Love

It is said that all E7s are accustomed to adopting strategies or having a backup plan when it comes to relationships, whether sentimental or emotional. This helps them cope with emotional pain and commitment, which they perceive as burdensome. It drags them back into an atmosphere of subtle obligation to meet the impossible expectations their parents placed on them as children. For a person of this subtype, it is difficult to give themselves continuously in a calm and non-turbulent manner.

“I associated commitment as a couple with a prison where I would wither. At that time, I was sexually involved with men, and what I enjoyed most was the conquest. Once the relationship started to feel routine, I would jump ship. There were seasons when I was going from one meeting to another, and it wasn’t until I was twenty-three that I had a somewhat longer-lasting relationship—three years, but he had a partner and lived far away. Having him as a partner made it easier for me not to suffocate. From then on, I realized that I needed relationships to be open. Although more of a desire than a necessity, it’s something I now live as indispensable.” (MÓNICA)

The various subtypes of E7 adopt different coping strategies. In conservation, “double lives,” which sometimes extend to triple or quadruple lives, are common. Infidelity takes many forms, from systematically multiplying sexual adventures to the simpler yet equally deceptive act of trafficking in sentimental information—being unclear, non-transparent, not fully committing, or trusting. Often, it’s difficult for them to establish a deep connection, which is why E7s in Self-Preservation frequently abandon quality and depth, replacing them with the multiplicity of fleeting adventures.

“It has been common for me to have friends and lovers to escape loneliness, to feel something beyond pure sexual interest or conquest. Regarding women, the ‘hunter’ mentality has always been present. There’s pleasure in the conquest, and once the woman is conquered, interest fades slowly. People become objects. There’s a great fear of intimacy, of being exposed, which has made it hard for me to bond on a deep level. Most of us have suffered humiliation in one way or another, and that reflects a not-so-attractive image of ourselves.” (JUAN CARLOS)

“Something that’s repeated (and sometimes still happens) in all my relationships—whether family, friendship, or romantic—is the feeling of being there but not. I’m with one foot in and one foot out. I remember a phrase a friend used to say: ‘When I arrive, I’m already leaving. I need to know I can leave without feeling the weight of someone’s dependency (though it’s true that I interpret dependency as something of my own making).” (MÓNICA)

The gluttony of the E7 in Self-Preservation often manifests as sexual in nature. Here, the tendency of all E7s to confuse love with pleasure is amplified by the confusion of pleasure with erotic pleasure. The deep dissatisfaction underlying gluttony is covered by seduction and sex, as a means to escape the ever-present feeling of loneliness, which is never fooled. The lack of pleasure is interpreted as a lack of love, even as abandonment.

“There’s a paradox between the need to belong and the superficiality of relationships. There’s a need to deepen connections, but at the same time, we treat relationships like commercial transactions. We don’t accept relationships with conflict, yet the paradox is that no relationship exists without conflict. So, the feeling of not belonging is eternal.” (JUAN CARLOS)

“During a period of sexual abstinence, I realized how much I had confused sex with love. Sometimes, sex took me to heaven, to the fusion with the whole. However, I didn’t realize how much it avoided real contact. It was common to seek quick penetration to avoid intimacy. I was used as an object without respect. I pretended to be liberal, when in truth, I wanted love, someone to love, and to feel loved. Again, in search of something deeper.” (MARÍA MARTA)

Dominance of Erotic Love

The E7 is an erotic Enneatype (along with E8 and E3). This means that eros predominates over philia and agape, which, according to ancient Greco-Roman thought, make up the three "basic colors" of love from which all its forms can develop. This makes the E7 primarily silly, instinctive, and playful.

Expanding on this information with a characteristic secondary love, we can say that the E7 is an erotic-admiring Enneatype, in which idealization plays a strong role, though in the Self-Preservation 7, it is often replaced by cynicism.

Finally, adding a characteristic tertiary love, the Self-Preservation 7 is, despite their cynicism, an erotic-admiring-compassionate Enneatype. Their role as a caregiver to their family is coupled with a development of compassionate love, which is more pronounced than in the other subtypes of the E7. In other words, the Self-Preservation 7 is “sold” as an erotic enneagram type, but beneath that lies an admiring longing, cynically trampled underfoot. This need for compassionate love is often ignored, but not for that reason unfelt—leaving behind a painful emptiness.

“I feel like I sell erotic love. It’s through this lens that I present myself in the world—seducing, sowing illusion, in some way promising freedom, lightness, joy, and celebration. But today, I know it’s a trap. In truth, the erotic center speaks for an extremely lacking compassion. When the relationship is established, all the lightness and erotic freedom turn into weight, insecurity, and a need to be emotionally welcomed—often with the hyper-demand of an almost unattainable ideal.” (LUCIANA)

“The hardest thing for me is admiring love. The weakness that my father represented in our family life, alongside his usual drunken state, robbed me of the ability to trust something or someone greater than myself. Without trust, there is no surrender, and without surrender, there is no devotion. If admiring love is associated with the love of the father, it’s difficult to feel it without a protective father figure. On the other hand, erotic love could be better defined in my life as ‘porneia’ love—spontaneity and joy were never present. Indeed, sexual intercourse was marked by tension and anxiety. Before I got married, it was common, after a sexual adventure, for me to masturbate when I got home.” (ALEXANDRE)

Promiscuity

A single couple, but many lovers. Or a multitude of lovers in short, emotionally uninvolved relationships. The Self-Preservation 7 tends to like polyamory, at least in thought. They usually feel great discomfort being in a relationship, as it limits their freedom. This

personality type has a strong sexual gluttony orientation: they seek sex frequently as an attempt, sometimes in vain, to connect emotionally by substituting quality for quantity.

There is confusion between giving/receiving love and giving/receiving pleasure. Similarly, there is a misunderstanding between displeasure and heartbreak. Sometimes, they behave like a "thief" of sex, with a seductive attitude that verges on predation or plunder.

The disconnection from the body leads them to try to fill the emotional void with sex or seduction. Underlying this is a difficulty with intimacy and deep connection. They usually make friends with their lovers, integrating them into their network of relationships, which results in a system suspiciously resembling a mafia structure, always surrounded by available people. Likewise, women also tend to avoid emotional commitment. In general, regardless of sexual orientation, the Self-Preservation 7 tends to seduce and achieve high productivity.

“I normally have sexual contact with others. I’ve never had a harem, but I’ve come close. During adolescence, I was always in the game of seduction and always had someone in perspective. From there, I went straight ahead, caring little if I was rejected. In fact, I felt that if I didn’t make the move, no one would, because I didn’t feel like most women. I saw myself with a different energy, which could be seen as more masculine, though I view it as high feminine energy. I remember times when, caricaturizing it, I seemed like a femme fatale. A few years ago, I ran into a high school friend who described me as a volcano about to erupt but wouldn’t explode.” (MÓNICA)

“In the case of the Self-Preservation 7 woman, I would speak, more than of harems, of promiscuity. In the insatiable search, men, no matter how valuable they are, pass as objects of experimentation. But when the authentic contact appears and it’s time to undress, fear emerges, and changing partners is the easy way out.” (MARÍA MARTA)

“Having just one man is too much! It requires a lot of commitment, intimacy, trust, and that used to scare me. Suitors usually came in pairs, never just one. When I felt unrequited by one (I have a low tolerance for frustration), I had the other for protection. That continued, or else I would look for a friend to dance with, travel with; another to share the day-to-day routine. I felt I rested from one by being with the other. Sometimes, I couldn’t stand the hobbies and affairs of one anymore, and being with another distracted me from that. I didn’t need to create conflict, and that’s how I came back later, already “recycled.” I’m talking about the past, of course! Today I am a new woman, ha ha ha.” (LUCIANA)

“From the age of seventeen to the present, I’ve probably been without a partner for about four or five months. Of course, with each partner, I combined some other adventure (no more than one), and I always had the feeling that he wasn’t my definitive partner. I’ve had a hard time trusting men, and I’ve also felt unable to seduce them. I guess it has to do with

the early renunciation of my femininity, due to lack of mothering and identification with the figure of my father. For me to seduce, putting ‘women’s weapons’ into play meant humiliation. For this reason, it’s been easier for me to relate erotically with women. Later, I also understood the fear of male rejection behind my attitude, although I justified it as a perfectly coherent feminist ideology. Committing and giving myself, finally, has made me feel more internal freedom than all the tricks, strategies, and fantasies of previous relationships. Also, I gained increased confidence.” (ORI)

Don Juanism

Another way to approach it is to describe the Self-Preservation 7 as one of the most openly lascivious, next to the sexual E8, of all the Enneatypes. Some of the greatest seducers in history, such as Giacomo Casanova, belong to this type. Casanova, in the 17th century, wrote a detailed account of his gallant conquests, his picaresque escapades, his frauds, his forgeries, and his social maneuvering with nobles and monarchs. Ultimately, he led what appeared to be a lavish and indulgent life.

In Barcelona, Casanova was arrested for getting involved with the wife of the captain general. One of his noble friends, unable to have children, asked him to sleep with his wife—unaware that she was the natural daughter of Casanova himself. A portrait painted by the Venetian Inquisition at the time described Casanova as: “He comes and goes everywhere, with a frank face and head held high, well dressed… He is a man of about forty, handsome, healthy, and vigorous-looking, with very dark skin and lively eyes. He wears a short brown wig. From what I’ve been told, he has a cheeky and dismissive character, but above all, he is very smooth-talking and therefore witty and educated.” In short, the living image of an E7—capable of being “the most successful seducer in history” through a simple technique: “When he met a woman, he studied her, discovered what she lacked in life, and provided it. Ultimately, he made her fantasies come true.”

We also find another example of a heartthrob Self-Preservation 7 in a character who was probably not just fictional—Jacques Kohn, featured in the book A Friend of Kafka by Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. The author describes Kohn, a presumptuous celebrity friend (recall that it is characteristic of the Self-Preservation 7 to “shine through others”), as “an old and defeated man,” who wears a monocle and is called “the Lord” at the literary cafe he frequents. Kohn is constantly trying to get loans from people. But what the narrator admires most about him is “his way of treating women.” He always finds something nice to say to less attractive women:

“‘My dear young friend, the truth is that I am practically powerless. Impotence always begins with the appearance of overly refined tastes. When you're really hungry, you don’t

need caviar and nougat. And I have already reached a point where there is no woman that I find really attractive. There is no defect hidden from my sight. And this is helplessness. Dresses and corsets are transparent to me. There is no perfume or blush that fools me. I don’t have a single tooth left, but when a woman opens her mouth, I see the slightest filling.’”

Idealization of Love

Seduction is often linked to idealization. It is about the compulsive search—through many discards—of an unrealistic ideal. For men, the idealized image of women is an extension of the mother figure. We see this in the protagonist of the film Eight and a Half by Fellini, and similarly in François Truffaut’s The Man Who Loved Women, who, after contemplating the feminine beauty of the city, laments: “Unfortunately, I can’t have them all.”

In reality, the erotic love of the E7 hides an admirable will, not always so evident, and even less so in the cynical Self-Preservation 7. But in relationships, the tendency to imagine perfect loves, ideal partners, and people who complete you is the norm.

“Love for me was always an ideal. I also confess that I am addicted to falling in love, to the emotion of the beginning, to the initial enthusiasm, and to the strategic game of seduction. I see the difficulty of truly connecting, of creating an authentic bond, of accepting reality with its limitations and shadows. When love ceases to be the paradise imagined from my childhood desire, I experience unbearable frustration—a disappointment that threatens my survival. Instead of working to accept what is, I can enter a mad race to recover and maintain the ideal, at whatever price.” (ORI)

“A very painful moment for me was when I realized, in a SAT, that I did not know how to love, that I had a very strong ideal about love and that my self-deception on this subject was brutal. I realized how lost I was in this area and that love went beyond sexual relations. Since then, I’ve been able to open my heart and experience small acts of love. But they have been just that: ‘acts of love,’ something I do not know how to sustain over time. At least, as something that I feel is expected or is expected of me.” (NÉSTOR)

“What really touches me is perceiving that the other feels admiration for my soul, for my movement in life, for my ideals, my thoughts, my words… all that admiring, almost devotional atmosphere. I also need to feel something admirable and devotional. I fantasize that love is what gives meaning to life.” (LUCIANA)

Fortunately or unfortunately, behind the erotic push and the search for the ideal, there is usually a daily reality in a couple that does not match expectations. When confronted with this less poetic reality, the narcissistic balloon bursts, and the person must face their

escapist tendencies, which stem from their difficulty in emotional engagement. Running away, French goodbyes, and various forms of escape are common when the relationship begins to heat up emotionally.

“I recognize that I fall in love with seduction and infatuation, but when love arrives, I deflate. While starting relationships, erotic energy drives me; as soon as it becomes routine, my sexual desire decreases or disappears. I enter a gray energy. From this point, I struggle to connect with tenderness as a couple (my partners even called me the 'intimate moment-breaker'). Sometimes, I feel like a fraud in relationships, only playing fifty percent. One of my crazy ideas is that if I commit, it’s for the long haul... but I never quite get there, and I play 'as if.'” (MÓNICA)

“My gluttony has led me on an insatiable search for love, not realizing that it’s impossible to find outside what I can't find within. Compassionate love is what I missed most and the one I seek the most. I disconnected from emotions to survive; it was too painful to see my mother sick, and I wanted to understand. I hyper-developed, distorting them, admiring and eroticizing love. I admired my mother more than my father. When the two figures fell, I sought answers from outside. I admired my maternal grandfather and turned to him. Later, I sought figures to lean on, needing to admire them first—dead writers like Socrates and Fromm, and living ones like Claudio Naranjo, Thich Nhat Hanh, and many others.” (MARÍA MARTA)

Underlying all of this is an obvious fear of intimacy, a territory that is unknown and slippery. The specter of childhood abandonment and the emotional chaos experienced in the family of origin are constantly revived.

“I’ve spent most of my life not knowing how to open up to love. Though I’ve had periods of being in relationships, I’ve spent most of my time alone. It’s not that I said, 'I don’t want a partner' or 'I don’t want children,' but I knew I experienced it differently, as if the idea of a partner or children had little to do with me. Being a couple suggests intimacy, connection, tenderness, communication, trust, conflict, limits, seeing me, seeing you... I didn’t know what any of that meant, I hadn’t developed it, and it made me panic.” (ANONYMOUS)

The I-You Axis

The typical sequence of an E7 begins with narcissism and utilitarianism. They choose someone based on qualities like beauty, charm, purity, innocence, or virginity. “If I am wonderful—it seems to say—and I choose you, then you must be wonderful.” From there, if escapism doesn’t prevent commitment, hyper-demanding behavior begins, often related to the tendency to idealize love and strip it of all conflict. This bears a resemblance to how a

sexual E1 might reform the couple, but without imposing moral rules, rather focusing on how they should behave to reflect well on the chooser.

This relates to a tendency to not see the other as an independent being, but as an extension of themselves when they are “adopted” (or consumed) as a family member. This is especially true with the sentimental partner, understood as an appendage, a reflection of oneself who is spared an independent existence. The Self-Preservation 7 only sees the other to the extent that it serves their need for pleasure, self-aggrandizement, and the satisfaction of object libido. Thus, not only do they ignore the other’s needs, but they also overlook how the other may feel about their behavior, as the relationship is experienced as a possession.

“Egoism, for me, is the difficulty of seeing the other as separate from me, from my goals. There’s something very bidirectional. In relationships, if I give, they must give back to me, but without me explicitly stating it. It’s like playing a game where only I know the rules. I see it as selfish because I don’t consider the other, and then I resent them for being with me.” (MEKA)

This often happens with children as well. It’s hard for them to accept that children have their own desires or needs different from what the Self-Preservation 7 believes or wants. "You need what I tell you you need," they’ll try to sell eagerly. "I know what’s best for you," etc. The obvious danger here is viewing children as instruments to continue satisfying the neurotic need for success, recognition, money, or business, which results in a more perverse form of "shining through others."

But where does this confusion of "you" with "self" originate? Naturally, it comes from early submission to blood ties, to what we call “family,” and which Alejandro Napolitano describes as “a way of alluding to the most degraded and destructive forms of the family bond matrix,” often symbolized by mafia-style blood pacts that seal alliances, tied to a mammon-like attachment to the mother.

The I-thou relationship, intensely eroticized by the mother in the E7’s case, mixes identification with the mother and Don Juanism, with the homosexual tendency this implies. Napolitano notes, “An unconscious hostility towards the mother arises, displaced towards other women,” as this subtype, mostly male, shows notable misogyny as a natural outcome of the capture by the mother. The same happens with women—misandry (contempt for men) and a relationship of admiration/rejection towards the mother.

“Throughout my therapy, I’ve realized this contempt for the father figure, but it was much harder for me to uncover the pain and fear my mother exposed me to—the battles that weren’t mine, which I had to handle. I not only had to protect her; I had to take on emotional responsibility for my sisters. But I made her story mine and only recently could I understand

her manipulation and her responsibility in all of this—and the anger it provokes in me.” (ORI)

“I realize my promiscuous movements with men were a form of disrespect towards my mother and all women, in addition to a desire for revenge on men. Brief historical note: my father was unfaithful all his life, and my mother always accepted it. I was outraged! I was angrier with her for accepting it than with him for betraying her. Now, I realize I’m coming from both of them.” (LUCIANA)

Napolitano explains that misogyny (and misandry) is sustained by the deified existence of a single female figure: the mother, sometimes extending to Mother Nature, Goddess Fortune, or the Sacred Ecology. The inability to exercise an unfaithful eros toward that character in children’s literature, and thus open up to the world and its true possibilities, often results in a perpetual, unconscious dedication to the maternal image. This displaces infidelity and restricts dedication to real-life couple relationships.

For women, the opposite is true. She takes the place of the father, “protecting” the mother, becoming her oedipal partner. With the father, she doesn’t eroticize him, but identifies with his values, taking on the role of friend, companion, or sibling to him (sometimes in severe competition or even at war). Later, in relationships, her anger toward the father shifts to men, especially when she chooses male partners, seeing them as inferior.

“My relationship with men has always been difficult because I couldn’t show any neediness, vulnerability, or even receptiveness. I sacrificed much of my femininity to stay worthy, strong, and safe. Distrustful, above all. In fact, though I don’t feel homosexual, I’ve had more relationships with women than with men simply because it was always easier for me. I could say I masculinized myself, without realizing it.” (ORI)

The Betrayal of the Bond

In relationships, claims of an affective nature are often understood as a lack of love, and the same applies when a partner does not return an idealized image. The Self-Preservation 7 type projects love onto the "family" universe, where commitment is often diluted and influenced by utilitarian conditions. Any deviation from the demands of dedication, service, affection, or maintaining a good image of oneself is interpreted as a betrayal of the bond.

When feeling betrayed, the Self-Preservation 7 can act directly and without euphemisms, almost like a mobster. It is not uncommon for them to become cold towards their partner or loved ones, distancing themselves, condemning others to ostracism, silence, or indifference. Their attitudes can become very hard and cold in these situations. At the same time, they cannot tolerate emotional distance, which they interpret as neglect. This makes it difficult

for a Self-Preservation 7 to close relationships. The usual behavior is to leave a door slightly ajar, especially with ex-partners.

"My feeling with the people I love is that they have to be available to me. I am very sensitive to their neglect. I may keep quiet about it, but inside, I feel betrayed and resentful if someone important to me neglects me, either by starting a relationship with someone else or simply distancing themselves for no reason." (DAVID)

"This leads me to believe that you have to get involved. 'If you don't get involved, you don't love me.' 'I get involved for your sake, and you have to get involved too.' And so on. The family is seen as a herd, a flock of birds, or dolphins dancing together... Each one free in their individuality, but all as one. The crazy underlying idea is: blood ties are stronger than any other." (MARÍA MARTA)

The great difficulty in committing effectively leads them to become tired of relationships that involve a lot of emotional engagement. They don't want to be deeply involved, but at the same time, they become "bored" when a relationship doesn't seem exciting. Their lack of involvement makes it easy for them to leave the relationship. It could almost be said that when they begin to love someone, they leave, using a bond-avoidance maneuver, which they typically perceive as threatening or limiting.

"The first characteristic that comes to mind in love is emotional cooling. When harmed by someone I consider family, I go through a phase of anger, which quickly gives way to internal hardening, accompanied by impassiveness and a conviction that I don't care about what has happened. To me, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Therefore, imperturbability and emotional invalidation go hand in hand... It then becomes difficult to return to the relationship because of this difficulty in recognizing what is authentic." (MÓNICA)

"In relationships, I usually leave a door or window open most of the time. I can blacklist someone if they have hurt me or someone I love deeply. In that case, forgiving them can take a lifetime. I can seemingly forgive, but deep down, I don't forget. And I don’t feel like it's rancor, but it has to do with trust—trusting again." (NÉSTOR)

Fear of Intimacy

The feeling of lack also permeates the realm of love and sex. Despite a large number of lovers passing through their life, it is not uncommon for a Self-Preservation 7 to feel lonely, lacking opportunities for affection due to their difficulty with emotional investment. This fear likely stems from an early sense of emotional rejection by their mother.

Although affected by feelings of guilt, they try to escape by distracting both the other person and themselves from their misdeeds. [...] Making the other fall into their trap gives them a narcissistic boost, but they are not interested in understanding the real feelings of others. Their constant search is for the satisfaction that comes from their own abilities.

In this way, their selfishness and desire for independence hinder their chances of forming deeper and more satisfying relationships. As they are prone to anticipating future failure in their interpersonal relationships or pointing out flaws in their partner, they may unconsciously sabotage them to avoid the risk of future emotional pain or a more committed relationship. When asked what they truly want, they often feel pressured and refuse to give an honest answer about what they want in their love life.

The Self-Preservation 7 type has a compulsive desire for connections while rejecting them at the same time. They tend to spread dense networks around themselves to satisfy various appetites, making no one irreplaceable. Naturally, their relationships are very relative. They do not feel deeply tied to anyone, and even though they may act as defenders of their own, they can abandon people in their circle when they no longer need them.

This is clearly reflected in their ambiguity toward love. They seek to seduce but then quickly become bored, disconnect, and continue their frenetic pursuit of new, unexplored territories. This is because they are terrified of what would ultimately heal them the most: the development of a deep, real, and committed love bond.