Summary: This article is about making friends as an adult through the lens of Myers-Briggs cognitive functions. It covers what a forced-choice personality test can and can’t tell you, what the one-letter-off patterns reveal about friendship compatibility, and how your perceiving functions predict what you want to talk about. These are observations, not prescriptions.
A lot of people discover personality typing through one of the sixteen personalities quizzes online. They get a result, they read the description, and it feels surprisingly accurate. That’s a real and valid entry point.
But here’s what those quizzes are actually measuring. They measure dichotomies. The four pairs: introvert or extravert, intuitive or sensing, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving. You answer questions, it tallies up, and it tells you which side of each pair you land on.
What it doesn’t measure is your cognitive functions. And the cognitive functions are where everything gets interesting, including what they predict about making friends as an adult.
If you want a deeper introduction to the cognitive functions before we go further, I have a free Myers-Briggs video masterclass that walks through the whole system.
What a forced-choice test can’t tell you about making friends as an adult
The forced-choice test gives you your four letters. The conversational profiling approach gives you your cognitive functions. Those are two different things, and the difference matters.
Here’s the clearest way I know to illustrate it. Look at what happens when two types are just one letter apart.
- If the first letter is different and everything else is the same, say INFJ and ENFJ, those two types share all the same cognitive functions, just in a slightly different order. They are remarkably similar. They tend to understand each other easily and often make natural friends. And it’s still interesting because they are using the functions differently because of the different positions.
- If one letter in the middle is different, say INFJ and INTJ, those types share half their cognitive functions. So, half the same and half polar opposite. I have really been enjoying and learning from my relationships of this type.
- Now here’s the one that surprises people. If just the last letter is different, say INFJ and INFP, those two types actually share zero cognitive functions. Zero. They can look very similar on paper and they often mistype as each other. But underneath the surface they are operating from completely different mental wiring.
A forced-choice test shows you the letters. It doesn’t show you any of this.
Conversational profiling is specifically designed to find the patterns a test can’t catch, to ask the questions that reveal how you actually operate rather than how you think you operate. That’s the distinction that makes the cognitive functions usable rather than just interesting.
Making friends as an adult and the sixteen personalities
I want to be clear that people have friends of all different types, and there’s no formula here. These are just patterns I’ve observed, offered lightly.
Types that share cognitive functions tend to feel like they speak the same language. There’s less explaining required. You can reference something and the other person just gets it without a paragraph of context.
Types that share half their functions often make for the most interesting friendships. Enough overlap to feel connected, enough difference to genuinely learn from each other.
Types with no shared functions can absolutely be friends, and sometimes those friendships are deeply complementary. But they tend to require more intentional communication. What feels obvious to one person is genuinely not obvious to the other, and that’s not a character flaw on either side.
My book club friend and I are both ENFJs. We share all the same cognitive functions. I think that’s a big part of why a weekly book discussion became one of the most sustaining friendships of my adult life. We weren’t just both interested in the books. We were processing them the same way.
How your perceiving functions predict what you want to talk about
This is one of the patterns I find most useful when thinking about making friends as an adult.
What people like to talk about, and how they want to structure a conversation, is largely tied to which perceiving function they prefer. And that comes down to four groupings.
- NJ types prefer Introverted Intuition. They tend to love deep, meaning-focused conversations. Future implications, patterns, and big-picture connections are their natural territory.
- NP types prefer Extraverted Intuition. They light up around brainstorming, possibilities, and making unexpected connections in real time. Conversations with them tend to go in a lot of directions at once.
- SJ types prefer Introverted Sensing. They tend to value conversations grounded in shared experience, stability, and what has proven true over time. They’re often the ones who remember everything.
- SP types prefer Extraverted Sensing. They’re most energized by what’s happening right now. Concrete, present-moment, experiential conversation is where they come alive.
When you share the same preferred perceiving function with someone, conversation tends to have a natural rhythm. You’re not just interested in similar things. You’re interested in them in a similar way.
This is worth knowing when you’re making friends as an adult, because it helps you understand why some conversations feel effortless and others feel like you’re always slightly out of sync.
This is the kind of insight that only becomes usable once you know your actual cognitive function stack. Which is exactly what The Congruence Code is designed to give you. It starts with a two-hour conversational profiling session where we identify your type through the patterns in how you actually operate, not a forced-choice test. You walk away knowing your cognitive functions, your flow state, and your growth edge. And if now is the right time for that kind of clarity, you can find all the details here. I’d love to get to know you.
Here’s something simple you can do this week to integrate these principles into your life:
Think of one friendship that has always felt effortless and one that has always required a little more work. If you know the Myers-Briggs types involved, look up the cognitive functions for each and see what you notice. If you don’t know the types yet, just sit with the question: what is it about the easy friendship that makes it easy? That observation is the beginning of understanding what your cognitive functions are doing.
Knowing the framework is one thing. Knowing your own cognitive function stack is another. The Congruence Code starts with a two-hour conversational profiling session that identifies your type through the patterns in how you actually operate, then gives you your personality style blueprint and a custom color palette. If you’re ready to stop guessing at your type and start using it, click here to book your session.