Archetypal Incest (An Essay on the Enneagram + Dating)

By Larissa

An essay on the blessing and curse of knowing the Enneagram while trying to date. This is about a date I went on last year with a guy who was the same tritype as my mom.

HPV Dracula rolled up one wet afternoon. Widow’s peak, dark hair, tall, nicotine-stained fingers, the aura of a drug dealer, a sinister sparkle in his eye. Instantly recognizable from my high school years. A Super Senior who sold weed behind the library, with an I’ll-ruin-your-life kind of look.

Hot.

Dressed much the same, but visibly carrying the financial burden of child support payments. Black and more black, in varying shades of distress and wear. Clothes hung off his hunched and lanky frame. Demeanour didn’t emit “fuck you to death in the back of my off-roader,” it was serving “I’ll frail-ly, palely let you ride me while I moan gratefully and make a lot of intense eye contact.”

But he has a glint. And a glint is worth something.

When H. Drac appeared from the mist at my lowly part-time barista job, the friction was immediate. The astral cock that makes itself known when you sense another freaky being in the wild. You notice these things when spending most of the day in a coffee shop having your soul enema’d out of you via the repetitive act of frothing oat milk, neurotic questions about ingredients and ingredient backstory, and various “I support small businesses with my measly $3, now give me applause for my good deed” performances.

Intriguing customers stand out.

Instant buzzing. Was he insanely attractive? No, but I could barely look at him because he had activated the sizzle field. He plugged in, without knowing it. His voltage, his kilowatts’ had activated mine.

“Uh,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “Do you make Americanos?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I get a big one?”

“Double or triple shot?”

“Sure, let’s do triple.”

Then the insecurity hit. As I attempted to nonchalantly grind espresso and get a 16 oz cup and not suffer some kind of dyspraxic catastrophe, knocking over things or spraying my face with hot water. I resembled a depressed, gender-confused teenager because I typically didn’t get out of bed until ten minutes before I had to leave for work and would end up scavenging an outfit from piles of clothes I’d left on various surfaces. Which was then followed by me breathlessly careening through town on my kickscooter, getting nice and ripe for my 8am shift (er, technically 8:05 most days). My uniform; baggy sweaters, messy unwashed topknot, mismatched socks rolled up over my jeans, walk-of-shame eyeliner (from putting it on in a rush, not post-cringe sex, although I was applying it shamefully).

H. Drac doesn’t know anything embarrassing about me, but the most important thing he doesn’t know (which I‘m not embarrassed about) is about my obsession with typology. That is sorting people into little boxes with little labels like specimens in a laboratory. Hairless rats I poke and prod with leading questions and amphibious-eyed observations. He’s being studied and mapped onto a symbol, he just doesn’t know it yet.

He also doesn’t know that I’m a tarot freak. It’s the first thing I’ll do when I get home. “Cards, tell me - will I regret it?”

“Of course you’ll regret it,” they’ll enlighten me.

That’s part of the appeal.

In the Enneagram (that’s typology, that’s personality type theory, that’s a way to categorize people by behaviors, fears and motivations) he has a high Sexual instinct, so he goes in the “fireworks person” column.

What does that mean? Well, it’s a hotly debated topic in many dank areas of the internet, and I can only tell you what I think it is. It means you’re tapped into the sizzle field, ok? It means you sense sexual attraction and are constantly engaging in chemistry experiments. You can consciously and unconsciously mist people with pheromones and sex bombs (that sometimes have unintended consequences when your aim is off). You smell it on others and it gives you a high (or makes you wretch, depending on the person). Does it mean you’re particularly sexy or good in bed (as the label might suggest)? No. But there’s a magnetism. An energy. A quality. It’s how the 50-year-old who looks like burnt meatloaf in a Hawaiian shirt manages to snag twenty-somethings regularly.

Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

If not, maybe you’re not meant to.

I was getting 6w5 from HD. That made him a “problem solver,” a “paranoid prepper,” a “researcher.” He cares about security and support. He has shifty rodent eyes and mumbled something about being a “good person.” (Ew.) This means, he goes in the “adapting to the Matrix” and “Superego” column. But because of said fireworks booster pack, he is not doing a great job of it. Having the fireworks instinct usually means you’re prone to derailing stability and security. It makes you act out of pocket, chasing that high.

He’s cagey. Definitely doesn’t have his shit together.

Game recognize game.

I half-engaged, half-avoided HD’s intense, manic gaze as he ordered a double Americano and made innocuous but sublimated small talk. I wasn’t exactly sure what information was exchanged because I wasn’t paying attention to the words, really.

“Have a nice day,” I mumbled, carnally distressed.

He threw all his change (loonies and toonies) into the tip bucket as he left. Then looked over his shoulder, casually but intentionally.

He’d be back. The double-takers always come back.

“Hello Riss,” said a cheery, gentle familiar voice.

I panicked to make sure H Drac had left (he had), before glaring back at my next “customer.”

My mother.

And she wanted a cappuccino.

To stay.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Just take it,” I said, dismissively. The next hour of my standing around working myself up erotically was now completely ruined.

“You make the best cappuccinos,” she said, making her way to the sugar packets.

“No, I don’t,” I muttered.

Being competent at foaming milk or some other menial horror is not a compliment, but people with 6 and Self-Preservation in their type don’t grasp that. I get a lot of “you make my lattés just the way I like it”s which is intended as flattery (or creepy, controlling behavior tbh), but I feel deeply disgusted by it.

But you wouldn’t get it if you don’t get the Enneagram.

My mother is a 2w3, a 269 to be exact. Which is both a blessing and a curse to someone like me, who is double-withdrawn (4, 9), irresponsible (my entire tritype - 749) and Self-Preservation last (completely fucking useless in all practical matters). Our dynamic is codependent, sickening and made of the same stardust that created such haunting masterpieces as Grey Gardens and The Beales of Grey Gardens.

Anyway, I hadn’t been laid in a while. My options were limited and I have standards (or like to pretend I do). Learning the mystical art of profiling people, I can heartlessly drag and drop people in the “thank u, next” bin. Not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because they’re archetypally unfit for me to have sexual relations with. The Enneagram makes navigating sex and romance a lot easier, but also means I never date.

I’ve never dated a Sexual (possibly sx/sp) 6w5, though. A dangerous malnourished bat.

A perfect match.

In theory.

I didn’t even know if he’d come back. I just felt like he would.

Then he did.

A few days later.

He lingered longer the second time. Building up to something. Asking me more questions. Pretending not to recognize me from high school (maybe he didn’t, but I suspected he’d already done reconnaissance due to Enneagram type). He told me he was single, but he wasn’t single because he was a bad person. (Like I cared.)

Another double Americano. This time he threw a five in the bucket. One point for not being cheap, and also not being Self-Preservation dominant. Self-Pres 6w5’s are a whole different beast.

He worked in the kitchen at a restaurant. Cutting onions. Frying beef slivers in reused oil. Probably still a drug dealer, although that was purely speculation. Because my romantic vision includes artistry, mutual museshipping, intellectual breakthroughs, the romance of icons and cinematic tragic masterpieces, I knew I wouldn’t be getting that experience from a line cook in The Middle of Nowhere. But I was thinking maybe I could slap it around for a couple months and hope I didn’t catch anything from a guy who looks like he definitely has something.

Would he be like the Self-Preservation 9’s who longingly gaze at me making their order and weakly brushing my hand with theirs for months on end hoping I’ll make the first move? No. He’s a reactive type. The anxiety, uncertainty and need to secure the bag will drive him to take action. I was sure of it.

I spent most of the day fantasizing while trying to keep one foot on the conveyer belt of minimum wage tedium. Did some low-effort detective work on my phone, trying to determine if he’d been in jail (not that I really cared - but yes, he had, according to my coworker) or what the exes I could dredge up on social media might reveal about his taste (this I did care about but I didn’t get very far).

I didn’t stalk long because he traipsed back in an hour later, jacket hanging off a shoulder and a purple bouquet.

He told me I made him feel “alive.” Finally, a real compliment.

Despite the flowers being from the grocery store, I felt seen by his choice of purple. He had recognized my vibe. Sure, they were kinda wilted and shit, but purple is my favourite colour. Purple is mysterious. Maybe we had a stronger connection than I’d anticipated.

He asked me out for the next night, which was Saturday.

I casually said, “Sure.” I rarely had plans, although I often pretended to. What’s the worst that could happen?

Then I got home.

Did I mention I live with my parents?

And as I liberated the flowers (carnations or something) from their plastic prison, I noticed the emblems that read: International Women’s Day.

“Oh.”

I looked it up. It was, indeed, International Women’s Day. A week ago. Hence, the wilting. And its signature colour was purple.

Oh, how desperate I was for romance that I’d convinced myself some random, horny line cook understood me like that. How awful. I convinced myself that I would, at least, have a fun-adjacent experience. And, mercifully get away from my parents (really important for a grown woman living in her family’s basement) and maybe get white girl wasted (also a priority).

It was a terrible embarrassment to be picked up at my parent’s house like a teenager going on a first date. I was wearing a maroon corduroy mini skirt with AliExpress tights. The plan was dinner and drinks. That sounded fine to me. Whatever. I just wanted to build some tension and then get my pay-off.

Of course, it loomed in the back of my mind that if I went back to his place my parents would know I got laid. I would have to text my mom to let her know I wasn’t coming home. Which repulsed me. But I was already constructing a reality in which he rescued me from my parent’s basement. And while I did not see myself staying with him forever, it would create the perfect springboard for my next chapter. A blue collar Lana del Rey Spring/Summer, followed by a chaotic, maybe bisexual, Miley Cyrus Fall/Winter, far far away from here. If I could swing it.

Our plans shifted on a dime once I was in the truck, to dinner with six other people for a birthday gathering or something. We had to go to a neighboring town. I wasn’t impressed, but whatever.

In the truck he talked animatedly about his adult daughter, family, friends, his job and some other stuff I wasn’t really interested in. I guess to some people this is appealing. I was more drawn in by the romantic sketchbag persona than the struggling family man one. It was like going from a steamy 90s film to a made-for-TV movie.

I’ll spare you whatever happened at dinner, as it wasn’t noteworthy, other than him regailing me with a story about how he pursued, or rather stalked, another local woman that I knew. This offended me. He stalked her? Showed up at her work multiple times? HER? And she rejected him?

To anyone who is not me I can see how judging another person for being un-stalkworthy is possibly delusional given my life situation, but nevertheless, the comparison was shocking and ego-crushing. I won’t go into the gory details as I’m aware I’ve likely already milked about as much insufferability tolerance as I can out of whoever is reading this, and I still have more to go.

He seemed to find my disgusted reaction entertaining, but I was finding everything about this less and less entertaining. Know your audience. Learn the Enneagram.

I was three wines deep and letting the night play out however it wanted to, because I really didn’t care at this point. We had a twenty minute drive back to town and this was when he revealed the I would not be getting my Summertime Sadness in whatever rundown house he lived in.

Because he lived with his mother.

He didn’t couch it in some self-indulgent, misunderstood artist narrative like I did about how I moved home to focus on my obsessions and creative projects. His was wrapped up in an “I’m taking care of her” narrative. But of course, I knew better. That had been one of the lines I had thought of using about my situation, which wouldn’t be believable to anyone who’s known me for more than fifteen minutes. Ah yes, the noble and caring Larissa, taking care of the elderly.

It was his house, but it was actually her house. He also lived in the basement. I suppose it’s true what they say in manifestation: Like attracts like. An ex-junkie but still has issues, hooked on an oxygen tank, hanging on for life but also wants to die.

This was not at all the future I had envisioned for myself.

He was the only one who could care for her. She needed him. No one else in the family would speak to her. She was self-absorbed, abusive, melodramatic, miserable and hedonistic. His narrative about himself and his narrative about her was eerily familiar to me. A foreboding on the edges of my inebriated consciousness. A dynamic I was well-versed in, but didn’t want to vocalize.

The more he talked about her, the more anxiety I got. I wanted to continue the date just so I could continue drinking.

We returned to town and went to the only bar open, even though it was still kind of early. The place was packed. Humid. Yeasty. It was Saint Patrick’s Day or something, and there was a karaoke night. I love doing karaoke, but I wasn’t prepared for the audience. Not for my singing but for my date. This audience included chicks we also had gone to school with, some of which I was pretty sure he had “dated.” There were vibes, smirks, side-glances.

People would talk about this.

This would become a thing.

Yes, I would like a beer and a shot of whisky. Thanks.

He didn’t sing anything, and dipped when I took the “stage” (corner of the moist, enclosed deck) with one of my too-long-for-karaoke favs, Possum Kingdom by The Toadies. I’m a terrible singer (I’m not being humble) and the karaoke machine “cut out” part way through my epic aria. “Tech issues” were not an uncommon event for me. I’ve been cut off and kicked out of many bars and legions for my karaoke performances. Whatever. Still better than their renditions of Boot Scootin’ Boogie and Before He Cheats.

The apprehension of living in a fishbowl where everyone knows everything (further intensifying the encroaching engulfment I already felt) wouldn’t fully hit until the next day when I was deeply hungover at work. A cop (guess his tritype) would attempt to intimidate me by staring unblinkingly as I made his lattes, because he’d clocked that I went on a date with a known drvg dealer.

But in this moment, I was coming to the end of the date. And then he drove me to “his” house to show me where he lived. We idled in the driveway.

“You’ll have to meet her before you come over.”

“I honestly don’t want to,” I said.

He laughed, as if I was joking. This was the final straw. I had no interest in any of this. Meet his mother.

“For dinner,” he said.

This all sounded quite terrible. I wanted to jump out of the truck and run screaming into the night. An overreaction, possibly. But with every passing moment the horror of his heart fix unfurled like a giant, engorged facehugger that had been hiding in the backseat this whole time.

My haphazardly, quickly constructed fantasy was collapsing under facts and data. There was only room for one fuck-up in any given relationship. Two fuck-ups could work if the fuck-upping was hot. It wasn’t hot - for either of us. Hot fuck-ups included crazy exes, stalkers, obsession. Ours included overly enmeshed parental dynamics, townie lore and joe jobs. HD was not going to be my Knight of Cups, rescuing me from my pit of despair. In fact, I was quite sure he was going to make it worse. Not intentionally, mind you. People rarely do it intentionally.

On the drive between his mother’s house and my mother’s house (fucking just drive off the road with us both in it and let’s call it a no-budget Thelma & Louise sequel), he made a special point of emphasizing that he was a “giver” in bed and I’m “you oriented in bed,” he said.

I had a pre-PTSD flashforward imagining him crawling up my thighs like Bob from Twin Peaks, salivating, wagging his tongue. “Did you cum? I just want to please you.” The Two-y-ness was unignorable. While I was sure he wasn’t a core 2 (I would’ve never gone on a date if he was), I was quite certain that he was the same tritype as my mother (and brother), just a different stacking and order. It was unnatural. It was profane. Taboo. And not in a hot way.

A cortisol, dread, despair cocktail washed over me as we closed in on our destination. I was practically hysterical. I had to get away from these people!

But I was horny and desperate! I wanted to get fucking laid. I was CONFUSED. I WAS DRUNK. I was SO SO SO FUCKING DRUNK. (Loved that for me).

So ask me why I did what I did, because the only answer I have is that the combination of many wines, beers and shots of whisky along with the emotional spike and derangement I felt in the moment possessed me to go in for a kiss right before I got out of his truck.

I was pretty sure I didn’t want to see him again, but maybe I would change my mind the next day. I often flip-flopped. I often hated making a clean decision in the moment when I felt pressure (thanks 9 fix). I had a lot of bubbling pent-up sexual frustration and I felt low-key guilty since he’d paid for the whole night on a basement-dweller budget. So I went for it.

It wasn’t romantic, coy or seductive. I essentially tried to… well, suck his tongue out of his head. The energy with which I attacked his face wasn’t warranted. And I imagine, possibly shocking. But I suppose in that moment a part of me wanted to just die, and maybe if I sucked hard enough my fucking brain would explode in a spiderweb of aneuryisms.

He just looked at me smiling.

“K, bye!” Then I fled.

This is why I never go on dates with anyone I’m not semi-confident I want to have sex with. Because I panic. My processor overloads. I do something insane or make something up. Or start crying. Yes, I’ve cried on several dates (including one where the guy ran into traffic to escape me). I’ve cried during first date sex. Whatever.

The living room lights were still on and my parents were no doubt aware of my presence, watching some mainstream pile of shit cranked up to ear-wax melting decibels.

As I re-entered rural-suburban Hell with the shame of archetypal incest on my lips, I felt completely trapped. Like a sane woman who had escaped a lunatic asylum and gotten picked up on the side of a road by an orderly who was taking me back. I could’ve broken free but made it worse. I had a glimpse of hope, and the loss of that hope felt worse than had I never tasted it.

Or sucked it.

I quickly announced that I was drunk and tired, grabbed my confused little dog and hurled myself onto my bed in the basement dramatically, sobbing. The experience had touched a new kind of terror in my psyche. The room spinning, I reflected on every moment I could recall, a tapestry of ghoulish delights.

Of course, none of this was his fault.

My knowledge was.

The prism with which I viewed the world. And the more I thought about it, the worse it became.

HD’s mother, while not my type twin, I could tell had 4 in her tritype. Maybe 7. She sounded dreadful. A cosmologically rotten maternal tryst trying to take form through its children, as if the mommy theme wasn’t already grotesque as it was. A new incarnation of Hellraiser trying to write itself into the reality of this middling little town, which I’ve always felt had a dark, low-vibrational energy to it. VC Andrews could never.

I contemplated saging my pussy and gargling Holy Water (which I assumed you could make by praying over a cup?) but instead I passed out, mascara adhering to cheap polycotton pillowcases.

Did knowing the Enneagram curse this possibly beautiful romance? No. It gives me a symbolic map to avoid future abominations. It gives solidity and label to something I would’ve been disturbed by on an unconscious level but may not have quite known how to articulate to myself. Something demonic on the edges of my awareness, dancing and laughing as I clutched my sweat-drenched comforter at 4am after a formless nightmare. The prolongation of an inevitably doomed romance, making both parties’ lives much worse in the process.

This is the price you pay for insight and knowledge, and the gift you receive in return.