Emotionality and Fantasy

Emotionality is not very present in the subtypes of greed, the most intellectual among the intellectuals. The greedy person has difficulty feeling and, above all, expressing what they feel. They live in an emotionally barren world with few variations in color, like a lunar landscape.

Their disconnection from feelings makes them distant, cold, and impersonal. As the Social 5 is intimately linked to the world of ideas, they subject their expression to the filter of reason and barely reveal their emotions. They seem to exercise constant, though unconscious, control over the intensity of what they express.

It is common for them to suppress the expression of negative feelings, such as anger and contempt. These emotions control them, and they express themselves more through evasive behaviors, such as distancing and coldness, than with direct words. In the face of frustration, they become passive-aggressive. Repressed anger can manifest as impatience and, rarely, as explosive behavior because their tendency to keep this emotion to themselves makes them a bomb that can explode when least expected.

By holding back the expression of negative emotions, they are actually defending themselves from the confrontation and exposure they fear. For the Social 5, being transparent is a difficult task, especially when they need to confront or irritate someone. Clearly stating what they dislike and frustrating others' expectations would be an important step of transformation for this character, who has the habit of hiding. They often prefer to remain silent rather than show their face. In fact, omission is a very present characteristic in them.

They also find it difficult to feel or express gratitude. They don’t like to feel indebted and act as though they don’t need anyone's help. Since it’s hard for them to ask, they prefer not to expect anything from others. In fact, they don’t want to create the feeling that they will later have to pay back what they owe because they think they are receiving.

And they aren’t very aware of their fears. With their tendency to hide, they end up not coming into contact with them. They don’t feel as much fear as an E6 simply because they avoid situations that would provoke them, giving up on their desires and actions. Their biggest fears are negative exposure and invasion of privacy. As the evasive type they are, they live more in fantasy than in reality. That’s why you might say: "Oh, I don’t dare speak to that person," projecting in their imagination a situation that would scare them long before they feel it in their body.

In the Social 5, desire is contained, under control. They would like to have more vital experiences, but they don’t dare to try and give up. They live as spectators of life, not as

protagonists. We find in this character a tendency to negativism, like a "death drive." They cultivate a melancholic state up to apathy, with little energy and vitality. There is a certain depression that comes from their lack of interest in the world, in the renunciation of desires, and in the loss of vitality. However, the sadness they know is drier than wet, as if sunny days are rare and overcast ones prevail with sporadic rains. Then, the sun eventually breaks through the clouds, showing that joy exists, but it’s a rare occurrence. It’s like the cactus in the desert, where beautiful and fragrant flowers bloom, but only once a year. The same happens with the Social 5, who, in rare moments, lets their emotions overflow and shows the beauty of their feelings, such as love and joy.

Fantasy in Lifestyle and Interpersonal Relationships

The Social 5 tends to live with a very realistic criterion, which leads them to devalue their own experience. On the other hand, their levels of fantasy are exponentially high due to idealized experiences with extraordinary meaning. It plays the role of mobilizing their energy towards the search for that "sacred object" targeted by so much ambition. They need to idealize in order to admire, and their fantasy conceals the world’s imperfections. They also tend to fantasize about themselves, for without idealizing, they would fall into emptiness.

"After going through a painful separation in my first marriage, very difficult due to the distance from my little son, who was still very attached to his mother, I started to land. From an escapist, individualistic spiritual journey mixed with nihilistic feelings, I was incorporating my senses into the world. At this same time, I started my second and current marriage, in which I tried to overcome the deep distrust I felt, generated by the lack of love I had experienced with my mother. Little by little, I began to open up to loving feelings, without fear of suffering. It was a time of revelation, unmasking, and transparency of what I felt. Exposing my feelings and talking about them started to give me a clear sense of power, which was reinforced when I got out of my head and incorporated my feelings physically. Today, I clearly understand that it was from that moment that I abandoned many of my spiritual fantasies, like achieving enlightenment and being a hermit. I realized that, often, the spiritual search becomes an escape route for an E5, especially when other aspects of their interpersonal world are not integrated. At least for me, it was like this: I needed to get out of the spiritual clouds I was living in and have the courage to risk being human." - Sergio V.

This character can imagine and internally create scenarios and dialogues of what they have not experienced. As they avoid experiences rather than live them concretely, they tend to live an imaginary and abstract reality in their mind.

It is common for social people to believe in threat scenarios in their environment, developing a negativist tendency that, combined with a paranoid component, leads them to anticipate catastrophic fantasies about the future.

They have a great desire for contact but don’t experience it as they would like. Their thirst for affection and pleasure leads them to fantasize about the intimacy they wish they could experience. They dream they could give a lot of love and pleasure to anyone they want, but in reality, they often lack generosity even with the people they love the most.

Probably the greatest fantasy that permeates their interpersonal style is the crazy idea that they would not be loved or accepted in their humanity. It is to protect themselves from rejection that they maintain detachment and indifference in relationships.