If you don’t understand how INTPs show love and affection, it can seem as though they are cold towards you. However, INTPs are loving, affectionate individuals who show they care for you in numerous ways.
INTPs show love and affection by initiating contact, engaging in quality time, meeting loved ones, going places you like, showing service acts, visiting when you’re sad, touching you, sharing their knowledge with you, trying to help solve your problems, and maintaining healthy boundaries.
Although INTPs may be a bit hard to figure out, their love and affection manifest in various ways that are beneficial for you to know if one of your loved ones is an INTP. Let’s explore 11 ways that INTPs show love and affection.
How To Tell If An INTP Loves You
INTPs can be quite hard to read when it comes to knowing how they feel. Here are 11 ways INTPs show love and affection.
1. INTPs Show Love By Contacting You
Given that INTPs are known for living in their heads, it’s very easy for them to get lost in their thoughts. However, when an INTP cares for someone, they make an effort to contact the person now and then. This may present in the INTP initiating a phone call, sending a text, or sending a meme now and then on social media.
Additionally, they respond to text messages within reasonable time periods to show the person they are interested in the conversation because they love the person. While they may not directly state that they love the person in the text, they are implying their love by investing the time in chatting via text.
2. INTPs Show Affection Through Quality Time
When an INTP cares about someone, they care deeply. INTPs are very specific about how they spend their time, and with who because they are consciously aware of who drains their energy and want to protect their peace.
An INTP will show affection through quality time. This may be in them attending events you invite them to or something like meeting you for lunch. Additionally, an INTP may initiate plans, suggesting that you meet for coffee or go for a walk together.
In all of these acts, the INTP considers themselves to be showing you affection by meeting with you in person. It is almost as if it is a trade-off whereby the INTP is willing to let go of some of their precious physical energy to spend time with you because time with you feels more valuable than losing a little bit of energy. In other words, they don’t find you draining and consider spending time with you a delightful activity they would willingly do.
3. INTPs Show Love By Explaining Their Work To You
If you know an INTP who works in a different profession, they are fully aware that you have different skill sets. However, if they make an effort to explain their work to you regularly to keep you updated with their life or give context to a story, it means they want you to understand them.
By explaining themselves, they are trying to ensure that the two of you connect on an intellectual level. Rather than dumb it down and leave you with very little knowledge, they try to give you as much information as possible because they want you to be on the same page as them.
By sharing their professional knowledge with you, they are trying to create a new topic for the two of you to connect on and find a way to help you understand their day-to-day life.
4. INTPs Show Love By Engage With Your Loved-Ones
INTPs are very serious about stewarding their social batteries and try their best to avoid small talk and not to engage with people unnecessarily. In general, INTPs will invest their energy in speaking to those they are intrigued by or individuals whose company they enjoy.
Some INTPs may even go so far as to avoid certain situations if it means they’ll have to engage with others unnecessarily. You will know that your INTP loves you if they are willing to engage with the people who matter to you. INTPs tend to prefer one-on-one time with people they care for. So, when they offer to engage with others besides you, it indicates that they’re willing to get to know the people who are important to you.
For example, the INTP may attend a work function with you, go on a double date with you and your best friend’s partner, or spend time with your family without you being around. They may even make an effort to get to know your loved ones by reaching out to them and making plans to meet them apart from you so they can get to know each other better.
5. INTPs Show Affection By Going With You To Places You Like
Given their introverted nature, INTPs are often homebodies who enjoy going to certain places that are usually quiet and secluded.
An INTP may display love by going to an event with you because you’ve invited them, even if the event isn’t their scene. In doing so, the INTP is trying to connect with you in places that have value to you.
Additionally, if an INTP knows that you like going to places beyond their comfort zone, like a loud pub, for example, they may offer to go there with you.
By offering to go to places you like, the INTP is trying to show you that what you like doing matters to them. They are trying to indicate that they are willing to leave their comfort zone to connect with you and are open to making compromises if it will bring you joy.
6. INTPs Show Love Through Acts Of Service
INTPs would much rather show than tell when it comes to expressing love. You can tell whether an INTP cares for you by observing their behavior. If the INTP prioritizes you and your needs above most people’s, it indicates that they value you.
INTPs typically show love through acts of service because they see it as a physical manifestation of their love that conveys their feelings for you better than they can verbalize.
An example of an INTP showing love through acts of service may be something as simple as them washing the dishes for you when you’re taking a nap. Their ability to see the broader picture informs them that you’re tired and need rest to continue working, so by doing the dishes, they are saving you energy so that you can focus solely on your work.
7. INTPs Show Affection By Visiting You When You’re Feeling Down
INTPs show affection by showing up for you when you’re feeling down. If an INTP comes to visit you or makes plans to meet up with you when you’re not in a good space, they are trying to show you affection by initiating quality time to meet with you in person.
While they may hug you or rub your shoulder as a sign of comfort, an INTP considers the entire process from coming to see you, hugging you, and listening to you as a sign of love and affection.
8. INTPs Show Love By Trying To Help Solve Your Problems
INTPs are logical thinkers with exceptional analytical skills and the ability to see the broader picture in challenging situations. An INTP may show love by trying to help you solve problems that arise in your life.
INTPs hate to see their loved ones experiencing difficulty and will try to empathize and find a way to make the situation less burdensome for the person. In this light, an INTP may go out of their way to research to become informed on an issue you are facing. They may subsequently share the information they have learned with you or even take steps to solve the problem.
9. INTPs Can Show Love Through Physical Affectionate
When it comes to touch, INTPs do have the capacity to be physically affectionate. Of course, the nature of the relationship with the INTP will determine the extent to which they are affectionate.
If you are a colleague of an INTP, they may show affection by giving you a fist bump or patting your shoulder when they pass your desk. Additionally, if you are an INTP family member, they may hug you or even sit closely next to you on the sofa. Furthermore, if you are the partner of an INTP, you may find that they enjoy holding your hand, giving you gentle kisses, and being intimate with you.
INTPs may also indirectly show affection by allowing you to show affection to them in the way you show love. In this regard, an INTP may indirectly show affection by allowing you to ruffle their hair, scratch their back, or tickle them.
The extent to which an INTP shows physical affection may indicate the extent to which they feel comfortable around you. However, try not to take it personally if an INTP who you know is not physically affectionate with you. It is important to remember that certain people’s responses to touch differ based on their life experiences.
Some INTPs may have grown up in an affectionate household where showing physical affection was embraced and normalized. On the hand, other INTPs may have had negative experiences with touch or grew up in an environment where physical affection was not encouraged as a sign of showing love.
10. INTPs Express Their Feelings To Show Love
INTPs are not known for being emotionally expressive individuals. However, they are willing to push through and express their feelings if they risk losing a loved one due to poor communication.
These feelings can be positive or negative emotions. If an INTP is upset about something, they easily bottle up their emotions and spend days thinking about it until they feel they have gotten over their feelings rather than address them. However, if the INTP sees a future with you, they will force themselves to address the issue so that they can move forward in love.
Similarly, if you inform an INTP that you are struggling to receive love from them because they do not verbalize it, they may try to verbalize their feelings towards you. They may convey the message to you in a somewhat awkward way but are genuinely trying their best. They may also try to convey it by writing you a letter or saying it in a text message. While this may feel unconventional, receiving a letter or a text where an INTP expresses their emotions is one of the purest forms of love from an INTP.
As you know, INTPs are big thinkers. When an INTP writes a message expressing their emotions towards you, they have the opportunity to think about their emotions logically. By writing their feelings, INTPs get the chance to read through what they’ve written and ensure that what they say is a true reflection of their feelings.
In this sense, receiving a message from an INTP might be one of the clearest ways that they show you love because they have taken the time to process their emotions and relay them to you in a way that they consider to be logical.
11. INTPs Maintain Their Boundaries With You To Show Love
Interestingly, an INTP emphasizing and maintaining their boundaries with you indicates that they love you.
INTPs are able to easily withdraw from people and try to steer clear of conflict. When someone disrespects them or oversteps their boundaries, they are not likely to verbalize it to keep the peace. However, they will make a note of the incident and start to withdraw from the person.
In this regard, if an INTP emphasizes their boundaries with you, it means they want to give you a chance to remain in their life because they value you.
How Do INTPs flirt?
INTPs flirty very subtly. When INTPs flirt, they can come across as somewhat awkward. An INTP flirting will not look flirt in the typical way one would expect to be flirted with. They are more likely to take a deep interest in the things that matter to you.
An INTP flirting may present in them asking many questions about your life, remembering the things that are important to you, and following up on them. They may also initiate meet-ups which indicates that they want to get to know you better.
Conclusion
Although INTPs are not typically verbally expressive individuals, they are nonetheless loving and affectionate people. INTPs show affection by engaging in physical touch, visiting you when you’re sad, engaging in quality time, and meeting your loved ones.
Additionally, INTPs show love by initiating contact with you, going places you like, demonstrating acts of service, sharing their knowledge with you, trying to help solve your problems, and maintaining healthy boundaries.
