All things ENFP

Ne vs Ni

I saw someone on reddit I believe saying that "Ne and Ni are completely different, if anything Ne should be paired with Se."

I felt the need to explain how Ne is different from both Ni and Se. There isn't anything wrong with what that person said, but clearly, they are a dominant introverted perceiver (Ni or Si, since mistypes are possible), and they don't have the best understanding of extroverted perceiving functions. 

Ne is my dominant function, and I have observed people in my life who use Ni, Si, and Se. These are all perceiving functions. I have also read a lot about them, so I believe I am qualified to explain them. 

Firstly, everyone always acts like Ni is very misunderstood...which is hilarious because everyone and their brother's uncle is an Ni dom (INFJ or INTJ) in the MBTI community. There are a lot of resources discussing Ni, more so than any other function...so I think the argument that it's so mysterious and misunderstood is kind of bullshit at this point. 

So, what is Ni (Introverted Intuition)? Ni is an introverted perceiving function which focuses on subjective abstract ideas. They look at only patterns that are personal to them with the intent of trying to understand that idea. When used correctly, Ni can offer some very insightful predictions and ideas, that are very detail oriented and focused. When used wrong, an Ni user can interpret everything in the abstract as being about themselves and literally ignore and miss information that they didn't deem useful. 

So what about Ne? Isn't Ne just a worse version of Ni? Isn't Ne just not deep and a bunch of stupid crackpot ideas? No, but that's how it gets treated in the memes. 

Ne (Extroverted Intuition) is an extroverted perceiving function. Ne explores OBJECTIVE abstract ideas. Ne looks at every idea, and while it seems all surface level since Ne users don't typically focus enough on one idea, the Ne user will use their introverted judging function to analyze what that idea means to them (either Ti or Fi). Ne users play with ideas for their own sake. They don't mean anything personal, its merely an exploratory process (def a difference between extroverted perceivers and introverted perceivers (XNXJs and XNXPs and XSXJs and XSXPs). 

So, what does that mean for me? I use this function every day and it is usually at the helm (but society hates extroverted perceiving functions so usually I have to try to use my Si and Te to suppress my Ne in order to just get through life). I play with ideas for fun. I like to explore things as a concept and look at all ideas at all times. The downsides of this include lack of focus and dropping projects or ideas too early. 

I actually have a real-life example of this over text. My friend (who I believe is an INFJ, therefore an Ni dom) and I write books together. I texted her about a poem with my characters and the girl's love interest stole her ideas or whatever and took credit for them. This concept wasn't related to anything in my life, and I mentioned that I wondered what would happen if that maybe happened to me (as a concept). 

She then texted me saying "I hope you don't think that's what I'm doing" since we write together and share ideas (and I'll admit to being the one who comes up with the majority of our ideas for our book at a faster pace, but she has definitely contributed to new ideas too, it just takes her longer). 

And I was like "what?" I wasn't talking about her or our friendship. I was just exploring a scenario through poetry to see what it would be like. But as an Ni user, her ideas are most likely focused on her and her life and her visions. I'm assuming she assumed I was subtly trying to send a subtle message to her saying she was copying me, which I wasn't (and trust me I definitely explained that to her). 

Anyways, I just think this is an example of how Ne is different than Ni. We're all different and it takes a while to understand people's brains that work differently than your own, and that goes for both Ne and Ni users.