MBTI Type: ENFJ

Frances doesn’t understand people who keep to themselves or live a life in the past; she is all about making connections, seeking to find a partner, and offering her opinions. She works as a successful book critic and writer, although she spends more time interacting with people and critiquing other people’s works than actually writing. Frances will often say things are none of her business, but then be unable to stand seeing others in emotional torment and attempting to do something about it. (She helps a sweet workman marry the girl of his dreams, by insisting to her neighbor that he is her “family” now.) She becomes very uncomfortable whenever she meets anyone whose book she has critiqued, because they tend to get upset with her; one of them reveals that her analysis of his work as unrealistic and clichéd is ironic, because it directly parallels her husband’s midlife crisis and replacing her with a younger woman. Unaware of this until then, Frances’ life promptly falls apart. She tries to keep everyone around her happy most of the time, by pushing aside her own needs and wants, including postponing a romantic fling by staying home to care for her upset friend. Frances has a vision for the house, and works steadily toward it. She also has an unusual way of looking toward things that makes writing a postcard for someone else impossible, because as he points out, his mother would never believe he wrote something so romanticized and peculiar.  She also inadvertently predicts things about her own house – saying that she wants to see a wedding here, and have it full of people she loves, but mistaking that for a romantic attachment and her own future happiness, rather than that of her friends. On her trip to Tuscany, she shows a lot of tert-Se impulsive behaviors – she abandons her tour bus to tour a local villa with the potential intention of purchasing it – then does so, without knowing anything about living in a foreign country or what might be involved. Frances continues to be impulsive in her decisions, chasing after and sleeping with a man she has only known for a few hours, then pursuing him unexpectedly to a nearby city (where she is shocked to find he has gotten a girlfriend in the meantime – she assumed their encounter was more meaningful than it was). Frances distracts herself from her divorce and her miseries through physical labor – she wants to actively take part in renovating the house, she goes out a great deal to escape being around the workmen (one of them seems to have a crush on her, which she doesn’t like), etc. She doesn’t tend to question her own feelings until it’s too late.

Enneagram: 2w1 sp/so

Frances has given a great deal to her marriage and feels devastated when it falls apart; even after she moves to Tuscany, she doesn’t wind up alone, but surrounds herself with people she likes and who appear to need her. She never passively sits on her hands, but always proactively makes things happen by looking for ways to bring joy to other people. She may not have a brood of her own, but she can cook for others! Though she doesn’t want her workman and her friend’s daughter sneaking around behind the girl’s father’s back, she still stands up for them and advocates for them when they want to get married. She tends to create a family for herself wherever she goes. To substitute for her own lack of a romantic attachment, she takes care of her friends. She also puts aside a fling to care for her friend when she turns up, freshly dumped by her wife/girlfriend. Since she puts everything into a romantic light, it surprises her to find out her predictions and desires for the villa were about other people, and not her need for a lover. When one shows up in her life, Frances pursues him without any fears, and is caught off guard to find out he has been cheating on her (why would he not want her?). Frances will often say something is none of her business, and then wind up interfering with it anyway. Her 1 wing is firm and authoritative. She also does not like to feel that she is doing anything wrong; she doesn’t want to lie to anyone, or keep secrets from them that might be harmful.