4 - The Romantic Individualist
Individualist, Tragic-Romantic, Connoisseur, Humanitarian, Aesthetic Person, One-of-a-kind, Dramatic King or Queen
7 - The Entertaining Optimist
Epicure, Visionary, Enthusiast, Jack-of-All-Trades, Adventurer, Innovator, Dilettante
Core Pattern
Fours are Heart types. They exhibit strong emotions, and they tend to be artistic and expressive. They want their uniqueness recognized, and often feel misunderstood by the world.
They are prone to melancholy. Sevens are Head types. They are bright, mental, and enthusiastic. They are prone to future-tripping, always anticipating the next fun activity or adventure. They often feel entitled, and tend to assert themselves on the world.
Shared Values
Both Fours and Sevens value joy, spontaneity, emotionality, and passion. They tend toward intensity, each in their way, and relish the wild, weird, and beautiful things of life. They admire and often strive for unconventionality.
Whiles Fours are much more prone to depth than Sevens, and Sevens tend to find more optimism in any given moment, both delight in fully engaged, open conversation and exploration. Both Fours and Sevens value living the good life (even if it means overspending), and joy in good food, good wine, shopping sprees, and travel to exotic places.
How You Complement Each Other
Fours and Sevens are almost total opposites, in many ways. In lower levels, Fours are melancholic, moody, dramatic, and depressive while Sevens are flighty, pain-avoidant, manic, and selfish. Even in health, these two tend to engage the world in distinctly opposing ways.
Fours dive in deep to those around them and feel no subject is too revealing or painful, whiles Sevens keep things light and carefree, often enjoying more to entertain others than engage with them. Despite these differences, or perhaps because of them, these two can be incredibly intrigued by one another, in a real case of opposites attracting.
Fours are prone to quietude, introversion, self-doubt, and emotional intensity, whiles Sevens flit about in the realms of extroversion, self-confidence, headiness, and optimism. In other words, these two could not occupy a more distinctly different territory. However, in spite of this, these two end up complementing one another in terrific ways.
For example, Sevens, because of their near-constant anticipation of the future, are excellent at generating plans, while Fours, with their tendency to be aware of what’s missing from a situation, can offer excellent constructive feedback and thoughts for improvement to the Seven’s plans and ideas. Fours encourage Sevens to engage with the present moment by facing their deeper feelings and acknowledging any underlying fear, pain, or suffering they might be avoiding.
Sevens prompt Fours to notice what’s going right in any given situation, and bring a much-needed lightness to the Four worldview. They also tend to have a similar appreciation for new adventures, creative inspiration, off-color jokes, and whimsy, making them excellent adventure buddies. Their opposing natures can serve to balance each other out: the interiority and emotional intensity of the Four equally weighted by the enthusiastic engagement and emotional resilience of the Seven.
How You Can Get Into Trouble
As partners in crime, these two can quickly get into trouble together as a result of their superior attitudes. Both tend to believe themselves to be above the rules, which means that together, they can become reckless, entitled, or self-absorbed. Additionally, and perhaps dangerously, these two also both tend toward impulsivity, which means they can excite each other up and enjoy getting into trouble together, but they can also be quite hurtful toward one another if their impulsive natures are turned against each other, for whatever reason.
There is also an apparent conflict in their radically opposed manners of engaging with pain: namely, Fours will express their painful feelings at any time, in any place. Indeed, they almost default to pain and suffering and find it challenging to see anything outside of it. Sevens, on the other hand, avoid feeling their pain like the plague and become cold, nigh unfeeling, in the face of anyone who forces them to examine it.
A Seven will notice, feel, and express their feelings when they want to (read: when they have to because there’s no other choice) and not a moment before. This becomes a challenging point of conflict between these two, with the Seven feeling cornered, exposed, and vulnerable and the Four feeling suspicious, misunderstood, and undervalued.
Additionally, both have high expectations for the kind and quality of attention they want from others. Their hopes of each other can lead to feelings of disappointment, and insurmountable disagreement.
They also are both prone to frustration when life is not going as planned or expected, and they can take their disappointments out on the people around them. Essentially, Seven’s avoidance of intimacy, Four’s obsession with remaining in a story of suffering, and the fact that both Fours and Sevens are so easily frustrated and have such high expectations could be enough to break any bond formed between these two.
What Each Type Needs To Be Aware Of
Professionally, it will be necessary for each of these types to be vigilant about their follow through, as they both tend to lose interest in projects after the initial high has worn off. Fours lose interest because they feel like other people have stopped giving them enough attention, while Sevens lose interest because they get bored and jump into anticipating whatever will come next. It’s imperative, especially if these two are working together, that there are clear expectations as to deadlines, and they might need extra project managing to keep them on task.
Keep in mind that Fours work best when they feel they have a particular area of responsibility with much creative freedom, and Sevens work best when they can multitask, keep odd hours, and innovate whatever they’re working on. Whether in a personal or professional relationship, Fours, keep in mind that sometimes your mere presence can be enough to make a Seven uncomfortable. Because Fours are inherently intense and posses well-attuned empathy, Sevens can feel cagey and exposed by them even if they are only engaged in a simple conversation.
Conversely, Fours can feel unwelcome, misunderstood, or inadequate in the face of Sevens’ positivity, self-assuredness, and genuine excitement. Fours might also find Sevens utterly exhausting.
Additionally, these two are prone to feel a bizarre envy of one other, as each has what the other believes they lack: Fours have emotional depth and a heartfelt quality that Sevens find near impossible to embody themselves, while Sevens seem uncomplicated, genuinely authentic, and unburdened by the suffering of the world, all of which are traits Fours long for. For these two, expectation management will prove vital to the health of the relationship. Additionally, these two will benefit significantly if there are clear boundaries, so neither feels over-exposed or undervalued.
How You Can Support One Another
Creatively, these two are primed to potentially make some real magic happen: the combination of dark and light, depth and height, innovation and artistry, coupled with their shared tendency toward multidirectional, interdisciplinary thinking makes this a potentially extraordinary team. The most supportive thing these two can do for one another is learn to offer ideas, suggestions, solutions, and critiques to one another frequently, tactfully, and with gusto. There is no end to how much they can benefit from each other's input, as long as no one's feelings get hurt.
With their characteristic zeal, Sevens can encourage Fours to push their personal and professional boundaries (within reason), overcome their shyness, and find the silver lining in life's curveballs. Sevens will do well to offer words of enthusiastic support, excitement, and authentic encouragement to the self-doubting Four.
Because Sevens rarely need external validation to feel self-assured, they can forget how crucial it is for others, but in the case of the Four, a few words of affirmation and interest will go a very long way. Fours, conversely, can help Sevens stay focused on what they really want, as they tend to be easily distracted by shiny things and new adventures. Fours also support Sevens in recognizing the value of their own inner world and unacknowledged feelings.
Key to understanding the Seven tendency to avoid painful, mundane, or dark feelings is that, deep down, they actually feel totally empty inside, which prompts them to try and fill up their lives with exotic places, wild adventures, and luxurious experiences. Fours, with their deep attunement and keen emotional awareness, can help Sevens face the fear of their inner emptiness and move from a place of trying to fill themselves up to being fulfilled by their own present moment experience. Conversely, Sevens can help Fours realize that they are unique and wonderfully expressed without trying: that they can drop the act and simply engage the world from a centered place.
In A Romantic Context
In a counterintuitive way, the vast differences between Fours and Sevens can be a significant romantic attractor for both of them. In their eyes, the other is an intriguing mystery, a wonderfully new and different species, with so much potential to offer fresh and exciting perspectives. These two could not be more divergent in how they think, react, find pleasure, or relate to others, but somehow, that only heightens the potential chemistry here.
Once drawn in, these two discover they have a lot more in common than meets the eye. They both have a keen sense of adventure and love new experiences. They also really appreciate diverse, varied, multidisciplinary thinking and tend to think outside of the box.
Additionally, they will share a love of the weird, the wild, and the irreverent, and can often be sources of inspiration for one another to explore these sides of themselves. In their differences, these two can discover a lot of admiration and respect for one another. Sevens will likely admire Four’s artistry, creativity, and intense awareness of all things beautiful, while Fours will appreciate Seven’s energetic nature, contagious delight, and resilience.
If these two slip into unhealthy levels, however, their admiration can turn into envy and disapproval. Sevens can begin to view Fours as hypersensitive, moody, self-absorbed, impractical drama queens, while Fours start to see Sevens as energetically exhausting, superficial, loud, and insensitive. Indeed, Sevens tend to be insulting of others without realizing it.
As the relationship worsens, Fours usually become withholding, hostile, and emotionally abusive, while Sevens grow impatient, harsh, and verbally abusive. Fours will tend to need to discuss every aspect of the relationship, including each other’s emotional reactions to everything, while Sevens will want to disengage and distract themselves from their troubles, possibly even move on to something more appealing and comfortable.
When Fours push for more, Sevens will inevitably want to run, and the conflict will, in all likelihood, never be adequately dealt with. Stuck in their polarized needs, these two can spiral into hurt, anger, withdrawal, and abuse, eventually finding everything that was once so alluring and captivating about the other repellant and insufferable.
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