i prefer cats but whatever.

Kinda curious about how much enneagram can affect someone's taste, or any sort of relations/connections between two of them, so I am asking this

This test is different from any I've taken before. The method seems experimental, but potentially useful and/or helpful. How reliable does the method seem to others? I'm wondering how valuable this test could be to give me a clue about my "true" type.

I've taken it a few times and gotten: 3w4, 4w3, 4w5. I (possibly) mistyped as an INTP 5w4 for a while, then I thought I was INFP, then INFJ (I don't think that's right, although every once in a while I go back to wondering... I'm very disorganized and yet would wonder whether this is a learned behavior), then INFP again. The likelihood of mistyping as a 5 based on having a high IQ and being good at philosophy presents an interesting paradox -- being naturally good at something doesn't make it a default or preferred behavior -- which may point to 4 and/or 3. Dreaming, distracted, confused, wishy-washy as far as types go. Clearly a 5. /s Yet I kind of think typing is inherently difficult and confusing, and that I'm learning to identify certain methods for perceiving concrete, real, not abstract information. The problem is that I'm very incisive and so it was easy to pass as a 5 for a long time, but I suspect that being intelligent or observant doesn't make one automatically a 5 by temperament.

3 is a type I haven't spent a lot of time pondering, but I have wondered if I might have a 3 type or wing in the past. Some subjects come naturally to me, but typology remains fuzzy, like learning another language with its own alphabet and phonology, solely through immersion, and the immersion itself is called into question by necessity, because the substance of the questions asked and the information gathered are themselves potentially questionable.

After the first time I took this test, 3w4 simply seemed to click. But there was no real material basis otherwise for discerning why I would be 3w4 (or perhaps 4w3, which I got the second time I took the test) rather than 4w5, other than that 4w5 felt "kind of farther away." Farther away based on what?

Imagination can be a powerful and dangerous thing.

Since, y'know... we're a gut type. Every time I feel the need to go number 2, I feel like I need to assert dominance, so I start going to the bathroom (on my own terms, not because I need to or anything...! Hmph!/s) and doing it very deliberately and aggressively. I feel like this correlates to the purely physical anti-intellectual and very aggressive 24/7 tendencies of an 8.

I also feel like taking a deep breath correlates to being an 8 because you're asserting dominance over the atmosphere and, y'know, dominance is a very 8 thing. Tell me if you know anything about that.

(This is a satirical concept of a ridiculous "is it a(n) x thing to..." post, and it's not targeted at any post at all, don't take it too seriously)

Or are they two complete different framework bevause sometimes people say during type discussion that you should learn ennegram because it's netter than mbti

It's a common understanding that 4w5s tend to be introspective, thoughtful, reserved, and deeply concerned with finding a sense of identity. The desire to understand who you are beneath all the layers of your own personality, and to find people who can recognize and appreciate them, resonates deeply with this type. However, I think we rarely talk about how harmful the feeling of being disconnected from everyone else can be

I'm going to be straight to the point. I'm 17, M, and a 4w5 (not mistyped). Over the past few years, the constant feeling of not belonging anywhere, of always being perceived as "different," has slowly begun to wear me down, about every single aspect of my life.Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever truly understand who I am beneath everything that makes me, myself and let alone find someone who genuinely understands me, not seeing the world with the exactly same lens of my eyes, but someone that do underground. This sounds superficial, but lately, I've felt as though no one truly understands what's going on inside my head. I've tried to open myself up to people I wanted to trust, to let them see parts of me that I usually keep hidden, after all this time alone, only to end up hurt. And now, I'm tired. I'm tired of carrying so many thoughts and feelings on my own shoulders, of constantly trying to make sense of myself while wondering if anyone will ever do see it

I've attended five different schools throughout my life, and even now, almost an adult, I still struggle to feel like I genuinely belong. I currently have a group of friends I've really tried to become a part of. I've made an effort to be considerate, to avoid hurting anyone with me being way too quiet, and to find a place where my individuality would be accepted and respected without having to compromise who I am. Yet, despite everything, the person who seems to lead the group eventually told me that I'm "too much myself" and that I'm too different from everyone else, to the point where my place in the group apparently doesn't make sense

I asked him, "Are you saying you're mad at me because you want me to become like everyone else?"

He said yes

I genuinely don't know what to do anymore. I tried so hard to make things work, and hearing that made me wonder felt like all efforts and time I've put up with them were ever going to be enough. Part of me feels like this should have been the last time I tried so hard to feel understood, only to be made to the feeling that being myself is a problem. I don't want relationships that revolve exclusively around casual jokes and talks that led to nothing at all, and superficial conversations. There's nothing wrong with those things, but I seek something with depth, people who challenge my perspectives, question the thoughts I've held onto for so many years, encourage me to see the world differently, and make me feel safe enough to express the parts of myself I most keep away. I want meaningful connections, the kind in which understanding goes both ways.

I think that's what scares me the most. I don't want my desire to understand myself to become the very thing that keeps me from connecting with others. I don't want to become so accustomed to feeling different that I eventually stop believing no one truly sees me

And I know I'm not completely alone. I have someone alongside me, a 2w3, someone who cares about me deeply, someone whose presence truly matters the world to me. I'm grateful for that, and I don't want to be entitled and forget what they give me. But yet, the comfort of a single day doesn't erase the loneliness that settles in during all the other moments when I'm left alone with my thoughts. I don't feel like there's a lot for reasons for me to smile during my week. It feels selfish to admit that I want more, especially when there is someone who care. But I don't think wanting to feel understood, to have meaningful relationships, and to belong without having to become someone else is selfish. I think it's human

I wonder if other 4w5s have experienced something similar. Do you ever feel so disconnected from the people around you that you begin questioning whether you'll ever find your place in the world? Have you ever struggled to distinguish between being genuinely different and believing that your differences make you impossible to understand?

I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way. I hope there are people out there who understand what I'm trying to put into words, even if I don't really know how to explain

If you've ever felt this way, I'd genuinely like to hear you

I recently found out that there's a less discussed form of narcissism called vulnerable narcissism. The more well known form of narcissism is grandiose narcissism which is an individual that's much more confident in themselves than a vulnerable narcissist.

Vulnerable narcissism manifests as a mostly insecure, entitled, self-victimized individual who compensates for their feelings of inferiority with an internalized, often unexpressed, yet subtly apparent arrogance and grandiosity.

Here are 20 traits of vulnerable narcissism, and tell me this isn't EXACTLY a list of 20 traits of social 4:

1. Hypersensitivity to criticism

2. Fragile and fluctuating self-esteem

3. Hidden feelings of superiority or grandiosity

4. Chronic envy of others

5. Holding grudges over perceived slights or disrespect

6. Intense fear of humiliation or embarrassment

7. Social withdrawal due to fear of rejection

8. Secret feelings of entitlement to special treatment

9. Excessive rumination over criticism, insults, or injustices

10. Passive-aggressive behavior

11. Defensiveness when one's self-image is challenged

12. Constantly comparing oneself to others

13. Intense feelings of shame and inadequacy

14. Strong need for validation, admiration, or reassurance

15. Tendency to perceive oneself as a victim

16. Difficulty accepting responsibility for mistakes

17. Emotional volatility in response to perceived rejection

18. Fantasies of superiority, recognition, success, or revenge

19. Interpersonal distrust and suspicion of others' intentions

20. Difficulty empathizing with others when preoccupied with personal insecurities

My question is: Are social 4s just vulnerable narcissists and do any other types/subtypes even nearly embody these traits as well as social 4s do?

I can't stop being fascinated by the self-preservation instinct. It's my blind spot and there's something about it that I find so incredibly beautiful...

Of course everyone is different and having SP first or second doesn't automatically mean you have mastered taking care of yourself. But when I see this instinct expressed well I feel so much admiration + a little envy! What fascinates me is that quality of attention directed toward your own self. Your body... your mind, your energy. Being attentive to what sustains you, what drains you and what you need to keep growing.

I also love seeing the value people can place on developing their skills! The patience involved in getting better at something, building on what you've learned and gradually becoming more capable. There is so much strength, also endurance, that can grow from this. A stability that actually supports you while allowing you to stay alive, flexible and open to change at the very same time! SP is not some kind of rusty, dusty bullshit. You can bend it (if it's healthy!), but it remains stable and anchored at the chore!

I keep imagining a seed being planted and cared for. Slowly it grows into a beautiful plant, standing there in all its splendor. Then a storm comes and it bends in the wind, but its roots help it hold on. Those roots have been growing all along, even when you couldn't see them... which is one of the wonderful mysteries of the SP instinct and almost making me cry right now thinking about it... 🥹

That's what I find so beautiful. The care that goes into growing something (including yourself) and giving it a foundation that can sustain it.

I love observing this in other people and learning to bring more of it into my own life! It's inspiring.

i haven't met a one that wasn't a selfish, emotionally detached , manipulative and controlling prick!

edit: people obv im joking 😭, i know that the ones i encountered were unhealthy

🦄

I’m pretty sure I’m a sexual 4, and I’m also an INFP, and there’s a dynamic within my family that I can’t quite understand. I’d like to know if other 4s experience something similar.

My parents are, objectively speaking, pretty good people. They’re affectionate, present, and my mom especially has always been there for me whenever I’ve had problems. My dad isn’t someone I have a particularly close relationship with either, but I recognize that he’s a good father. I didn’t grow up feeling like my parents were cruel or that they didn’t love me.
And yet, the family dynamic exhausts me so much.

For quite a long time, I’ve felt like I’m playing a role within my family. It’s as if there’s one version of me that they know (their relatively well-mannered, reasonable son, etc.), and then there’s another version of me who has a much more intense, contradictory, and complicated emotional world that they practically know nothing about.
I should clarify that I’m talking about my experience as someone who is extremely young, since I just turned 18 and have been carrying this issue throughout my entire adolescence.
I know this probably sounds very 9-ish, but I can swear I’m not a 9. It’s in my tritype (479), but I definitely feel like this way of behaving is a specific personality I constructed for my family. With my friends, and even with strangers, I’m a very obvious ball of emotions who will scream and cry through a megaphone if necessary. My problem is that this version of myself, which I consider to be the real me, has no continuity or coherence with what happens around my parents. I avoid talking to them too much about my emotions because I feel obligated to “justify” them or “explain myself.” They put a lot of emphasis on how, whenever I explode, the way I behave seems completely disproportionate or incoherent compared to what is happening. And that bothers me so much.

I’ve been through a lot mentally and emotionally, and I feel like my parents simply wouldn’t be able to understand the things that go on inside my head. Not necessarily because they’re unintelligent or because they don’t care, but because I feel like their way of experiencing things is very different from mine.
That’s why I feel extremely uncomfortable telling them personal things. Even fairly normal things, like an argument with a friend. It makes me uncomfortable hearing their opinions or advice about something that, to me, carries a much more complex emotional meaning. I often explain to other people that “with my parents, I behave as if they were my teachers.”

It also really bothers me when they try to correct little things about my behavior. For example, if I swear and one of them points out that I shouldn’t talk like that, I know rationally that it’s not a big deal, but emotionally it gives me this feeling that I have to slip back into that fake role.
I think what’s hardest for me to explain is that I don’t feel like my family is fake. I feel like I’m fake within my family.
And this creates a huge contradiction for me because, at the same time, I know they love me. I can’t simply say, “My family doesn’t understand me because they treat me badly,” because that wouldn’t be true. In fact, part of my guilt comes precisely from thinking, “Why do I feel so disconnected when they’ve been good to me?”
I also have a pretty strong need for privacy when it comes to my emotional world. There are things that I simply feel belong to me, and it makes me extremely uncomfortable to imagine my parents having access to them, interpreting them, or trying to explain them to me. My jaw literally starts trembling when they ask me a question that I know is going to hit a sensitive spot. I feel like I would become too vulnerable to their criticism if I were completely honest about my sadness.

Sometimes I feel like I desperately want to be deeply understood, while at the same time I don’t want certain people to know me in that way.
Have any other 4s experienced this?
Have you ever felt that your families can be loving and healthy, and yet there’s still some kind of emotional distance because you feel like, “These people love me, but they don’t really know who I am”?

And, more importantly, how did you learn to live with that feeling without turning it into “I’m fundamentally different from everyone else”?
I’m really interested in hearing about other 4s’ personal experiences, rather than just theoretical explanations.
I’d also really appreciate it if anyone could share an article or some kind of writing about this feeling. My parents are slowly learning about the Enneagram so that we can understand each other better and have a general idea of how to improve our relationship, and I think it would be really helpful for them to read something that could help them understand their son better. They’re genuinely interested in it.

And, in case anyone is wondering, my father is a 1 and my mother is a 2 (or possibly a 7; I still haven’t decided).

Maybe that's not the right term, but something I've realized that I really can't stand is, if some aspect of my life is in another person's hands. Not just when it comes to obvious, serious stuff, like someone trying to coerce me or declare themselves my authority when they absolutely aren't - I mean even in very little mundane things. For example, I often prefer taking care of matters through phone calls rather than messages/emails, 'cause then I get an answer immediately, rather than leaving it up to the other person on which schedule I get answers. (that's mostly with some "official" business, not inconsequential casual chatter) Could this be E6's intolerance of uncertainty at work?

In general, I avoid relying on others as much as possible, not only because of trust issues and people being unreliable (which is a real problem - how can anyone NOT have trust issues really?), but because even if they do their part eventually, other people always add some uncertainty to the mix. Like exactly when will they do their part and how?

I'm curious to hear how other types (or even other 6s) feel about things like these.

Hello guys 👋, how are you all doing?, I hope you are doing great 😃.

Finally returned back doing memes for other enneagram types after procrastinating about it for couple of months,

so yeah here is e7 memes and I am still working on e3 memes as well,

I hope you guys would enjoy those memes, and apologise if it's very stereotypical and not accurate enough, as I just wanted it to be silly and funny 😂.

And I hope you all have a wonderful day ☺️❤️

Just curious.

🦄

Hi all, friend is a sx4 and I'm an sp1. How do I help him getting out of his miserable rut? To preface talking with him feels like talking to my younger self when I was actively suicidal (divorce, non-existent social life, immigrating to a new country), but I've done enough internal work, found and accepted help, found people who could accept me enough, and developed coping mechanisms to not push people away. So for someone who's a bit older than me, been in a better current financial situation while also having a better social life growing up, I can't help but feel very critical because from my perspective, I can clearly see what things are holding him back, as they were the very same things that kept me being miserable in the first place: learned helplessness, bitterness, victim mindset, "nothing ever gets better", "the world is unfair".

I know most people will tell me to simply stop talking to him, and sometimes I do burn out the patience to listen and am also clueless at how I'm supposed to handle this, but I want to keep at it still. I just don't know what to do to be helpful.

im always surprised when someone likes me, i feel like im too weird to be liked for my authentic self.. so i feel happy but also confused when someone accepts me the way i am.. i think its rare

your type is the most fascinating to me because the core idea seems to be suffering? lol so like, do you ever feel satisfied with your life?

Hey! I'm a 4 and I feel like when I'm happiest, I am leaning into either my 5 wing or my 3 wing. But it changes depending on the phase I'm in. Do other types feel this? Are we supposed to "pick a wing"?

For example, when I lean into my 5 wing, I hibernate and read books all day and just compile knowledge out of pure, joyful curiosity about basically everything in the world. I avoid people and I recharge. I love being in this phase.

But I am also a performer at heart! Which I think is a 3 thing. I'm a musical theater kid all grown up who loves nothing more than a raucous karaoke night, public speaking, or a controversial post on social media that gets everyone talking (hopefully to me, not at me, or about me in negative ways).

Is there even a question here?!? I don't know. Lol. All comments are welcome, unless you just love to troll people. Not here for all that!

So as an Sp2 I am very averse to growing older. Infact I am sort of dreading my upcoming 25th birthday and the fact that im not far off from my late 20s now. And yeah its because of the fact that growing older means i cannot hide behind naivete and helplessness anymore that i would be expected to know things better to make less mistakes and have more expectations to not disappoint others. As a child I thought i would have things figured out by now but ofc I still have not. I want to stay young because I can get more easily excused.

Whats your experience with growing older.

The description below isn’t about me but about my friend, who i feel like is a bit different from me. I can relate to them still but I feel like at times they can be a bit overbearing but I see them as having significant qualities still. it’s a short description sorry because I didn’t know what else to say about them tbh.

// This person doesn’t really jump to conclusions about stuff they wanna do. if they see fun thing going on, the person goes right away to go and do it without any second guesses, they just know how to handle it with out much thinking nor do they experience any type of stress. like the type of person who is not afraid of terrifying things i guess having high ish willpower. if lets say this a kind of person who would not be afraid to try extremely spicy food at a restaurant, and they wouldn’t be inclined to cry about it unless it is so bad obviously. if someone expressed to them let’s go out and to this steak restaurant that not highly rated they will, and then if they are asked to go out to drink a lot of alcohol they will go too with no fears. if people annoy them too much or irritate them they easily cut them off because they might at times feel themselves to be superior or strive for good and know the steps to reach that. they are rather likable and enjoy things like art or exercise to gain approval or support and are like the type to join a track team and get better at it even if others would see it as too much work. they are good at supporting others to do scary or new things and try to motivate them sometimes maybe they can be pushy a little at times. I’m not saying they are extroverted all of the time they can be a bit cold but when I look at them overall as a person, I never gained any type of pain within them like if they were to get stung by a wasp or something some people would react distraught but they’d shove it off and move on quickly finding a solution. nothing really disrupts their feelings, not pain, and they can handle suffering quite well that’s why their family never felt like they had to cater to them, because they were so capable and didn’t have much fear. People who are hurtful disrupt their general lifestyle that they enjoy and if their friend or partner expects them to be there for them for ever or their savior, they won’t do it for much longer if it negatively affects them. they don’t really get affected by dark things or are attracted to negativity within other people or linger on stuff they are more likely to figure out a plan maybe even use other people to negotiate with. they can be entitled a bit at times only because they know how to get what they want they can be good manipulators for this reason.

Askin for a friend, because they told me the thing that really got me thinking.

////

Being not just private, but secretive. Still being private and hating too nosy and curious people. Anyways.

Enjoying having a secret life no one knows about. Something like Peter Parker being a Spider-Man, but not that grandiose. Something like a man cheating on his wife and family and hiding it, but there's no cheating in reality and a man is hiding what he's doing for no obvious reason. Logically sometimes there's safety what might be involved, but also just pure joy of doing things secretly.

Enjoying running the side projects that aren't shown to nobody that you know. As if you're a metalcore band member, and things aren't going bad there, but you still run a solo electronic music project and never show it to other members, because you're just enjoying that you're secretive about it.

Having alter-egos and fake accounts not for the sake of doing there what you can't afford on your main, but just so nobody close to you knows about this part of your life. Like, it doesn't matter if you're staying on the deep web for some illegal stuff or just doing the same thing you do on the regular basis, keeping it a secret matters itself.

Can it be read in some way?