, deeper ones, do require at least some loyalty and commitment. People are a tricky thing for those with Extraverted Sensing.

Lastly, we have Te.

Wow, this one is just the opposite of people oriented. People are not logical, they will not always follow rules and they will not always have their priorities straight (as there are too many different things to prioritize and we ourselves are not always aware of which things are best to focus on in a given moment). People cannot truly be maximized for efficiency, they will vary in efficiency. Militarist ways of thinking regarding people can have some very disastrous results. We are not objects to an end, mere cogs in a machine.

But that sure as heck doesn’t mean that Extraverted Thinking won’t view others that way.

Now, I’m sure Te dominants here reading this will understand—I am not calling you heartless people-users. I am calling you task-oriented. You are logical. But I repeat: people are not logical. And they are certainly not required for the completion of tasks… machines can do that.

Yet, paradoxically, you use your own minds to come up with the rules and origination and decisions and even the tasks. Your minds belong to you, and you, my friends—are people.

But you want to organize people. Lead them. Direct them. People (even with all their illogical tendencies) can be useful to a project, often much more useful than machines, and you want to help things run smoother, better—to get the job done.

That’s cool. We need that. The whole world would fall apart if we were missing what you guys bring (same goes for everyone else, by the way). However, what it comes down to is that you’re not natrually people-oriented, because your function doesn’t require people to be activated.

So… Who Is It?

You might be wondering now, who is the most extroverted extrovert then?

Perhaps you think you already have the answer:

“Extraverted Feelers, right? Fe users?”

“They fit the bill of being social and whatnot. You just said…”

But the answer is actually this:

Every extrovert is the most extroverted extrovert. Because all of the extroverted functions are extroverted functions.

None of you are more outside your head than everyone else, because all of you guys with dominant extroverted functions require some sort of external trigger to activate your function. A task to complete. A random thing that could hold many possibilities. A person’s feelings. Your dog.

All of this is outside of you, and yet is processed by something inside your own mind. What a weird thought. All y’all are actually inside your head all the time, you just don’t realize it.

Maybe some of you thought you were a focused person too. Well sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re not focused on everything. Something always distracts you from something else because you can’t focus on everything at once. If you’re focusing on logic, you’re not focusing on emotions… and if you’re focusing on abstract thoughts, you definitely might miss lunch.

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I finished writing the first draft of this article at 1:16 am on a Monday.

Apparently I need to focus on sleep more.

Tags: AllExtroverts, ConceptsTheory, AllPosts