S2E2: Double Trouble: ENTP & ENTP Compatibility

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You can listen to the full episode of our podcast on Personality Love Lab, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This week, for the first time ever, we talk to a couple who are the same personality to explore ENTP and ENTP compatibility. Anna (ENTP) and Ethan (ENTP), who are based in Nebraska, first met when they were studying theater at college and have been together for two years. They were instantly on the same wavelength and shared a number of interests. In this episode, they talk about their introverted tendencies despite being extroverts, how they often think exactly the same thing and Ethan’s sneaky way of asking Anna out on a date.

Lou (ESFJ): Hi! Welcome to Personality Love Lab, where we interview real couples to delve deeper into the 16 personality types and love.

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Lou (ESFJ): We’re your hosts. I'm Lou, an ESFJ, also known as So Supportive.

Jess (INFP): And I'm Jess, an INFP, also known as So Unique.

Lou (ESFJ): Today on personality lab we have Anna and Ethan from Nebraska. Anna is 24, Ethan is 23 and they have been together for 2 years.

Anna and Ethan are both ENTPs, also known as So Visionary. We’re really excited about interviewing them both because it’s the first time we’ve had an ENTP on the podcast and the first time we’ve interviewed a couple of the same personality type.

How did you guys meet?

Anna (ENTP):  So basically, we were both theater majors in college, so we met in the same stagecraft class. We basically bonded over common interests. We were in the same play together, so we just began talking and our friendship started from there basically.

Jess (INFP): When you met where you instantly on the same wavelength (being the same personality type)?

Ethan (ENTP): I guess it was definitely the same wavelength. For sure.

Anna (ENTP): Yeah. We bonded a lot. We have very similar interests, so it started from there. And I know that with a lot of people with the same personality types, you get one person who's a certain way and another person who's a different way, even though they're the same person. But honestly, we shared interests. We share pretty similar backgrounds too.

Jess (INFP): Okay, nice.

Lou (ESFJ): So what was your first date like then? How did it happen?

Ethan (ENTP): Well, that was fun because what happened was, we were in a class together and I had kind of liked her a little bit before she liked me. But by this time, we were both on the same page about that. We just hadn't really said anything about it yet.

Anna (ENTP): It was all in the mind.

Ethan (ENTP): And so there was this paper coming up in class and the wager was, she said, “I'm not going to do the paper.” And I said, “All right. I will do it. We'll make a bet. Loser has to buy the winner breakfast.” And I had no intention of ever doing this stupid paper, so I got to buy breakfast and that was kind of how it all spun and that was where it went.

Anna (ENTP): I never let him forget it too.

Jess (INFP): Did you know it was a date, Anna?

Anna (ENTP): I did. We kind of sensed it, we bantered back and forth for a while and it was just like, “Okay, he totally likes me.” And then other people are just like, “Are you sure he does? Are you sure he's not kidding with you?” I'm like, “No, I sense it,” because we were, both flirting in the same manner. So it was fairly obvious to me.

Lou (ESFJ): And how did it go on the actual date? What did you do?

Ethan (ENTP): Great. Yeah, we just went to this little breakfast spot on campus and then we just rolled with it and then came the “I like you” and that was it.

Anna (ENTP): It was a little bit afterward, he said something like, “What are we going to do about this unspoken thing between us?” And I was like, “Okay, all right. I knew this was coming somehow.”

Jess (INFP): Yeah. That's a good way of doing it. Not very subtle. Just say it as it is.

And what first attracted you to each other?

Ethan (ENTP): We kind of already said it - it was the common interests. She was funny and interesting and pretty, obviously. We liked a lot of the same stuff and there was a lot of banter. There was a lot of similarities there that I really liked.

Anna (ENTP): Yeah. Pretty much the same [for me]. He always made me laugh during class. We were those people that would sit in the back of the class and we would just talk back and forth, like the teacher's just doing a lesson and we would just be making fun of them the entire time. All good things.

Ethan (ENTP): It was fun.

Jess (INFP): Yeah. In my head I like have this kind of image of an ENTP-ENTP couple just having loads of great banter and being super witty and just having great conversations.

Anna (ENTP): We still do. We take great pleasure and just sit in the back and just like having our own little commentary.

Ethan (ENTP): People say we're witty, so I believe them.

Lou (ESFJ): And then when did you first consider yourself a couple?

Anna (ENTP): It just happened. When you're on the same wavelength and when you know you like each other, and you know that you guys have similar interests. I mean, we never even specified a certain time in which we call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. It just happened. Everyone knew it and everyone was just like, “Oh, they like each other.”

Jess (INFP): I think that does happen. We've talked to quite a few couples now and that's definitely a theme that maybe couples did have that conversation at some point, but they both just knew they were together.

Anna (ENTP): Right. And I think that's fairly healthy because when you feel that connection with someone, no matter what their personality type is, it can be like a complete opposite person, it can be a completely similar person, it just happens, and you know it.

Jess (INFP): It's just right. Exactly. And when did you both discover your personality type?

Anna (ENTP): I had gone through a journey with my personality type because basically I'd spent my entire childhood thinking that I was an introvert because I was home schooled. I was that person. I was just constantly to myself. I was an only child. So I thought, “Oh, I'm totally comfortable being alone.” Then I got to college and I realized, hey, I actually like talking to people and I actually liked communicating with everybody. So that's when I discovered that I was in an ENTP. I'd taken the test and everything and it felt really right. And I think the main thing was, a lot of the times people put thinkers into these boxes of having zero emotion and all of that and that's mainly what confused me growing up. It's not true. Thinkers definitely have a lot of feelings; we just handle it in a different way other than feelers. So that's kind of how I discovered who I was, and it was years of a journey.

Jess (INFP): It’s interesting what you said about thinking that you were an introvert earlier on because we just posted something on Instagram, quotes that each type relates to, and the INTJ quote was about preferring to be alone than in bad company. We just had an ENTP comment on that saying, “I really relate to this as well.” And it's because they tend to be one of the extroverts that tend to spend most time alone because I guess your extroverted function is more focused on ideas rather than people, so it can be a bit confusing.

Anna (ENTP): One thousand percent agree, and we can be completely comfortable just socializing with people, but there's several nights where we spend time alone at home and we're like, “Yeah, I'm totally fine with this.” Just watching movies or whatever.

Ethan (ENTP): And we both have social batteries that run out quickly.

Anna (ENTP): It's just like, okay, I can only make jokes for a certain number of hours.

Jess (INFP): Particularly with small talk, I guess, your social battery runs out.

Anna (ENTP): Oh yeah, definitely.

Jess (INFP): And Ethan, when did you discover your personality type?

Ethan (ENTP): Well, I first learned about all the personality stuff freshman year of college and I took the test and I was an ENFP. I was like theater major and it was whatever. And then between freshman year and junior year things happened, changed, you discover your own demons and depression. And then that's kind of around the time when I met her and then she was like, “Hey, you might want to take that test again. I'm not so sure if you still are that.” So I did. I took it again and I was an ENTP. And once I saw a lot of the people, historically actors and stuff that were involved with that type, I was like, “okay, this makes sense, this is more me than the last one.”

Jess (INFP): Yeah. And just out of interest, what do you both love about acting so much?

Ethan (ENTP): That's a good question. That’s a great question actually. I just love inhabiting different characters, you know, there was a great acting teacher, Sanford Meisner, and his technique is always ‘living truthfully under imaginary circumstances’. And I just love that part about acting, discovering who this character is and making him different than me and finding all the different nuances to it. So that's what I like about it.

Anna (ENTP): Oh yeah. And I enjoy the aspect of reacting to other people because I feel that, especially with my very sheltered background, I grew the extroverted feeling part of myself. So I'm very attuned with other people's emotions, especially on the stage. So I was able to interact off of them very easily. And it's very easy for me to have chemistry with people in general. So I found theater fun because of that.

Jess (INFP): Yeah, they’re two really good functions, extroverted intuition and extroverted feeling to be acting on stage.

Anna (ENTP): Oh yeah. It's a lot of fun.

Jess (INFP): Exactly. So, I'm obviously a perceiver, but introverted so I'm probably, I'd say, less adept to acting in the moment or reacting in the moment.

Do you think knowing your personality type has impacted your relationship at all?

Ethan (ENTP): Yeah. I mean, I think it definitely answers certain questions for sure. And I think that it helps to know that if you have one way of thinking, that same as the other person, obviously you check with them, but that they're probably nine times out of ten thinking the same way about it as you are, which is very comforting.

Anna (ENTP): It's very unique in our circumstance because usually I would think something completely off the charts like, “Oh, I feel this way about this person.” And then I would be like, “Oh, he isn't thinking the same thing as me.” Then we touch on that and we're like, “Oh wow. We felt the same thing about that person.”

Ethan (ENTP): We both dislike him.

Anna (ENTP): So it's very comforting honestly. And I feel that a lot of the times, when you think of two ENTPs in a relationship, you just imagine pure chaos. I think both of us have more of a developed sense of self, I guess, if we met, if we were any younger, I don't think that would be the case. I think we both would be the chaotic people, but I think gradually we've discovered ourselves, we're still growing. We still have a lot of personal growth that we'd like to prioritize. So I feel that that's why it works.

Jess (INFP): That’s a very good point – that it also depends on which stage of your life.

Anna (ENTP): Oh yeah. You would not want to have seen us five years ago.

Ethan (ENTP): Absolutely not.

Jess (INFP): Would that have been total chaos?

Ethan (ENTP): That would’ve been chaos, yep!

Anna (ENTP): A little on the edge kind of thing.

Jess (INFP): What kind of things do you guys talk about?

Ethan (ENTP): Honestly, anything. I think this also stems from us being friends for a while before we started dating. There's really nothing off the table, we can bring up any topic and we just talk about it. There's a really nice open dialogue to it.

Jess (INFP): I think ENTPs do think in quite a unique way and it probably is quite special to be able to connect over that.

Anna (ENTP): Oh yeah. Because I think a lot of the times the ENTPs do suffer from the feeling of misunderstanding quite a bit and of course we get used to it because we're surrounded by people that we have to constantly try to understand and we do enjoy understanding, but it's nice to reach the place where we call a person a home.

Jess (INFP): Yes, exactly.

Lou (ESFJ): How do you both deal with conflict?

Ethan (ENTP): Depends on the situation. Doesn’t it?

Anna (ENTP): It's mainly communication. I think a lot of the time, being thinkers, we sometimes do not know how to handle our emotions, whether it's in a quiet way or a loud way, but usually when one of us is feeling extra emotional, the other person is willing to say, “Okay, let's think about this for a little bit.” So it's very good, honestly, that neither of us really are emotional at the same time.

Jess (INFP): So you can bring balance? That's definitely good. And what do you most like about each other's personality?

Anna (ENTP): I like that you're funny. He makes me laugh all the time.

Ethan (ENTP): I like that she laughs. She's funny. I like that. She's soft-hearted, that's great. I like that she's up for anything like adventures or whatever. I think that that's great. It's fun. It's always nice to have somebody to say, “Let's go out” or, “No, let's just stay in.” I guess flexibility would be one thing that I really like about Anna.

Anna (ENTP): I love that he's very open-minded and I feel that we're both very open-minded.

Ethan (ENTP): Definitely.

Anna (ENTP): I think that's definitely our strength, that we're able to see different perspectives, whether in each other or in certain people,

Ethan (ENTP): Even if we don't necessarily agree with it. I can usually come to a point where it's like, “Okay, I get it. I see where they're coming from for sure.”

Jess (INFP): And maybe not right now because of lockdown and things like that, but usually do you have lots of spontaneous adventures together?

Ethan (ENTP): I mean, yeah. It can just be even like a trip to Target, which is a high point of life here in the Midwest, a trip to Target. Spontaneousness is just part of it.

Anna (ENTP): Yep. Let's get McDonald's

Jess (INFP): Exactly. Because we talked to two ISFJs earlier and they are the complete opposite to you guys. They just love structure and routine.

Anna (ENTP): Oh yeah. And every time we try to have a structure, I feel that we're just like, “Okay, well let's be a little chaotic. Let's just throw a little spice into the mix.”

Jess (INFP): Make it more fun, hey?

Lou (ESFJ): I guess this is a funny one because it might be a reflection of yourself as well, but is there anything you'd change about each other's personality?

Ethan (ENTP): This was the question that I looked at and I was like, “Oof.” Honestly, no, because I think, as something you touched on earlier was being self-aware and constantly growing, I think being self-aware and constantly growing, there is an aspect to that where it's like, you're always trying to be better tomorrow than you were today, and better today than you were yesterday. So it's a constant evolving of, not necessarily character, but of your… I guess of your character and of just constantly being better than what you were. So I don't know if there's anything that I would say to change because eventually anything that I may say, “Ooh, you know this.” I think it's going to change and if it doesn't obviously, again, the communication comes into that and we talk about it, but no, not right now.

Anna (ENTP): I feel the same way.  I feel that we both have evolved a lot, even in the two and a half years that we've known each other.

Ethan (ENTP): Oh, for sure.

Anna (ENTP): I feel that we've just developed ourselves, developed our perspectives on a lot of things. And honestly, I wouldn't change a thing right now because I know that we're not going to be the same in a year or 10 years.

Jess (INFP): I think it's a good way to look at things. I think it's a very ENTP, or ENFP way to look at things, the constant change and embracing it as well. And then have you faced any challenges as a couple?

Ethan (ENTP): None like majorly that I can think of?

Anna (ENTP): Nothing majorly. I think the main thing is, because we do love bantering back and forth, sometimes it can appear hostile on the outside. Sometimes it’s just like, “Oh, don't worry, we do get along.” But sometimes we re-evaluate and we're like, “wait, do people think that we hate each other?” And as performers, sometimes that comes out too. Sometimes it's like putting on a show for everybody, and maybe we have got to tone it down.

Anna (ENTP): It’s like if we argue back and forth, sometimes it makes people laugh, but we have to be like, “Wait, we were kidding.”

Jess (INFP): I think as long as you guys know yourself, it's totally fine.

Anna (ENTP): Why not? And if it gets a laugh!

Lou (ESFJ): And what are your strengths and weaknesses in your relationship?

Ethan (ENTP): Strengths, I think, and this is something she's good at too, I think I'm a decently good listener. You know, if there's a problem, she can just lay it all out just to have a voice or ear to hear when you have something on your mind or whatever going on. I think that that's definitely a strong point.

Anna (ENTP): Oh yeah. We're both very active listeners. And we both really acknowledge each other's feelings and we both want to understand each other, which is very nice. And I mean, we did that with a lot of things. I feel that we want to understand pretty much everything. As far as weaknesses go, perhaps the emotional aspect that I mentioned earlier, just dealing with it in the moment sometimes. Sometimes emotions just hit out of nowhere and sometimes, especially me, I don't fully process it in the moment because I'm like, “I'm angry, but I don't know why I'm angry.” But usually either me or him are able to just re-evaluate, just reconstruct what exactly is going on inside.

Ethan (ENTP): I can tend to bottle up, which is a weakness of mine. I just push things down and then it's like, “Oh no, here it all is.” So learning to process these things as they come instead of when they just kind of explode into one long rant.

Jess (INFP): Yeah. As an INFP, I'm super in touch with my emotions and my feelings and I find it fascinating listening to thinkers, talk about this. It blows my mind.

Anna (ENTP): It's like you know right away and it takes us ages to figure it out.

Ethan (ENTP): I’m like, “Why was I mad on Monday?”.

Jess (INFP): I have different things that I'm weaker at and stronger at, but it's so interesting as well.

Lou (ESFJ): And then being the same personality type. Do you think that you actually have differences? What are your main differences in your personality?

Ethan (ENTP): Oh yeah, for sure. I think I can tend to be a little bit more outgoing. If we go to a new place, I feel like I'm the one that's the prepper, kind of breaking the ice and all that.

Anna (ENTP): It takes me a little more to warm up. I think it's because of our childhood, like he had three siblings, I had zero siblings. I didn't have a lot of family around me, you did. So I'm slightly more reluctant to warm up sometimes.

Ethan (ENTP): And I think that maybe because you always had a spotlight on you and…

Anna (ENTP): I wish I did!

Ethan (ENTP): Whereas in a family of four kids, you're fighting for that.

Anna (ENTP): That's true.

Ethan (ENTP): What is it that makes you unique?

Anna (ENTP): Yeah. That's true. That's the main thing.

Jess (INFP): And who is the planner out of you two because ENTPs are not known to be the planning type.

Ethan (ENTP): Planning is a sore spot. Definitely she is the better planner than me. I’m more, “Let's just do it.” And she's like, “Well, let's maybe figure out how to do it.”

Anna (ENTP): And for a little background on that, it's because I had, SJ parents. They hammered it into me very early like, “You have to be early to things, you have to plan for things.” And I'm like, “Okay, this isn't me, but I guess I have to put it in my mind” and it's helps me quite a bit. Honestly, I never really saw eye to eye with SJ parents, obviously. I was just like, “Oh, I'm on a very different wavelength than them,” but it's definitely helped me a lot.

Jess (INFP): Yes. So also as an NP who has SJ parents as well and an SJ sister, I'm the same as you. I feel like I'm probably more ‘planny’ than I would be for my type because I’ve just grown up around that for many, many years. And I think it does make an impact, right?

Anna (ENTP): I think it's good because otherwise I think this whole world would be in chaos if all the NPs were together.

Jess (INFP): Exactly. And then, last question, what are you most looking forward to in your future together?

Ethan (ENTP): That's a great question. Definitely seeing our goals and dreams and stuff kind of realized is cool and, what plans we do have, seeing those come to fruition. And just growing with each other and seeing where this crazy trip called life takes us, you know?

Anna (ENTP): Yep, I feel the same way.

Jess (INFP): Nice. Are you working on anything at the moment theatre-wise?

Ethan (ENTP): No. Most theaters in our area are closed. Anything as far as entertainment plans right now are on ice. We are working on what we can now in preparation for when things open back up. Hopefully it will come back to normal soon.

Jess (INFP): It will come back.

Anna (ENTP): Hopefully as soon as possible.

Jess (INFP): Cool. Well thank you so much for coming on Personality Love Lab. It’s been great to chat.

Ethan (ENTP): Awesome.

Anna (ENTP): It's been fun discussing things and I wish you guys luck on the other interviews you have coming up.

Ethan (ENTP): It’s such a cool concept.

Anna (ENTP): I can't wait to see you guys build your empire.

Lou (ESFJ): Thank you for listening to Personality Love Lab. We hope you enjoyed hearing this love story about personality type compatibility, and don't forget to click subscribe.

Jess (INFP): And if you're looking for your own love story, head over to your app store now and download So Syncd, the dating app that matches compatible personality types. It’s free and you can find people who are looking to connect on a deeper level.