The strong friend. Have you heard about or come across one before?

Chances are, if you stick around long enough on this green planet, you eventually will. Maybe not necessarily as a boyfriend or girlfriend, but as a friend, coworker, roomie, coursemate, or sibling.

Or maybe you already have. Maybe you have met someone with all the characteristics of a strong friend. Maybe you just never knew what names to describe the traits exhibited by that person. Perhaps you’re that person.

Well, not to worry. This is exactly what we’ll be exploring together in this discourse.

But before we get into unraveling who or what a strong friend is, here are a few pointers to identify one.

They are the quiet listeners. The ever-present reassuring figures in our lives. The fixer. The emotional overgiver. The planners. The crisis managers. The ones who seem to have the answers to every one of our questions and who proffer solutions to every problem. The ones who seemed to need no one, have everything figured out, give but don’t appear to need anything.

They are emotionally available to everyone else, yet strangely absent from their own emotional narratives. They listen more than they speak. They carry more than they reveal. They give support freely, but rarely ever ask for any in return.

To most, they appear self-sufficient, emotionally contained, and secure. Such that, they’re somewhat like an island unto themselves.

Unlike most of us, they always get their shit together. They are never needy. They’re never unnerved by anything. They’re never demanding. They never get overwhelmed. Never drops the ball no matter the circumstances. Never appears to need reassurance, advice, support, or rescue from anyone else. Never have to pick up the pieces.

At least, on the surface.

You may wonder how I came to know so much about their type, or how I even arrived at the term, “the strong friend”.

In actuality, there are two answers to that.

The first and straightforward one is that I am one. Or, should I say, I used to be one at some point. Maybe, I still am (the lines so often shift that I sometimes don’t know who I am or where I belong).

The second and somewhat circuitous answer is that there’s a little backstory somewhere on how I came to know what the phenomenon that is the strong friend is.

The story goes…

Like most of us, I never knew that something of this nature existed. Not to mention having to come up with a terminology for it. I have no framework or perspective through which I could understand it either.

I wouldn’t have stumbled upon the gem of an idea that is the “strong friend paradox” until fairly recently (about two years ago), when my interpersonal relationship with someone whom I held dear to my heart began to turn sour. At first, I tried to force things to go my way, but soon realized nothing I did amounted to anything.

After going in that direction for some time, I came to the understanding that the answer lies within. So that