The Purpose of the Golden Pair
The first question many have in regards to the golden pair is, “Why aren’t there more?” It’s the right question. The golden pair — the highest compatibility pairing for each personality type — is the most idealized and sought after relationship in the 16-type relationships sphere. It is, pun intended, the gold standard for relationships.
These are the 8 Golden Pairs:
ENTP/INTJ
ENTJ / INTP
ENFP / INFJ
ENFJ / INFP
ISTJ / ESTP
ISTP / ESTJ
ISFJ / ESFP
ISFP / ESFJ
But, with some careful observation, you will notice there are not an abundance of golden pairs. Some? Yes. Many? No. In light of the obvious upsides of maximum compatibility, how is it possible there are not more golden pairs? The purpose of this article is to answer this question through answering another: What is the purpose of the golden pair? In order to answer that, we must know what the golden pair is.
What is the Golden Pair?
Imagine standing at the edge of a peer extending into the ocean. You’re down in the Caribbean, where the water’s transparent blue hue extends far into the depths. The soft sands are being kissed by sunrays all the way on the ocean floor. The vibrant colors dance about under your gaze. Your breath stops as you’re struck by the beauty. You may think to yourself, “Is this heaven?”
But, in these elucidated depths, you also see darker things — an eel and a sea snake swallowing their recent kill. You see wreckage of lost items. Fragments of a sunken ship blacken the ocean floor — are there skeletons aboard? You see sharp rocks ready to puncture. You see predators swimming in the depths, looking for a meal.
Unlike other ponds, lakes, and oceans — muddied by imperceptible depths — this water hides nothing. There is a sense of clarity and truth that is undeniable — if not overwhelming. It’s as if the entire ocean’s history were laid bare under your eyes. I wonder though, if the ocean under your gaze were conscious, and had eyes to look back at yours, what would the ocean feel?
To feel seen for everything you are, to feel exposed for everything you are not, this is the experience afforded by the golden pair. But fantasies shatter when reality prevails. And here, in the golden pair, the reality of exposure threatens all stability.
To see someone clearly means to recognize something about their motivations — constantly. Some examples come to mind of ENTPs and INTJs, where the communication was slick, but the manipulative style on the ENTPs side, and the more selfish, self-concerned behavior on the INTJ’s side caused a breakdown of trust — and thus a breakdown of communication. If there is an important lesson here, it is that seeing someone clearly is not always desired.
But, it is right at this juncture that our exploration of the golden pair deepens. Taking the situation with the ENTP and INTJ, or inserting your own golden pair into the situation, we can consider the next question: “In light of the obvious challenges and drawbacks in seeing so clearly into another’s soul, what is required in order to make these relationships functional, if not optimal?”
A Higher Standard.
During a short work placement, I had the opportunity to interact with a young ENFP woman over the course of a few months. The communication was sparse but polite. But after we spoke, I always felt like there was more to be said. I could’ve expressed my true hopes about the project — and its flaws, and how those involved could improve it — and I knew that she would echo many of my thoughts. But something in me pulled away from sharing openly.
As the placement winded down, with a few weeks left, I began to reflect on why we didn’t communicate more. Certainly, if I had taken more initiative and risked being more open, the quality and results could increase easily. What was stopping me?
Was I projecting that my own communication would be harsh, and wishing not to have that harshness returned to my Se Inferior, I avoided it entirely? Was I wary of unfairly making her the brunt of my frustrations and hopes with the project —would being honest be harmful? Or was simply interacting with her an act of vulnerability, and I did not want to be seen that clearly? Perhaps all the above were true. I found myself unconsciously avoiding prolonged interaction with her. I didn’t want to feel exposed.
That was it. Right there. Exposure was what to be avoided. Acting relationally and professionally is easy enough. It’s hard to act without those masks, where others easily see your frustration, disappointment, and dreams. And it was in this fear that I was reminded about something in the golden pair: How easy it is to not be generous.
There is a cruelty in understanding what someone needs — desperately needs, even — and having the means to fulfill those needs easily, and still withholding. Sometimes cruelty is the deeper motive; but, more likely, fear causes the withholding. Fear of being seen for what you are. Fear of not measuring up.
I imagine this is the same feeling Adam and Eve felt in the garden after partaking of the forbidden fruit. “And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves.” To be judged, to be judged by God — the judge of judges — is the fear of vulnerability, and a piece of that fear finds us in the golden pair.
Are you beginning to see why there are not more golden pairs? Reading the above example, maybe your stomach tightened at the thought of exposure. Mine did while writing it. So what now? Do we go our merry way, far away from the golden pair? Or do we have more to see here? In light of such vulnerability, how can a golden pair endure?
It can endure through a mutual agreement. It can endure when those brought together in a golden pair unify around a shared purpose: To be held to a higher standard.
With vulnerability and exposure assured, the path most open to golden pairs is accountability. To see the skeletons in each other’s closet — the log in each other’s eye — will you embrace the clarity, and encourage, support, and challenge each other to clean up, refine, and become a better version of ourselves? Or will you condemn, reject, distance yourself, and curl under an impenetrable blanket of protection?
The Purpose of the Golden Pair
The purpose of the golden pair is to become better through the mutual upholding of a higher standard, entrenched in the coat of mutual accountability. It might also be said that the purpose of the golden pair is to forgive yourself and the other for not being all that you can be, and for the flaws and limitations present in each other — but that comes later.
In other words, the purpose of the golden pair is the development and use of the Critic. In light of nakedly seeing another in their depths and flaws, the natural response becomes: What can we do about this? The Critic is the answer — being held to a higher standard.
The golden pairs’ Critic, like in all their archetypes, have the other half of your Critic function. They are the Critic of your Critic, and you are the Critic of their Critic. Fi and Fe Critic together. Ni and Ne Critic together. Together, you can become one Critic — a searching, wiser, more maturing awareness — who’s agenda is to realize a better world and a deeper expression of ourselves.
The specific Critic functions do matter. An ESTP and ISTJ relationship, bonded over their respective Te and Ti Critic, will look somewhat different than the feeling or intuitive critics of other types. But, the specificity of the Critic’s effect is not so important here. Using our Critic within a golden pair is natural, if not easy. Sometimes we have to restrict ourselves from being too critical of the other. Sometimes, things are light and easy to a point of complacency, and the Critic has to reawaken to steer things back into place. But that’s okay. This is what our Critic wants: A receptive audience.
Under the agreement of being mutually held to a higher standard, their Critic will naturally listen, and yours will want to too. To speak, to be heard, and to pursue a better world through a shared mission — that is what the Critic wants. And within all that “seriousness,” there emerges a shared belief that through this journey, beautiful transformation will occur. Perhaps a return to innocence and play lies on the other side of that transformation.
