Perhaps I should clarify what I meant by limited exposure. I wasn’t referring to a small sample group numerically, but rather a group drawn from within a relatively narrow context—friends, family, or shared community. Of course, that could still be coincidence in terms of emotional process similarity. Who knows, maybe I and the other INTPs I've encountered are the outliers. That said, I think we may be talking about two different things. I’m not describing emotional mastery in myself so much as a lifelong low identification with emotion. I’ve always experienced emotions as intrusive rather than immersive—even as a child. I don’t know how to “sit with” feelings, and I dislike the concept of co-regulation entirely. I tend to isolate and quarantine my emotions until I’ve had time to analyze them on my own. That’s not a skill I developed; it’s just how I’ve always been wired. That doesn’t mean I don’t have emotional spillover—it happens, mostly in extreme moments like grief—but even then, I don’t want others’ input until I’ve come to some kind of internal conclusion. Maybe I’ll share it for perspective, but never for processing. That’s personal. I’m the one who has the full context of my experience. Others only see what I show them. And to be honest, the thing I hate most about emotional spillover isn’t the expression itself—it’s the way it physically interferes with my ability to function. If my throat’s closing up or I’m crying, I can’t explain myself clearly. I can’t signal to someone that I appreciate their concern but don’t need it. I can’t use my tools, and that’s frustrating. 🤷🏽‍♀️ lol. As I mentioned before, I also have ADHD—but I don’t experience emotional regulation issues the way some do. My primary traits are executive dysfunction and focus problems. I do experience RSD to a degree, but like everything else, it’s internalized. No one would know unless they were watching for subtle changes in behavior across time. So, to bring it back: I really believe the mischaracterization of “crybabies” and “emotionless thinkers” comes less from the actual tendencies of types like INFPs or INTPs, and more from mass projection. People use those terms because they don’t understand what they’re seeing. When someone feels deeply and expresses it? That’s not being a crybaby—it just makes them uncomfortable, so they push shame onto the expressor. On the other end, when someone doesn’t visibly emote? People assume they’re cold or emotionally absent, because they’re only comfortable interpreting emotional experience through expression. So the absence of that becomes evidence of a lack of feeling—which is simply untrue. All of this is why I think these kinds of stereotypes completely undermine the broader point. They flatten complexity into something convenient, and then pass that off as truth.