Larisa knew how to make an impression. Calm and level-headed, very intelligent but not in the least vain about it, an excellent listener with a superb feel for the person in front of her. And a very fine feel for style, too. She was a pleasure to talk to, and she answered the test questions honestly and with humour, sometimes drifting aloud into dreams and fantasies, sometimes, on the contrary, pinning down a situation in life with great precision. Interviews like that are the least like work of anything; they are more of a pleasant conversation with a fascinating person. And all was well until I began describing her ideal partner. As she listened to my description, Larisa grew sadder and sadder, visibly losing interest in the conversation as a whole and in the hypothetical partner in particular. Then she made up her mind to interrupt me.
Background: The stories are published from the feedback we received and with our clients’ consent. The names have been deliberately changed. At the end you will find a counsellor’s commentary analysing the relationship.
Skip to the counsellor’s commentary— "Alisa, you are describing my ex-husband to me!"
— "Possibly. But look: there are only 12 personality types in the world, and each of us can have a workable relationship with only four of them. The pool really is small."
— "Well, I do not want that again..." Polite as she was, I could tell that Larisa had dug her heels in and was ready to call the whole thing off.
— "All right, here is what I suggest. With your ideal partner it will be easiest of all to get along, however much the two of you may lose your tempers. With the others it gets harder by degrees. We will send you details of everyone compatible, not only the ideal ones, and you will meet them, take a look and decide. Does that suit you?"
— "Well, just not the sort my ex was..."
— "We will send all sorts, and after that it is up to the Universe."
The magic word "Universe" worked surprisingly well, and Larisa stopped looking at me as though I were selling her some unsellable rubbish. A certain wariness remained, of course, but that was understandable. Personality type determines a great deal, but qualities such as decency, care, honesty and loyalty can differ enormously between two people of one and the same personality type. Larisa was far from the first person to protest that I was describing their ex. And why look far afield: even my own strongest infatuations were always with men of one and the same type, and only with one of them did everything eventually turn out for the best.
The conversation with Alexei was many times simpler. At my description of Larisa's personality type he merely blinked absently, hardly listening — he did not care for that sort of detail. And then he nodded blithely: let us give it a go! You never know until you try. He was already thoroughly delighted with the accuracy of his own description, so, since he had been told that everything would be fine, why worry? He was a very energetic, fast-moving, businesslike man; life bubbled around him, and amid all his many affairs and his regular hikes through the wilderness he was always ready to try something else. Straight after his own description he had bombarded me with business ideas about applying the S-Theory to recruitment, career guidance for teenagers, family counselling and marketing. In short, Alexei was very active.
Larisa hesitated for a long time, deciding whether she needed Alexei at all. Yes, he was pleasant-looking; yes, his eyes were full of mischief. Suitable? But what if he turned out to be exactly like her ex? Or perhaps she should not, perhaps she was ready to wait until someone calmer came along. In the end she did agree to give him a chance — otherwise she had paid for our services for nothing, and besides, one does not trifle with the Universe. Alexei wrote to her the moment he got her contact details from me, and resisting his drive was far harder than resisting mine. Purely "at her wish", the possible absence of which he did not even consider, he offered to collect her from work, drive around the city, eat at a restaurant of his choosing and go to an event of his choosing. It was a brazen, self-satisfied whirlwind of enthusiasm that simply swept her up and carried her off into parts unknown, giving her no chance either to gather her wits or to resist. Larisa was usually very good at setting boundaries, but Alexei managed, with a single joke or a single move and almost no effort at all, to carry her out beyond them.
She felt like one of the three little pigs, the one who had toiled by the sweat of his brow to build a solid, reliable house of stone, only for the big bad wolf to burst in at the last moment before the door closed, grab the piglet by the scruff of the neck, drag him off to a meadow full of wild strawberries and hand him a can of whipped cream into the bargain. The piglet was glad, of course, not to have been eaten, but who knew what else might come into the wolf's head, so a little way from the meadow he set about diligently raising a new house of good solid stone... only for the wolf to burst in again at the last moment, sweep the piglet up and carry him off to watch the sunset over a lake, or to pick wild raspberries, or on a hike to an abandoned dugout, or something else again. There was no end to Alexei's ideas. And gradually Larisa stopped building useless walls and defences and simply began to enjoy the perpetual rush. It was impossible to stay angry with Alexei anyway.
Alexei, for his part, was beside himself with delight over Larisa. She was so mysterious, so elevated, incredibly stylish and gentle, and at the same time wise. She was noble, otherworldly, distant, and at the same time close. With her he felt all-powerful, and for her sake he wanted to move mountains. This was no silly fluttering of eyelashes, no empty languid airs. Every conversation with her sparkled with humour, with layers of meaning, hints and brilliant turns of phrase, and Alexei felt himself the wittiest, the most erudite and altogether the best of men. A knight able to defeat every dragon for the heart of his fair lady.
Naturally, Larisa had realised at once that Alexei belonged to precisely the personality type she did not want. And so, however good it was to talk to him, she was almost panicked at the thought of going too far, and kept asking me whether any other suitable partners had turned up in our database that she might switch to. No, Alexei was wonderful and lovely, but Larisa did not want to let him too close. She knew perfectly well her personality type's habit of forgiving any horror to the people she has let into her inner circle, and so keeping Alexei out of it became almost an idée fixe.
Alexei felt all this perfectly. He was giving it everything he had, but something was missing. He was ready to slay any dragons, move any mountains, cast down any evil sorcerers... Except that there were none — no dragons, no sorcerers. There was the lady of his heart, and there was he, and somehow he had to explain to Larisa that he, precisely, was not a dragon. How do you explain to a person expecting a catch that there is no catch? How do you explain that you can be trusted to someone who trusts nobody? An insoluble riddle, an impossible feat... Just hopeless enough for Alexei to take it on with all the sweep his personality type gives him.
Larisa scolded herself. She should have stopped seeing him at once, should never have let it go so far. She could see perfectly well that he was sincere and not playing games, that he was interested, that he was trying. But who knew what might come into his head later! People do not even know themselves; they are changeable and unreliable, however charming they may be. Her first husband, too, had been charming for a long time, and then showed his true face. Even so, Alexei introduced her to his friends and then to his relatives. He suggested they move in together and even, just in case, put her on the papers to drive his car. The situation was made worse by how well they understood each other: as though they had known each other since childhood. It seemed to Larisa that Alexei sensed her moods and, above all, that he was not in the least afraid of her seeing straight through him. On the contrary, he seemed to put himself on display: here I am, all of me in plain sight. Look, judge, love!
What she did not notice, wrapped up in her own worries, was that Alexei was gradually losing hope. It turned out that it was not enough for their characters to match perfectly, not enough to talk until you fail to notice that morning has come, not enough to bring a person into every circle you belong to. What was needed was... And here Alexei no longer knew what was needed. He knew only that he had never felt as good with anyone as he did with Larisa. And also that with her he became better, more serious and more responsible. He carried projects through to the end, negotiated with more confidence and altogether felt himself something of a hero, an invincible landgrave out of Belyanin's "Sword Without a Name"... But the main project, persuading Larisa, would not yield. He kept calling her to follow him on this hike that lasts a lifetime, and she kept being afraid to pick up a rucksack and follow. He tried everything, he was patient, he was honest... And his hands were beginning to drop, the fire was going out. More than anything in the world he wanted to leave for somewhere far away where there would be neither relatives nor friends. Ideally a desert island. So that life would stop hurtling off into unknown distances, even for a little while, so that he could simply be at peace.
Larisa had not expected that she would, in spite of everything, become so deeply attached. Alexei seemed to have been switched off, his charger unplugged, his settings put on power-saving mode. Gone was the whirlwind, the current that had carried her towards a fairy tale. And suddenly it was empty and cold. And unfamiliarly lonely. Larisa understood that she had forged her own fortune herself, that everything had turned out exactly as she had "ordered". And why on earth had she done it? Now she genuinely missed him. And, to her own surprise, she began taking steps to get her happiness back. She drove to his flat herself, for instance, bought his favourite glazed doughnuts on the way herself, and set about knocking on his door herself. Unheard of! And worst of all, he did not open at once. It lasted a couple of minutes at most, but when every second lasts an eternity, Larisa could not hold out and burst into tears.
Alexei happened to be cleaning. Somebody clever once said that cleaning the house is the best way to carry the excess out of your head as well. He had sorted out the storage cupboard, promising himself yet again not to buy so much useless junk that he had once liked the look of, and was now steeling himself to go through the shelf above the door. Suddenly someone began hammering almost hysterically at that door. Hastily rinsing years of dust off his hands and wiping them on his tracksuit bottoms, he went over and opened it... And this time it was he who was bowled over by a strange whirlwind that spun around him in some faltering, chaotic rhythm, waving a paper bag from the bakery and mumbling something like "sorry" and "I am such a fool"...
— "What?" he asked again, disbelieving. "What did you say?"
— "Sorryyy," the whirlwind howled more loudly, "I will not do it agaaain..."
— "What are you talking about?" Alexei said in astonishment.
— "About everything!" The whirlwind calmed abruptly, sniffed and straightened its hair. "And anyway, I have brought you doughnuts."
Counsellor’s commentary
Larisa is the paranoid personality type. She is marked by anxious, mistrustful, frightening components in her worldview and in her overvalued idea-desires, by a hostile, mistrustful attitude toward society as a whole and toward the authorities in particular; hence she finds it more comfortable to observe from the shadows. These are those mysterious women who keep their own counsel, intelligent, educated and often very selective. Often nobody can fully work out why they do or do not do something. She will strive to get to the truth, to see through everyone before they see through her. She is an excellent analyst, able to dig down to the essence and untangle any web. She is also marked by overvalued, very important and sweeping ideas — and at the same time by an inner prohibition against realising them directly and openly. Small wishes, meanwhile, she may ignore.
Alexei is a vivid example of the frustrating personality type. For him the main thing is movement and the churn of life; he launches new project after new project and often cannot stop at what he has achieved. The problem with people like Alexei is an unwillingness to work through the details and a refusal to take responsibility for the negative results of their projects.
There is a great deal of sex mixed into their relationship. The key thing is that to him she looks noble. He sees breeding in her; he is a revolutionary, he is the Rebel. She has mixed feelings about him. Even if she does think him a boor, a scoundrel and an aggressor, it is impossible to take offence at him, and that surprises her. No sooner does it seem to her that she has understood him than he breaks another of her patterns and becomes unreadable again. He loves sarcasm. That is the wave on which they come together. The art of flirtation blossoms here into extraordinary beauty. There are always double and triple meanings and verbal sparring. It excites her; with him it is always interesting.
The frustrating man has one indisputable virtue: once he chooses a woman, he acknowledges his choice and is ready to move mountains for her, provided she is worthy of it. The moment she forgets this — starts slipping into the Child dynamic often, for example — he slips too, also into the Child dynamic. And then the only thing that holds them together is sex. He values her very highly and takes a break-up hard. It is hard and painful for her too, but she gets over a break-up more easily.
He sees in her an intelligent conversational partner: beautiful, interesting, able to think for herself. He regularly gets the feeling that she is one of the few people who understand him at all. She makes happy use of what he produces. And at the right moment she pulls on the reins and makes him accept results — that is, do the very thing the frustrating types have trouble with.
