I currently struggle with perfect types. If someone doesn’t match the description perfectly, then who are they?

How to navigate it all? What to look out for specifically? What to focus on the most?

I would say to just remember that it has to be at least one of them, and maybe start by working backwards instead of looking for a perfect stereotype. I've found that my best learning experiences have been based on typing people that I didn't suspect at first but came to through an "oh shit" moment.

It is really hard to essentialise types on paper as a lot of them have strong paradoxes at their core instead of one single data-thing that lies flat at the middle of them, and there’s kind of no cutting corners when it comes to learning the flexibility of nine different umbrellas. Every person makes use of a very complex brain differently, so it’s kind of more like how the puzzle pieces fit together to make a whole rather than who has what, because it’s rare that a trait is only 100% there or totally missing. It’s feeling out how things are balanced against each other and which impulses/instincts take up the most space versus the ones that fall back. 

is this parasocial. Why would it Matter. Literally an Anon. An enneanon. me and the tumblr blog i keep sending asks to. i was wondering how one would be able to tell between the types? like obviously there are all the key differences and Fears and Beliefs and Desires and such but i find myself being unable to decipher which one i align myself with at the core? i read these all and i’m like! ok! i relate to All of these! to an extent! i’ve tested as a 9, 2, and 6 over the years and i’ve been assigned an eight once by a friend.

best regards….

enneanonymous…

I guess I can’t come with hard data on this, but a big thing for Fives is the urge to hang back and study a situation before jumping into it. Niche lurking is kind of like a sifter, people all around the world can filter through to a certain 'space' if they have the taste for it, which will give you pretty different numbers over a location-based sample. Being Online can also be a way to be around people while staying within conditions that won't exaust the industrial-strength introversion-- unless they’re scrolling in public they may be reclusive in physical life to hang out in digital learning-space. It’s not hard to wrangle Fives in the wild if you have a keen eye, but big concentrations of Fives out for long periods of time are kind of rare in social gatherings (Except science-heavy nerd spaces? Maybe? But those might be hostile for different reasons, hard sciences aren’t actually the silver bullet people might think when looking for Fives.)

I get infp and 4w5 every time.

i was definitely being wayy too dramatic through so I apologize for that 😭 I sent that ask at 12am-ish even though I put restrictions for myself to not be social past 10 bc that's when I get all depressed n shit. ig all those tiktoks about my personality type having 'nobody' in the background got to me lmfao

Aw, okay it sounded like you were describing a core Four but I wanted to be sure. (Also I haven’t seen the tiktoks but those sound gloomy, ouch.) 

I have a strong soft spot for Four tempered with the surrealist edge that the Five wing brings in. Some of my favorite obscure artists who like to indulge in abstract thinking are 4w5, there's a very sincere willingness to give the unusual a chance that not everyone takes a natural interest in. They may not rise to louder versions of fame like their 4w3 counterparts can sometimes be driven to, but in my experience they can really innovate in a niche. I kind of consider them to be a neighbor to my type since I’m 5w4 and there’s not that many people I can feel genuinely connected to naturally. Fours can be happy, and in fact I think that the sincerity of Four happiness has a certain purity to it when they’re doing well that really has an effect on the people around them.

I don’t think I’ve been thrown off super hard recently, but back when I was still learning simpler stuff I would get misguided hunches based on gender performance, like not noticing the tells for male Twos who tend to bury their affectionate streak under their workaholism more. Usually I don’t get to cross-check people since the awkwardness around trying to get someone to take a test is Friend Activity and I can’t spring it on the public at random, but by the time I know them as a friend there’s less cold-reading and more of a relationship there. 

The Eight wing part of this question is interesting, it implies a scrappy / defensive stance in either one. 7w8 would be quicker to get into conflict, and might even do it for fun, but a 9w8 will push back on things and finish arguments if provoked (or if someone disturbs their 'peace') so it's a close call. 

As a rule I would say when breaking a tie between any other type and Nine, try to give extra weight to Nine because they're the hardest to tell apart from other types, as opposed to the other eight which tend to be a bit more obvious (the mix-ups tend to be one-way.) 

I just went through a couple of his online articles, I'll keep an eye on this guy. He seems a bit woo, but most of the enneagram writing is. I get itchy when things start to advance in a culty direction, though, and having just peeped the blog and a few of the linked websites my hairs are kinda raised. 

It's a concept that on its face is kind of impossible to disprove, the idea that we are driven to one-on-one connection, broader social belonging and self-preservation to some degree. I think that's why I pulled back from it a bit at first, the idea with leading / being weak with "one of the drives" seemed a bit too reductive at first, especially when people really go literal on the idea of a 'sexual' instinct.

He did interesting things with the sx instinct in his writing so far. The desire to be a tropical bird that can cultivate interest and spice in life does ring true for the people who I would have slotted under that umbrella, but I think he gave a little bit too much of its domain over to the Social instinct in the name of being literal over being right (comes off too self-focused.)