A Lone Wolf, A Connector, and A Pearl Diver Walk Into a Bar: A DIY Taxonomy of Personality Archetypes
Mapping the weird connections between people who are somewhat different but in many ways the same
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As I try to come to a better understanding of myself, I am learning a lot about the similar patterns we find in the way people in general tend to think and operate. Yes, we are all individuals, with unique circumstances and outcomes, but we can also be grouped into a surprisingly narrow number of categories, and these tend to have certain consistent behaviors within each, and in interactions with the other types.
In my completely unscientific, entirely subjective assessment, there are roughly four major types of people in the world. This is my own personal scale for breaking them down. Part of this is rooted in attachment theory, but one’s attachment style can be changed. This speaks more to the way one’s early attachment style seems to influence the development of personality. Even if they make the effort to change their attachment, many of the characteristics still remain. Also, it’s possible for people to have a combination of these traits, or subtypes that have some but not all of the characteristics.
Here are my four types:
The Lone Wolf
Lone Wolves are the people who think being stranded on a tropical island alone somewhere is the closest thing to heaven they might experience in this life. They might be functionally very good with people. They often live alone, but not always. Sometimes they have lovers. Sometimes they have families. But they never truly let people in. They live a life behind armor that protects them, often from a deep abandonment wound, and that armor might very well be painted with a happy face, but it’s still armor. They are either totally self-reliant, or they believe so strongly in a version of their own personal mythos that they live as though they are. They tend to be extremely competent — often performatively so — and this is driven by their deep need to never have to rely in any important way on anyone else, because the fundamental belief of the Lone Wolf is that people will always betray them, abandon them again, or let them down.
To the Lone Wolf, emotional vulnerability equals danger. The dependence others may have on them is something they can reluctantly accept, but it feels like a burden, a responsibility, a duty they would rather not shoulder. They can delegate, but not without difficulty, because they don’t trust that anyone will do things as well as they do. They may bear that burden with nobility, but rarely do they carry out this duty with real love or delight. They tend to resent any responsibility they feel is left on them by a partner who does not see and prioritize things the same way that they do. This is because they already feel that they have to carry the whole world on their shoulders, even if this feeling is largely self-imposed and self-protective.
Lone Wolves can be introverts or extroverts, but either way, they tend to keep to themselves except when obligations incline them to do otherwise. They carry their wounds so deep they are often not aware they even have them. These wounds are buried beneath the coping mechanisms they built to overcome them, like a crumbling old foundation beneath a beautifully remodeled building. They tend to struggle with empathy, because emotional openness is dangerous to their sense of stability, and they tend to have poor theory of mind — that is to say, the ability to truly understand ways of thinking different than their own, and to accept those differences.
They are the least capable (of all my invented archetypes) of introspection and self-awareness, because the armor that they wear to keep them safe from the danger potentially posed by others is predicated upon the belief that they are a wholly self-sufficient entity, perfectly competent and capable, in need of nothing from outside. They rarely take accountability for failure for the same reason — whether they are conscious of it or not, they fear deep down that it implies a defect in themselves. And a defect would mean a need to change both their behavior and the story they believe about themselves, which triggers their insecurity and fear of insufficiency. Abandonment has made these people feel deeply unworthy but also entirely self-reliant — “I can’t trust anyone to take care of me so I have to do it myself” — and many overcorrect, even to the point of adopting narcissistic traits.
They can perform superficial growth — acquiring useful skills, improving their aptitude in business, performing socially where required, etc. In fact, they may always be visibly improving their processes and optimizing their habits — but this is all outward focused. It’s about producing external results, not experiencing inner growth. Inner work requires a self-awareness of flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings that can trigger collapse of the entire Lone Wolf identity.
The Lone Wolf seeks safety through control.
The attachment style that maps most closely to the Lone Wolf is Avoidant.
The Connector
Connectors are the people who need others, and have no qualms about admitting it. They are highly social. They are affectionate. They tend to be people-pleasers. They may avoid going too deep, or admitting to any controversial opinions, for the simple reason that they don’t want to risk losing connection by offending people. They tend to always in a romantic relationship, or at least be actively seeking one. If they are in the right kind of relationship, they’ll show the depth they fear to reveal to others, particularly if they feel it strengthens the bond. They are the kind of person who tends to say things like, “you complete me,” or “I can’t imagine life without you,” or “I’d die if you ever left me.”
They are often described as “needy” or “clingy.” That’s not fair, but to someone like a Lone Wolf, this need can feel like emotional danger, which triggers defensive evasion. (And yes, these two types tend to get together because they have superficial compatibilities.)
To the Connector, emotional vulnerability is essential. They want to feel bonded, seen, needed, understood. And they want to do the same for others. Having people dependent on them makes them feel valuable. They can delegate if they think it makes someone feel included, but they are more likely to keep a full workload so they don’t feel like a burden to anyone else.
Connectors are often, but not always, extroverts. They need people energy like they need air. Sometimes they are introverts who only feel safe enough to express their need for love and relationship within very specific contexts, but still eagerly pursue that kind of connection even if its rare for them to find. Sometimes they are extroverts by nature, but live mostly introverted lives because of trauma or shame or some other characteristic that makes socializing or emotional vulnerability both necessary and difficult. They tend to get taken advantage of by more emotionally reserved types, like Lone Wolves, because they want so desperately to be loved that they will tolerate neglect or even cruelty. They tend to care more about any given relationship than whoever they’re in that relationship with, and as such, they are often the ones who get hurt. They are usually quite empathetic, but they, too, struggle with theory of mind, because they assume others feel emotional needs the same deep way they do, and have a hard time adapting when they encounter people who don’t. They have a tendency to try to “love enough for two” when they find themselves mismatched, often with a Lone Wolf.
They are prone to introspection and self-awareness, but this is catalyzed more by their need to improve in the eyes of those whose love they crave than a genuine desire for self-development. Contrary to the Lone Wolf, for whom accountability is a kind of kryptonite that threatens identity, the Connector has a tendency to overly-blame him or herself for everything, because they are willing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of acceptance.
The Connector, unsurprisingly, seeks safety through connection.
The attachment style that maps most closely to the People Person is Anxious.
The Pearl Diver
The Pearl Diver is the rarest type. They are an odd combination of the previous two. They need other people, and connection is vital for them, but they also need significant amounts of time alone. They get their name from the tension between their two internal types. The Pearl Diver spends a great deal of time alone, diving deep, in the muted solitude necessary for them to do the kind of thinking or work that they are best at doing. They don’t merely dive for fun. They live for the dive. They can’t help holding their breath as long as possible, sounding the depths for the greatest treasures they can find there. But when their oxygen supply is depleted, they need to come up for air, and they need it desperately — and their air is also connection. Without someone waiting for them at the surface, making sure they make it back, they cannot dive as deep. Not without a feeling of great danger that they will be lost somewhere below, never to return.
The Pearl Diver tends to be deeply creative: writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers. They can also be technical people like programmers or inventors. They don’t have the patience for casual interactions or small talk, because when they seek the oxygen of connection, they do so with burning lungs, yearning to breathe deeply. They are not good at handling the dependence of others, because their compulsion keeps them in solitude much of the time, and their focus tends to be singular and unyielding. But they still need to be needed, and they crave the approval of surface-dwellers for the riches they bring back from the deep. They tend not to delegate at all, because they are used to working alone, doing things that only they know how to do, but they love to have help with the things they are not good at, or cannot seem to pay attention to. They can create a masterpiece in the garage, but not remember to water the plants or check the mail. They have profound respect for those who can help them keep their surface life from falling apart, because they know it probably would without them.
Pearl Divers can be introverts or extroverts. The importance is the quality of the connection, not the quantity. They do not like large gatherings or small talk. But they love to spent time with someone with a sense of wonder, depth of mind, and an abundant heart. They tend to be misunderstood. Lone Wolves find them self-absorbed and impractical, and their partial solitude can trigger a Lone Wolf’s abandonment wound. Connectors find them confusingly aloof, then overwhelmingly present, and this creates anxiety in them. Both types may find the Pearl Diver too intense. The Pearl Diver feels and senses and sees everything as though the volume of the world is turned all the way up, and they express themselves with a passion and animation that can be off-putting. And because they both pursue intimacy and fear it, they can be very confusing to those who get close to them.
The Pearl Diver seeks safety both through the control (and sense of purpose) they derive from their work, and also the connection that comes from their time with others on the surface. It’s probably 80/20, but they need both, or the whole system goes out of balance. They alternate between deep empathy and presence on one hand, and focused obliviousness to anything outside their narrow scope of attention on the other. Their intense fixation on their work or their art can make those who don’t share those traits feel like alien beings, but because they straddle categories, they have a more flexible theory of mind when they make the effort to understand where others are coming from.
Pearl Diver know they are different — and difficult — and because they are more conscientious than Lone Wolves, like Connectors, they tend to accept a lot of blame and seek to change themselves so others will love and approve of them. But because they are more independent than Connectors, they have a greater capacity for objective, rather than other-focused, self-work. Under the right circumstances they can experience a lot of personal growth, because their intense focus (the flip side of their distractibility) is extremely powerful when aimed appropriately.
The attachment style that maps most closely to the Pearl Diver is Disorganized. (This style is mostly anxious, but partially avoidant.)
The fourth type is where my taxonomy begins to break down. It’s a bit of a question mark — to me, anyway. Despite the fact that this type is technically the majority of people out there, they feel almost mythical to me. These are the people who grow up securely attached, and since they comprise roughly half the population, I guess that makes them the “normies.” The other three styles of attachment (and my associated archetypes) all fall under the broader umbrella of insecure attachment, which, combined, accounts for the other half the population.
Securely attached people can have varying traits, but because they are not one extreme or another, they don’t fit neatly into the interesting but somewhat dysfunctional archetypes above. They need a balance of connection and solitude. They can do deep work, but they can shift gears and be present in the moment, dealing with everyday things. They are neither afraid of intimacy nor afraid of being alone. And they have, I assume, a more inherent diversity of traits based on the substrate of this healthy attachment style.
I’m sure I know some of these folks, but I can’t say who they are. As such, I cannot generate a descriptive archetype for my examples.
Normalcy Blindness
I think I don’t notice securely attached folks because I wasn’t trained to see them. As I mentioned in my piece about intuition, those of us who grow up in dangerous or volatile environments have our internal scanners tuned to the danger frequency. Anything that doesn’t pose a threat doesn’t ping the radar. We just filter it out.
I think I see securely attached people like extras in a movie. They’re just walking around in the background of the scene while the action is playing out on center stage.
Something I’ve learned as I’ve dug deep into what makes me tick is that I can subconsciously sense the damage in people. More than that, I’m drawn to it, because I perceive it as something I associate with authenticity and aliveness. In romantic relationships, I always used to get bored when someone lacked this pain, which to me felt like a kind of excitement and fire. Like the healthy people were dull, but the hurting people had this edge that made them light up. Two of my small handful of girlfriends before I got married revealed to me that they’d endured sexual abuse at home. I always found that to be an improbable coincidence, until I started realizing that I was always drawn to a type I didn’t consciously perceive.
And then it hit me, last month, walking through a grocery store, automatically scanning everyone in my field of view: I can see the pain in people’s faces. I can read it like a book. And I scan only for those faces, while filtering the normal ones.
I’ve been trying to understand this. Part of me, I think, identifies with emotional pain, while another part wants to help, or even rescue. I think I always had this inclination. In my very Catholic days, I used to feel an obligation to try to save everyone I could from spiritual danger, as though I had this duty as someone who “saw the truth” to try to step in.
I’m getting better about that. I’m becoming more aware.
I’ve developed a sad hypothesis that back when I was dating in my teens and 20s, every girl I met who I genuinely liked and found attractive but didn’t feel a strong connection to was probably a healthy, securely attached young woman.
I was looking for a mirror for my own wounds, not something safe and nourishing.
Your Archetype and Mine
Did you see yourself in any of these descriptions?
Personally, I feel the most affinity to the Pearl Diver.
In fact, while I’ve never done anything as skilled as actual pearl diving, as boy I received a diving mask as a gift. And I would explore the bottoms of lakes and ponds, leaving everyone else at the surface, going to the quiet, cool, darkened waters near the bottom, chasing turtles or fish, or searching for trinkets that had been lost by the people up top. It was always jarring to come back to the surface, where the sound and the light and the shouting of other children would all come rushing back in as I gulped down air, and I would dive back down as soon as I could catch my breath, back into a world that felt as though it was all my own.
It’s something that’s taken me a long time to understand, but when the metaphor clicked into place, I realized it had profound explanatory power. I never fit into the other categories. I’ve rarely met anyone like me.
And now, my life circumstances have changed in such a way that I spend almost all my time alone, and thus, almost all of it exploring the depths. I am producing work and ideas at a pace I haven’t managed to do in many years.
But now, despite my increased productivity, there is nobody waiting for me at the surface. When I come up for air, there is nothing to breathe. No balance. And if I stay below too much, I risk losing myself down there. Sometimes I have to force myself to stop, to walk, to eat, to leave and go exist in the real world outside. I sometimes lose track of days. I sometimes go a whole week (or more) without a single meaningful human interaction. When these stretches go on too long, I begin experiencing “de-realization,” where everything feels surreal. My short term memory suffers. I do routine tasks and find myself surprised to see that they’ve been completed without me realizing I’ve even done them. I’ve started forcing myself to be in situations where I can have, at minimum, some perfunctory human contact. It’s not enough, but it’s more grounding than being a total shut-in, hunched over a computer, lost in abstractions.
A Pearl Diver who forgets to surface can lose himself down below.
In any event, this exploration was, for me, a way of mapping out the landscape that I am exploring as I try to come to a deeper understanding of myself and others. As I’ve said, it’s just my own shorthand way of thinking about archetypes, not-comprehensive, and subject to revision.
But it was helpful to me to think it through, and I hope it might be helpful to some of you in your own exploration of the odd little quirks of human nature.
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