iAnnAu's enneagram type

[iAnnAu]

Just visited 9types.com & took their tests (they have 2). The first one returned 5, 7 and 9 with equal high scores. The second one returned 5 as highest, then 4, with 7 and 9 as the only other positive scores.

I've taken tests on other sites, and almost always come up with 7, 8 or 9 on them, with some 5s mixed in. But what's intriguing about the 9types site is that they have positive/negative cycle diagrams with short descriptions, and reading through the 9 diagrams, it really sounds like there's no way I could be 4, 6 or 8. Or a 1, 2, or 3, for that matter. That leaves 5, 7 and 9, and neither 5 nor 9 really sound like what motivates me, either through desire (9) or fear (5).

And yet, the briefness of the descriptions is limiting, because other, more substantial, descriptions reveal 7s to be far more gregarious and fantasizing than I really am. So, the tests aren't reliable, and the descriptions don't match. And neither the 6 nor 8 make sense as wings.

What is it again about the enneagram that so many people find useful?

[Warlord]

I've taken tests on other sites, and almost always come up with 7, 8 or 9 on them, with some 5s mixed in. But what's intriguing about the 9types site is that they have positive/negative cycle diagrams with short descriptions, and reading through the 9 diagrams, it really sounds like there's no way I could be 4, 6 or 8. Or a 1, 2, or 3, for that matter. That leaves 5, 7 and 9, and neither 5 nor 9 really sound like what motivates me, either through desire (9) or fear (5).

I'm most likely 5. But the worldview and fear attributed to 5 didn't fit me at all, and when I read the worldviews, desires and fears of all types, none of them fit me.

[Expat]

What is it again about the enneagram that so many people find useful?

My own opinion is that the enneagram is not useful for everyone; I also think that not all socionics types find it easy to relate to enneatypes (SLI included). Actually being torn between 5 and 9 sounds very SLI-like.

On that note, I think it is hugely misguided to treat enneagram types as something totally independent from socionics types, that is accomplished only at the cost of reducing socionics types to irrelevancy regarding motivations, which I see as totally wrong-headed and ignorant. Things like, for instance, Te ego types that are also 3; or Se ego types that are also 9, make no sense.

[JuJu]

On that note, I think it is hugely misguided to treat enneagram types as something totally independent from socionics types, that is accomplished only at the cost of reducing socionics types to irrelevancy regarding motivations, which I see as totally wrong-headed and ignorant. Things like, for instance, Te ego types that are also 3; or Se ego types that are also 9, make no sense.

Very well-put.

I've noticed what you describe (i.e. the idea that 'enneagram describes my motivations; socionics describes something totally different') has led to Socionics mistypings by proponents of that idea... And they sometimes try to explain away the mistypings by pointing to the etype.

(I'm not sure about vice versa, i.e. whether it leads to mistypings in etypes, bc frankly they're not my thing, and thus I couldn't tell anyone here with any reasonably correct idea what's wrong or right in that system.)

[iAnnAu]

Actually being torn between 5 and 9 sounds very SLI-like.

Ha! Thanks; that actually does make me feel a bit better. I used to be somewhat obsessed with personality-typing sorta things, but because I never did seem to fit any of their boxes, I finally realized that part of the appeal was the ego boost of thinking "I'm so fucking unique!" So at this point in my life, I'd rather focus on insights such things can offer me about how I can better interface with others. I was wondering if I was falling back into my earlier pattern of "A-ha! I didn't fit any of those categories; I mus' be special!"