In a group of friends or among our colleagues, there is always one strong person who does not seem offended by anything you throw at them. It could be a pun spun their way, silly sarcasm, or simply a taunt, and the overall response is a chuckle.

How such people remain within the boundary of expressionless or how they share the same laugh that was aimed toward them is almost a mystery to most. It is amazing how sardonic lines and mockery do not get under their skin. Nearly everyone is affected when people sneer at them, but how on earth do these people turn deaf ears to such snide remarks?

Surprisingly, such people tend to remain as calm and composed as the ocean in sad circumstances. When tears swell up in every set of eyes — such as at funerals, sudden accidents, cases of poverty, etc. — these souls act as buffer, uncannily looking insensitive instead of going down in the dumps, acting cool.

Acting cool? How can they? When everybody cries to death, how can they stand composed? These people are definitely one of a kind: insensitive, heartless, and thick-skinned. But before we jump to conclusions, there is one other perspective to view them through. It’s a fact in the shadows, which is little acknowledged under the guise of the word “thick-skinned.”

This kind of person is not at all insensitive and cold-hearted; in fact, they are strong. Trouble has worried them enough to make them prone to pain, causing them to treat pain with the brutal coldness that it deserves. Time trains them to be heedless about melancholy because it is a part of life, and it’s ready to strike even harder when one is weaker. Life teaches this kind of strong person to be a soldier whose composure does not fracture when life tests them. They comprehend gloom and understand that one has to learn to come out of the doldrums one day or another. So, if you are one of them, wear proudly the tag that reads: “I am not thick-skinned. I am just strong.”