The Ultimate Sexual 5

Last Saturday evening when I was in East Portland, I was sitting around after dinner with a friend. I was explaining various things about how I view life. She asked me if I knew what my Enneagram personality type was. I recognized the term. I'd seen those titles on the shelves of bookstores for years, but had never once opened one of them up, or looked into the idea in any detail. I pleaded ignorance and asked her to explain.

It turns out there are nine basic Enneagram personality types, each subdivided into three categories (social, sexual, and self-protecting), making a total of 27 types.

"I think you might be a 4 or a 5," she told me.  I was in a mood to hear more about this. She got her small library of books on the subject and cracked them open, reading various sections outloud as I listened.

While she read through the various personality types, I gave my reaction to them as they might pertain to me.

Nope. No. Not me. No. Not all. Definitely not. Absolutely no... I fired off in rapid succession, in response to the sentences she read.

Then she got to 5 (the Investigator). As she read down the description, my curt responses changed to: Yup. Yes. Yes. True. Definitely me. 100% spot on. Exactly me...

Some of the descriptions in the book were almost word-for-word the way I had been describing myself earlier in the evening.

I felt a mix of warmth at the accuracy of the description, and mild unease at how well it pegged me.

We further determined quite easily that among the subcategories, I was definitely a "sexual" 5, rather than a "social" or "self-preserving" one.

"Ya mean there's more than one of me out there?" I told her, with a wry smile. The fact that it didn't bother me that I was a "typical" 5 was probably enough by itself to disqualify me from being a 4 (the Individualist), a category that only superficially reminded me of myself.

My friend said that she herself was a 9 (the Peacemaker). It occurred to me that my adolescent self was probably closer to that category, and that I'm perhaps drawn to that type of woman.

We playfully contemplated the possible Enneagram categories of various people we knew. I remarked that my ex-wife was probably a 6 (the Loyalist). But maybe it was just her Catholic upbringing. My friend said she'd been in a long relationship with a 6 as well.

In thinking about other people I knew, I told her how I had once thought that I should be more like other people I knew and respected, because they seemingly "had things I didn't have." But I had no such thoughts anymore, and hadn't had them in a while, even as I felt regret at certain life decisions at times. I knew exactly who I was, and how I fit into the world. We both agreed how freeing it was, to be aware of such things.

The next morning after I got coffee along East Burnside, I walked past the old Laurelhurst theater. It shows both new releases and older mvoies. I saw on the marquee that they were showing Bullit (1968), staring Steve McQueen, as part of their programming in the coming week.

I'd seen the movie for the first time only within the last year, and had watched it completely again on TCM while I was in Casper, Wyoming a few weeks back. At the time it when I watched it occurred to me how closely Steve McQueen's character in that movie is to my own personality in many ways, in how I approach the world and relationships. Yes, a lot of men want to believe they are like that particular character, but I really am like that, although I am (thankfully) not a police detective.

It struck me all at once that Steve McQueen's character in that movie is probably the quintessential Sexual 5---in his job, his friendships, and in his relationship to his girlfriend played by Jacqueline Bisset. I could think of no better movie example of that archetype.

I hadn't ever seen the movie in a real theater. It sounded like maybe something to do. I walked up to the box office of the theater, still dark on a Sunday morning. Showing at 9:30 PM all this week.