Love

In his book The Enneagram of Society, Claudio Naranjo describes the love experienced by the Social 5 as a lack of love, a risky adventure that demands a lot of effort and energy and

can lead to "bad business." He also refers to the lack of expression and the difficulty in showing affection or interest in others.

This character stands out from relationships, life, and even the experience that happens all the time. He is apathetic and indifferent to emotional needs; on the contrary, he avoids bonds and intimacy through distance and abandonment of relationships. He runs from intimate ties and emotional obligations because he wants to remain completely free, without limits, without impediments, in possession of the totality of himself.

It is terrifying for him to ask for and express his needs; he is terrified of losing the little he has and is always threatened with being invaded and losing his independence.

"For a long time, I felt my distancing from the community as a kind of strength. It was a brutal capacity for coldness and insensitivity that sought to stand out to avoid suffering. This underlying feeling of E5, especially in the social subtype, involves the use of the thinking and sophisticated mind to justify his fears in a sterile and perverse logic, which often can approach psychopathy." – Sergio V.

There is a consensus among the representatives of the subtype that admiration is the most developed type of love. We conclude that the Social 5 is oriented towards great ideals and longs to find something extraordinary that he cannot find in bonds or relationships. He ends up seeking this ideal in knowledge, religion, science, or work:

"The most important thing was work and my spiritual path. The intimate relationship came second, and I only allowed it when I also understood it as a stage of the spiritual path. I realized that loving the human being is difficult for me because I do not love the human being in myself. In fact, I feel lost in terms of feelings and intimacy. I don't know how to ask, let alone demand something. I also don't like to be demanded. The truth is that it is very difficult for me to live relationships in depth."

Thus, a Social 5 may idealize love and relationships, but easily becomes frustrated and immediately gives up and forgets love.

He longs so much to experience it that when he receives something, he wants to give himself completely. The initial distancing can turn into a strong desire for exclusivity with his partner. Therefore, this fear of eating and being eaten is, in a way, realistic: "When I learned to give myself, a deep need for affection from the other arose, which became an attachment and a desire for more and more. For a long time, I felt my distancing from the community as a kind of strength. It was a brutal capacity for coldness and insensitivity that sought to distance itself to avoid suffering. This underlying feeling of E5, especially in the social subtype, involves the use of the thinking and sophisticated mind to justify his fears in a sterile and perverse logic, which often can approach psychopathy. However, I begin to

wait and expect, and end up frustrated. Then, I give up. It's incredible that, from one moment to the next, I can go from deep love and desire to coldness and disconnection, almost as if love no longer exists. I forget so easily. The great capacity I have for detachment scares me, as if I could forget everything I have received or lived. From one moment to the next. I just need to close a door and enter another room of my inner house. I don't do this on purpose, but I automatically find myself there, distant and alone, with nothing else, no things, no people, no color, no taste, just in an empty space. I never believed or trusted in love. I lived it as seduction, as a game, the conquest and subsequent abandonment of the woman, in a clear response of revenge against my mother. I lived the passion and then distanced myself coldly. Only in my second marriage did I have a restorative experience of love. The cold night of the vast desert inside my heart was filling with fire and warmth, and little by little I was melting. This love arose feverishly and somewhat hallucinated, similar to what I felt for God, for art, for music, for knowledge. The difference is that now I was living an incarnate love and not a distant and impersonal love. And I no longer avoid fear, pain, or pleasure."

The Social 5 is represented by the figure of a Totem, which indicates the height and superiority of an object beyond the human being. The height of the Totem evokes this character's tendency to look up to the ideal. His desire to search beyond, to the stars, what he cannot find in the world below. For him, it is easier to love God than people. Looking up is how he manifests his love of admiration. He has difficulty dealing with earthly matters; the dust of the stars blurs his vision and prevents him from seeing the ground he is walking on.

Albert Einstein is a good example of a Totem. Leopold Infeld, a colleague who worked with him, describes him as follows:

"His heart never bleeds, and he walks through life with gentle pleasure and emotional indifference. For Einstein, life is an interesting spectacle that he watches with discreet interest, never letting himself be shaken by the emotions of love or hate. He is an objective spectator of human madness, and feelings do not impair his judgments. His interest is intellectual and, when he takes sides (and he does!), he is more reliable than anyone else, because the 'self' is not involved in his decision. The great intensity of Einstein's thought is projected outward, to the world of phenomena." The maternal or compassionate capacity is, in general, the least developed type of love in the Social 5, a character who can be cold and distant, with little empathy and a low ability to understand the needs of others, which he perceives as bonds:

"I thought I knew how to care, but my way of caring is not so warm. Accepting the other is difficult because I lack the inner mother. I know how to listen with my ears, but I lack listening with my heart. It is difficult for me to have empathy for some needs that I always

see as unnecessary. That's why I always tell my son that it’s already enough, that he already has a lot. You don’t need this or that. Everything seems dead to me. And in the same way, I treat my inner child."

There is no generous attitude to share with others. In general, the lack of the mother is one of the roots of the Social 5's psychological problem. The motherly love that he lacked, that warm and compassionate gaze, is hard for him to offer. Generosity, just like true detachment, are virtues to be developed by the Social 5:

"I think about others, but I lack the action of giving. It’s difficult for me to go to the other and make myself available. Although I easily forget about people, I love them a lot. But when I have to give of myself, I find a great challenge. I can give and be generous, but this happens very little by little. I feel that my patients see me as intelligent, perhaps wise, but never as a mother."

Since we are talking about a super-idealized man, his lack of love can be overshadowed by the shadow of his Totem or his need to be a good child, in order to avoid conflicts. In this aspect, he reports a Social 5:

"The good child says a lot of 'yes,' but deep down it’s my Totem that doesn’t allow me to say that 'no' that I would often like to say."

There is a feeling of impoverishment in the Social 5, which also affects his ability to love himself, disconnected as he is from his organism. Pleasure, in all its forms, is little experienced: it can be a source of emotional disturbance and a danger that leads to a loss of control. What is perceived is control over gluttony and lust, experiencing pleasure in homeopathic and selective doses.

The feeling of "reaching the limits" is common in this character, a moment when he represses pleasure and feels some guilt for the "excesses" committed.

"When I ate chocolate, I ate a little and always saved most of it for later. My brother, who liked sweets, devoured his at once. It didn’t take long for him to discover where I had hidden what was left. And he ate mine too."

On the contrary, there is a tendency to withhold and devalue pleasure and gluttony through a sublimated view of renunciation, with contempt for his needs. "I can work for hours without realizing I’m hungry."

"I like pleasure and can live it intensely, but I realize it doesn’t last long. As if I’m leaving something for later."

Regarding self-love, a Social 5 person says:

"I had to learn to take care of myself. To eat better and give myself permission to rest and have fun. To learn to listen to my body, which says more than my words. To learn to desire and ask for what I need. To learn to defend myself from what I don't want and recognize my limits. And, the most difficult, to accept and love myself with all my shadow and humanity."