S1E7: Je Ne Sais Quoi: ENFJ & INTP Compatibility
Brought to you by So Syncd, the first personality type dating app and website.
We talk to a golden personality pair to explore ENFJ and INTP compatibility. Ellen (ENFJ) and Brandon (INTP) started dating seven years ago while working for a non-profit organization. Ellen was Brandon’s boss and there was something about him that drew her in. In this episode, they talk about pushing each other out of their comfort zones, overcoming their differences after the honeymoon period and Ellen’s passion for spreadsheets.
Jess (INFP): Hi, welcome to Personality Love Lab, where we interview real people and real couples to delve deeper into personality types and love.
Lou (ESFJ): This podcast is brought to you by the sisters who created So Syncd, the dating app that matches compatible personality types.
Jess (INFP): My name's Jess. I'm an INFP, also known as The Dreamer.
Lou (ESFJ): And I'm Lou, an ESFJ, also known as The Supporter.
Jess (INFP): Today on Personality Love Lab we have Ellen and Brandon, who are both 32 and live in California. They've been together for seven years and I met Ellen and Brandon last December at a wedding of a mutual friend in Puerto Rico.
Lou (ESFJ): Ellen is an ENFJ, also known as So Giving, and Brandon is an INTP, also known as So Logical. They would be a perfect match on So Syncd. To start with, how did you guys meet?
Ellen (ENFJ): Well, we met at work.
Brandon (INTP): She was my boss.
Ellen (ENFJ): I was Brandon's boss. I had relocated out to Sacramento from Boston. I had never been to Sacramento before, but my boss offered me the opportunity to come out here. I figured the weather's warmer. It's in the state of California. Why not? I moved out here and then Brandon was working…
Brandon (INTP): I was a shithead at work and they sent her to try calm me down.
Ellen (ENFJ): The office was actually a little rowdy. It was a non-profit office. We were running a call centre and there were some folks that have been there for a while, so we needed to calm it down a little bit.
Brandon (INTP): She came in and she did a great job, as you can tell.
Ellen (ENFJ): Yep! So Brandon was one of my employees.
Jess (INFP): How long did it take for you guys to get together? And did you have to keep it secret?
Brandon (INTP): I guess it didn’t take that long. It took a while, but not really. We were hanging out pretty much immediately.
Ellen (ENFJ): We started hanging out pretty much right away. We'd go get beers after work. We'd grab lunch together. I more or less got fired from the job because of Brandon, although at that time we weren't even dating. We hadn't started sleeping together or anything, so it was a little odd. About what a month after that…
Brandon (INTP): We just don't really remember the timeline.
Ellen (ENFJ): We made up our anniversary. We honestly don't really know.
Brandon (INTP): It was all such a mix.
Ellen (ENFJ): We call it June 24th. It’s the day we celebrate, so actually just two weeks ago we had our 7 year anniversary!
Jess (INFP): Wow! So how come you got fired because of Brandon? What happened?
Brandon (INTP): She’s a rambunctious one herself. Don’t let her fool you! She’s rambunctious enough herself.
Ellen (ENFJ): I mean, maybe! They just didn't like that…I mean, ultimately, I probably shouldn't have been hanging out with my staff all the time and Brandon specifically,
Brandon (INTP): Me and my friends were the ones she was supposed to calm down and she just started hanging out with us every night,
Jess (INFP): But it was clearly worth it.
Ellen (ENFJ): Right! It all works out.
Lou (ESFJ): What was your first date like?
Brandon (INTP): Like I said, I don't really remember the day because we were just hanging out all the time. There might've been times of misinterpreted dates, like, ‘Oh, hey, we're going out together. And this could be a date, but I don't know.’ I didn't really label it as a date. I don't really remember our first date at all.
Ellen (ENFJ): When I was preparing for this podcast and thinking about questions, I looked at him and I was like, ‘Come on, you remember our first date?’ And he just started dead ass laughing at me. And I was like, ‘No, we went to the pond and we played with the ducks,’ and he again was like, ‘No idea what you're talking to me about.’ What I remember as our first date, is that we went to McKinley park, it's this little place in East Sacramento, and we sat on the benches and literally just watched the ducks at night.
Brandon (INTP): I remember sitting in your backyard and listening to Jack Johnson. That was one of my first memories of us hanging out. It's just kind of a blur.
Ellen (ENFJ): I mean, we hung out…
Brandon (INTP): All the time.
Ellen (ENFJ): Every day. Yeah.
Jess (INFP): What first attracted you to one another?
Brandon (INTP): I still remember when she walked in for her first day, she was wearing like this blue, like peacock dress, I think I would call it. You know, because it had the long hanging back and I was not like, ‘I want to own her as property,’ but I was like, ‘I want that girl.’ Then we started hanging out and I started getting to know her and I was like, ‘Okay, cool. She has a good personality too.’ It was kind of first sight thing.
Ellen (ENFJ): For me, there's just something about Brandon. Jess, you met him and he just has this very attracting or engaging personality where you're like, ‘I just need to know more about you. I just want to hang out with you’. He was just like electric to me. He was just someone really fun to have around.
Jess (INFP): That’s so good. I remember you saying, actually, that Brandon was the most interesting person you'd ever met. Or the most unique person? And you just wanted to get to know more and more about him.
Ellen (ENFJ): Unique would be a very great word for Brandon.
Jess (INFP): I've met very few INTPs in my life. They're a really rare personality type.
Ellen (ENFJ): Don't they only make up like 3% or something.
Jess (INFP): Exactly.
Brandon (INTP): There's INFJs, I think, which is like 1-3% of people, right?
Jess (INFP): Yes, that's supposedly the rarest personality type.
Lou (ESFJ): So when did you first discover your personality type?
Brandon (INTP): Well, I mean, right away we knew we were the completely opposites. I think that's also half what attracted us [to each other] because I was like, ‘Okay, cool. She can rein me in a little bit.’ We didn't know each other's personality types for a while. I didn't personally, but we knew that we were very, very opposite, which is what made it work. And I was like, ‘Oh cool. This makes it work a little bit,’ because I need somebody to help me with those kinds of things. She needs somebody to help her sometimes with certain things, so it’s just kind of an easy balance right now. Or it has always been an easy balance.
Ellen (ENFJ): I've always known my personality type. Gosh, probably since high school, that was the first time I took the test. I'm someone that will go back and retake it every year or every other year, just to make sure nothing has changed or, if it has, to see what it is. I have been consistent for at least the last 10 years.
Brandon (INTP): Yeah, I've taken one in college. I think for college I took one and then have just been consistent ever since.
Ellen (ENFJ): I don’t know if I knew you were an INTP until…I don't think we discussed the actual personality stuff itself for a while.
Brandon (INTP): Obviously you can tell that I’m an introvert and you’re an extravert. And I’ve got a little bit more of that thinking, logical side.
Ellen (ENFJ): Whaaat!?
Brandon (INTP): I think we took it together at one point. That was a while into dating, probably a year or two.
Ellen (ENFJ): Oh and also a weird fun fact, speaking of matches and stuff like that, I guess it wasn't through OkCupid we met, because we met at work. I had moved here from Boston, so I didn't know anybody. Brandon was online dating and we had obviously met each other at work, but we were also like the top match. What were they called back then? Quiver matches (on OkCupid). So that app also matched us together based on whatever we'd put into our profiles there too.
Jess (INFP): That's really interesting. So it really is just meant to be, whatever way you come at it.
Brandon (INTP): I guess so.
Jess (INFP): And has knowing your personality type impacted your relationship in any way?
Brandon (INTP): Yes. I have to be a little bit more patient sometimes with the feeling aspect, like when she gets really emotional. I have to know and kind of concentrate on being like, ‘Hey, just be chill Brandon. She's just more emotional than you are,’ because it's just a little bit different. I mean she'll just break down and start crying for no reason. I’m like, ‘What's happening right here?’ I try to figure it out. And, like I said, for the most part, it's a beneficial thing for me. I'm sorry, my cat just walked up! It’s been a beneficial thing just because, like I said, we can both help each other realize different things. We work together to figure stuff out. We don't butt heads about our different personalities.
Ellen (ENFJ): I mean, again, as Brandon said, I think somehow it just works. There are times when we're different. We're definitely very different people, as we've both continued to say, but, as he said, we just complement each other. Sometimes I can be a little highly strung. I'm a very checklist-oriented type, like things-have-to-go-my-way person, whereas Brandon is a little more like, ‘Okay, what are we doing? Just go with the flow.’ It's nice to have that. It's very helpful for me
Brandon (INTP): Because she talks more and I just get to stand in the corner.
Jess (INFP): That's quite a nice balance in itself. You do seem very, very chilled. I remember all the time in Puerto Rico. When did you first consider yourself a couple?
Brandon (INTP): I remember walking into your house and being like, ‘I love you’ or whatever.
Ellen (ENFJ): No, ‘I love you’ happened…No, that's a different story. Brandon said ‘I love you’ first. It was very adorable. It was in front of the Sacramento beads down in Midtown. The reason that we had to make up our first date was because it was at the end of June, I was no longer working with the non-profit, but you still were. We went to a party for Chrissy? Someone from the office had a party.
Brandon (INTP): A murder mystery party.
Ellen (ENFJ): Oh yes. We went to a murder mystery party. We dressed up, we went to the thrift store, got a ton of clothes.
Brandon (INTP): I got murdered that day.
Ellen (ENFJ): Brandon got murdered that day. We came home and we got back to my house, which is funnily enough only three blocks from where we live now. We walked in the house and we were laughing because everyone the whole night was like, ‘So what's going on with you two? You're still together, but are you dating?’ And we really didn't know how to answer that question, so when we came home that night, I was like, ‘So are you my boyfriend?’ He's my first boyfriend I've had since eighth grade. We don't really remember the date of that exact party, but we know it was the end of June
Jess (INFP): You’re actually both quite rare personality types. Do you think it's harder for you guys to meet someone that you really click with than your average person?
Brandon (INTP): Dude, I get along with everybody for the most part.
Ellen (ENFJ): We're both pretty personable. You talk to either one of us and, as much as Brandon likes to say he's introverted and shy, he also loves talking to people too. Once he gets to know you, let's put it that way. But now that you say that, it's a good question because I had fun growing up, but I was never like, ‘Wow, I want to spend all my time with you,’ before. Now that you say that, maybe.
Jess (INFP): That's why I asked, because you said he was your first boyfriend since eighth grade.
Ellen (ENFJ): I've honestly never thought about it that way.
Jess (INFP): Maybe it is that then.
Lou (ESFJ): What kind of things do you guys talk about?
Brandon (INTP): Everything. Really the weirdest shit that comes to mind. My brain's all over the place sometimes, so really just whatever comes to mind. I mean we talk about sports.
Ellen (ENFJ): Yes, I like sports a lot.
Brandon (INTP): I eat a lot.
Ellen (ENFJ): Brandon's really good at making food. We have a garden, so we were doing garden talk before this call.
Brandon (INTP): Politics, which sometimes gets heated.
Ellen (ENFJ): I'm very political.
Brandon (INTP): We literally talking about everything,
Ellen (ENFJ): We love the outdoors. Travel, camping…
Brandon (INTP): Music.
Ellen (ENFJ): Music is definitely something.
Brandon (INTP): Concerts and festivals and stuff. We talk about everything.
Ellen (ENFJ): I mean, Brandon works at a brewery. He's done that for what, six years now, which was perfect when he switched from non-profit work to a brewery because I also fully support that! That's nice. He's a home brewer as well, so that's something fun that keeps us busy.
Brandon (INTP): I make kombucha. I just start random activities. I like to make stuff. We can talk about everything. Nothing's really off limits.
Jess (INFP): What do you most like about each other's personality?
Ellen (ENFJ): Well, like I said a little bit today, it's just…I sometimes don't even know how to explain it. There's just something about Brandon. His energy or whatever. It just draws me in. He's one of the kindest and nicest people that you'll honest to God ever meet. My best friend Trish one time said, ‘You know, if there are three things that I know Brandon loves more than anything in the world, it's Ellen, it's his family and it's his cats.’ And that is so true. You should also add friends in there. He's super loyal and, like I said, once he gets to know you and you're in Brandon's little circle, he has got you in there. He's just a good dude. He's a good dude.
Brandon (INTP): She's good at getting me out of my bubble and getting me out of my box because I do get lost in shit a lot of the time. She makes me try new things makes me get out there. She kind of pushes me. She's like, ‘Hey, go do this.’ I'm like, ‘Oh, I don't know. I don't really want to do that. It's too many people, too much shit going on.’ Then she forces me to do it
Ellen (ENFJ): Not like forcing you!
Brandon (INTP): Okay, not like forcing me, but I'm like, ‘Okay, cool. I’ve had a lot more fun doing this.’ I've got a lot more experiences out of life by doing stuff like that. She pushes me as a person to go do things I normally wouldn't do and get out there. At the same time, she helps me to understand certain things a little bit better, like my feelings, other people's feelings and trying to be involved in that, because, again, she is really caring and she gets very emotional about a lot of things. It's nice to have that person to be like, ‘Hey, like this is why people feel this way.’ It helps break it down a little better. But yes, just definitely making me get out of my bubble and just making me uncomfortable to the point where I like it. I'm like, ‘Oh I'm uncomfortable, but I enjoy this.’
Ellen (ENFJ): Awww, thanks.
Jess (INFP): That’s perfect. That's exactly what you need in a partner; to push you to grow in a comfortable-ish way.
Ellen (ENFJ): Brandon does the same for me because, like you've heard, I can be a lot sometimes. He definitely does help to ground me.
Jess (INFP): We've interviewed a few introvert-extrovert couples and that's definitely a theme that comes up.
Ellen (ENFJ): Oh really?
Lou (ESFJ): I have that with my boyfriend. He's an ISTP and I’m an ESFJ. I definitely feel like he keeps me very grounded, calms me down and makes me realize I don't need to be doing things every night of the week because we just have a lovely time together. He likes how I'd bring him out of his bubble, like you said as well, and just push him a bit to be a bit more sociable because when he's there he really enjoys it.
And then what would you change about each other's personality?
Ellen (ENFJ): Brandon would probably like it if I was a little calmer sometimes, when I get worked up from my emotions!
Brandon (INTP): I was going to say nothing to be good, but that's true. That's the hardest part, when she starts losing it
Ellen (ENFJ): Don’t make me sound mad!
Brandon (INTP): You’re not mad. You just kind of lose yourself in your emotions and I'm just trying to tell you the logical thing and you’re like, ‘Stop being logical!’ I don't get it. I don't understand. Nothing was my answer, but she answered for me, so I guess I would go with that.
Ellen (ENFJ): No and I mean with you…
Brandon (INTP): I’m a lot more lackadaisical.
Ellen (ENFJ): No, I mean, honestly not much. I mean, we've been together now for seven years, so at the beginning when he was a little more introverted and wouldn't come out or want to hang out and do as many things with my friends, then it was like, ‘No, I need you to do this a little bit more.’ Whereas now we both just get each other, right? After seven years, you know what the ticking points are or you know how to work it. So I wouldn't say anything, because if he changed anything, then he wouldn't be the Brandon that I know.
Jess (INFP): What challenges have you faced as a couple?
Ellen (ENFJ): I think just what we've talked about today; just being so different. I think more so early on. After you pass through that honeymoon phase.
Brandon (INTP): Oh yes, at the beginning it wasn't hard at all…after.
Ellen (ENFJ): Yes, after.
Brandon (INTP): After the honeymoon phase it was the harder part. We were like, ‘Oh shit, we're just so different.’
Ellen (ENFJ): We are different. I remember one day we were at his family's home, which is not far from here in Sacramento and we were downtown in Rio Vista. I remember looking at you and I was like, ‘Well, I plan on spending my life with you.’ Even though we don't plan on getting married or anything like that, but we had these discussions pretty early on.
I just think that might've been the biggest thing and the other thing for me too, which I honestly didn't think about until on this call today, was losing my job here. I had only been in Sacramento at that time for two months and I’d barely moved here from across the country, from Boston. I knew nobody here except for literally Brandon and the other people I met in my office.
I was kind of at a crossroads like, ‘Well, do I even stay in California? Do I go back to Boston? Do I go back home to Ohio? Do I move?’ I lived in Madison, Wisconsin for a few years. Do I go there? But ultimately, I was just was like, ‘I feel like I need to be here, so this is what I'm going to do.’ We were just friends at the time too, so Brandon was like, ‘Well, I can't tell you what to do,’ but later was like, ‘Well, I definitely didn't want you to go anywhere.’
Jess (INFP): It's quite an unusual and tricky situation, because two months is really not much time at all to be making decisions like that, I guess. Did you just go with your heart?
Ellen (ENFJ): I just said, ‘Okay, I'll stay here.’
Brandon (INTP): I have a weakness for keeping schedules, that’s for sure. Very weak with keeping schedules.
Ellen (ENFJ): And I’m very, very, very great at keeping schedules.
Brandon (INTP): She's all about it. I don't check in on stuff like that or keep schedules. So that's one of my main weaknesses. It’s her strength because I'm looking at the calendar…
Ellen (ENFJ): He’s looking at the calendar right now!
Brandon (INTP): It’s got written on it things like, ‘Cut the grass?’ And she's like, ‘Do you ever look at the calendar?’ I'm like, ‘Nah, never.’ So that's my weakness.
Ellen (ENFJ): I mean that's part of who you are. Just going back to one of his strengths is, I don't know, there’s something about you. Like literally everybody loves Brandon and they want to talk to him. They want to hang out with you. Like in the brewery, people will give him things. They've made him a wine barrel, a fire pit, they’ve painted a mural. I don't know. He's just…
Brandon (INTP): It’s overbearing.
Jess (INFP): It's hard being famous.
Ellen (ENFJ): That's a strength. Just you.
Brandon (INTP): Yeah, I guess so.
Jess (INFP): That’s cool. So Ellen, you more take the reins with organizing and planning things and, Brandon, you are happy to go along with it?
Ellen (ENFJ): One of my top five favorite things to do is to plan and organize. I love Google Docs and spreadsheets. If you ever need anything like that, please come to me!
Brandon (INTP): Thailand. I didn't plan a thing and didn't know what the hell we were doing. She had a whole itinerary made.
Ellen (ENFJ): A three-week itinerary.
Brandon (INTP): We were there for three weeks and she had it all planned out. I just got off the plane. I was like, ‘What are we doing?’
Ellen (ENFJ): I'm pretty sure it was the same thing in Puerto Rico. We went a week early before the wedding.
Brandon (INTP): I just let her take the reins. Like really, I just love that she can plan everything and take care of everything, because I would just not travel and not go to places, because I just don't do that. She’s like, ‘I'll take the reins. I love doing this planning. It’s so fun.’ I'm like, ‘Yes, I don't have to do anything! I only have to come.’
Jess (INFP): That is definitely like Lou.
Lou (ESFJ): I love spreadsheets and putting the costs in and saying, ‘Have we booked it? Yes. Have we paid for it? No.’ And it will just calculate all together. And doing a day-by-day schedule of how long it takes to drive from one place to the other and all of that stuff.
Jess (INFP): I’m a perceiver like Brandon and I hate all of that stuff so much.
Brandon (INTP): Yeah! We’ll figure it out when we get there.
Ellen (ENFJ): That's Brandon, like ‘We'll just figure out.’ I'm like, ‘No, no. We have to plan.’
Brandon (INTP): Next month for our anniversary, we're doing something where we're going up to the coast and staying in a tree house. We're not planning that much else besides going with the flow.
Ellen (ENFJ): Trying!
Brandon (INTP): Exactly. I like to push her out of her comfort zone too.
Jess (INFP): Lou, you dated another judger and you said that you were both trying to plan these spreadsheets of holidays and things like that.
Lou (ESFJ): It just got quite intense and you need only one person being really organized to just balance it out.
Ellen (ENFJ): It works out well that Brandon lets me do that because I’d be like, ‘Oh no, no.’
Lou (ESFJ): Finally, what are you most looking forward to in your future together?
Brandon (INTP): More crazy adventures, man. I just want to have more fun and that's about it.
Ellen (ENFJ): I would agree. We just have a lot of fun together. We enjoy traveling. We've definitely been doing a lot more of that the past few years. We have a whole list for all of our next adventures and our next journeys. That's really the most fun. It's just having him along for the ride for whatever it is that we're doing.
Brandon (INTP): Maybe you own a house. Who knows? We'll see.
Jess (INFP): One question I had as well is that you said that you weren't looking to get married, is that just something that neither of you want?
Brandon (INTP): I think we talked about that pretty soon.
Ellen (ENFJ): Oh wait! I know what our first date was now because I always tell this story. Okay, wait, hold on. Back up. I lied to you all! Okay, this is what it was. We were in old Sac, so Old Sacramento, it's called Old Sac. We were walking on the boardwalk. We had gone to the olive oil tasting place. We had just done an olive oil tasting or something and we probably went to Evangeline’s. It’s this awesome costume store.
Brandon (INTP): It’s like a three-storey costume store.
Ellen (ENFJ): Literally anything and everything.
Brandon (INTP): We were probably trying on masks and just doing a bunch of weird shit.
Ellen (ENFJ): We looked at each other and I said to you, ‘Oh, I never want to get married, so if that's what you're looking for, I'm not the right person.’ And you, in a kind of joking but dead serious way, just looked back and started laughing like, ‘Wait, seriously? Because neither do I.’ And we were like, ‘Oh cool. Let's continue our day now.’ We also don't want kids.
Brandon (INTP): We get to be the cool Aunt and Uncle.
Ellen (ENFJ): The cool Aunt and Uncle. We'll be great with that. I call him my partner though. For the most part, when I refer to him I say, ‘Oh, this is my partner, Brandon.’ I think it symbolizes, at least a little bit more than ‘my boyfriend’, that we've been together for so long, but that's just my personal opinion.
Jess (INFP): That's really cool. It’s important, for quite obvious reasons, to have the same values and aspirations in terms of things like marriage and kids. I guess you're in the minority to not want to get married and have children. Not that it's wrong at all. It's nice that you both had that conversation early on and if you were worried that it was going to be a tricky conversation or a big thing to talk about…and then it was actually just really easy.
Ellen (ENFJ): Honestly, it was probably one of the easiest conversations. It was like, ‘Cool. You cool? Perfect.’
Jess (INFP): Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast guys. It's been really great to talk to you and to learn more about how you met and how your relationship progressed.
Brandon (INTP): Thank you for having us.
Ellen (ENFJ): Yes, thank you for having us.
Lou (ESFJ): Thank you for listening to Personality Love Lab. If you're in a relationship and would like to be featured on our podcast, please email us at hello@sosyncd.com. The email address can also be found in the show notes.
Jess (INFP): And if you're single, sign up to So Syncd for free today to find your compatible personality type. You can download So Syncd from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. We'll see you next week!