PETER GEYER

Who do you love?
(And who might love you?)

I walked 47 miles on barbed wire
I use a cobra snake for a necktie
I got a brand new house by the roadside
Made out of rattlesnake hide
Got me a chimney right on top
Made from a human skull
Come on take a walk with me now
And tell me
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

-Ellas 'Bo Diddley' McDaniel

Who do you love?
Who do you really love?
I love an ordinary girl
She makes the world all right
She loves me and I know

-Paul Buchanan

Love has many guises, and surprises, as illustrated in these examples from popular music: from the swaggering menace of Bo Diddley (SP, but more than that), to the more benign but no less passionate outpourings of The Blue Nile (INTP for me, but you need to listen to the arrangements). Indeed, the authors of Just Your Type, in typical style, use an old Mamas and Papas lyric as a dedication of sorts to their book.

Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger, prolific writers on type, have focused on relationships this time. They've done some research in which, as honest ENFs, they involved people of other types with the requisite skills and knowledge.

The results of the research are presented in their customary fashion, with contextual introduction of type, plus descriptions of each of the types including brief information on them as partners, relationship satisfiers (most and least important), and how each of the types changes over time. This is followed by short examples of all of the possible combinations of type relationships, under the headings of 'Joys', 'Frustrations', and 'How to Reach Your Partner.'

The section on change over time presents what I consider a more realistic time frame for understanding and appreciating type development, suggesting that around the age of 30 is the time of encountering the tertiary, and the late 40s and 50s more inferior function time. Much better than Harold Grant's scenario; and one that fits for me, in terms of how I've experienced life anyway.

One of the key parts of the research for this book (which Paul Tieger initially reported at the APT Conference in Phoenix last year) is its finding that, in relationships, personality type is a more significant issue than gender. The vast majority of relationship issues are type-related - except for housework, which seems more of a gender thing.

As an aside to the book, over the past few years I've noticed that NFs (some, at least) seem to have a quite different view of relationships than what I've expected. For me, as an NT, their view seems to be objectified, out there: "this relationship" etc. It's an approach I don't understand at all, in that my own view is of something deeply personal that I would never objectify in that way. Makes you think about all those books on relationships, and their authors' types and their relevance and use.

I think this is a very useful book. It's more of a manual or reference book, something to consult. I would have liked lengthier descriptions of the types by themselves and also in partnership with each other, but as there are 136 different combinations, and the book is 300 pages in any case, that's probably too much to ask for.

I see this as an essential part of my library for casual reading, and in what I do; I recommend it for yours as well. If you know people who counsel couples or deal with relationships in any way, you owe it to their clients to give them this book, or tell them that it's available. It's not an academic text, nor is it intended to be, but people in relationship distress need as much positive help as they can get. And they need good advice not stereotypical generalisations about gender that don't fit most people anyway.

Paul D Tieger & Barbara Barron Tieger. Just your type: Create the relationship you've always wanted using the secrets of personality type. (Little, Brown, 2000)

References

Paul Buchanan, 'Saturday Night', ©1989 Buchanan Music; from The Blue Nile, Hats Linn Records.
Ellas McDaniel (Bo Diddley), 'Who Do You Love', ©1956 Arc Music; from Quicksilver Messenger Service, Happy Trails (1968), Capitol Records.

She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was a union that might have been to the advantage of both...

Elizabeth Bennet contemplates Mr Darcy. Jane Austen (1811), Pride and Prejudice.

Marge, in some ways you and I are very different people.

Homer Simpson to Marge Simpson, 'Homerpalooza' episode, The Simpsons.