As a Type 4 in the Essential Enneagram, a Romantic, you have sensitive feelings and are gifted with good intuition. You are able to find meaning in even the most difficult of challenges, and you tend to be a creative thinker with a tendency toward melancholy.
Many people believe that Romantics are dominated by their feelings and can´t be counted upon. In fact, Romantics often stay steady despite their feelings and accomplish a great deal with dedication as long as they are moved by the activity. They even have a knack for making the ordinary extraordinary.
Because you tend to focus on what is missing in your life, you need to realize that in the present moment you are loved and completely whole, lacking no essential quality or ingredient.
Your greatest strengths are sensitivity, authenticity, and introspection. You tend to be creative, and passionate. You are being attuned to feelings, and you have a great capacitiy to emphatize with suffering.
In love, you need a partner who is lighthearted enough to avoid the pitfalls of your depressive moods, since you don´t always want to come out of them. You´ll benefit by being with someone who doesn´t enjoy dwelling in the depressive territory.
You´ll also need someone who will shower you with compliments, who are your life blood and your fuel. A partner who respects your intuition and takes your advice into consideration when you say you have a „bad feeling“ about something.
Most importantly, you´ll want to be with someone who will resist the urge to tell you you´re overreacting or being dramatic, unless it´s absolutely necessary.
The perfect partner for you is someone who encourages you to keep your attention on what is positive in the present. Honors your feelings and idealism. Reveals his true feelings and true reactions to you. And lets you see that he literally understands you instead of trying to change you.
As a Romantic you are looking for a partner who possess some ego-ideal that you feel are missing in yourself. You are likely to get attracted to Type 9, the Peacemaker. A peacemaker is a receptive listener, supportive and good-natured. But don´t be surprised if you find yourself falling for another Romantic too.
However, as you search for your life partner, remember that „the success of a relationship relies more on both partners` level of self-awareness and their ability to love and accept love through their specific love language“.
Therefore, type compatibility is more about having similar levels of self awareness than it is about personality type.
From the almost two-thousand women whotook my What Type of Girlfriend Are You Quiz, 16.6% of them areRomantics. It´s the second most-numbered personality type in the Enneagram, next to the Giver.
Romantics are known for their desire to be special. They are also quite sensitive and reserved.
What shaped your personality type?
Each of us developed one of the nine patterns in the Enneagram to protect a specific aspect of the self that was threatened as our personality was developing (Daniels & Price, 2000).
When you were a child, the way your parents or caretakers raised you influenced the development of your need to be treated as special.
Growing up you picked up the wounding message that „something is wrong with you and that you´ll never belong“. It felt like no one understood you. You felt alone and lonely most of the time. You desperately wanted people to „get you“ but due to your eccentric nature, they constantly misunderstood you.
Your desire to be special manifests in your love for beauty. Whatever you touch you are able to create beauty.
Being a Romantic you have many strengths. But your desire to be special and be treated as special have its dark side which can negatively affect your relationships.