Adjacent to this, my life got immeasurably better when I stopped trying to prove myself to everyone. I always tried to share my ideas and opinions in every meeting. I was obsessed with trying to "read" people to figure out their unspoken priorities, what made them tick, trying to predict what they would say and do next, and match my actions to elicit their approval.
What a huge goddamn waste of time that was.
It got to a point that to preserve my sanity at work, I kept my head down, did the work that needed to be done (whether assigned or not), stopped going to meetings I didn't care about, and stayed mostly silent in all others. All the while dreaming of a new career or early retirement. But then a strange thing happened... It turns out that if your reputation is one of quiet confidence, people start to actually listen. They assume that when you do talk, it's only going to be about something important and worth hearing. Instead of co-workers on other teams trying to throw their work over the wall at you, they begin every innocent question with an apology: "hey, I know you're super busy, but I was wondering if I could bug you real quick..." Borderline indifference is so far my favorite superpower that I've accidentally discovered.
I've done this my whole career. I'm happy doing whatever is in my bubble. Its really hard to get promoted though, you need skip level managers to hear about you and you need to sell yourself and your work upstairs.
I don't really like the grey rocking idea, I think it has its place, the article covers this, there are a few true psychopaths out there where the best strategy is to totally disengage but if you can't do that the next best thing is to grey rock around them.
But beyond that I wouldn't use it, I think it creates a boring and stagnant life. What I think is better is to have a few "north stars" and pick your battles. Only pick the fights which bring you closer to your north star and which you have a good shot at winning. Go ahead and pick those with reckless abandon, and when you run out of them you really do just get to turn off, go home, watch some TV, maybe meditate on where you might find more of those battles, but otherwise ignore anything and everyone you feel like ignoring.
This will create a way more interesting and fruitful life than a general policy of being boring in order to be ignored. This is how you carve out a life which is exactly what you want to live, instead of living in reaction to others. Just be smart about when you stick your neck out or spend your energy and attention. Especially in the modern era where attention is the most valuable resource in existence.
I think this is something you can/should do when you get to where you want to be in your career. If you do it from day one, you'll stay junior for your whole life. Put on your Hustle Face, be the life of the party, get involved with workplace drama, and make those stupid "ambition noises" for the first N years of your career, until you get to the point where you're making "enough" and have some job security, and then Grey Rock until FIRE or retirement.
I don't get these people who just stay Type A HustleBros their entire careers. Like, where are you going, man, and what are you really hoping to get? At some point $SALARY X 1.1 is just not worth the mental toil.
From experience: it works, and can be an effective tactic when no other options are available.
Long-term, it can be hard to sustain, and maybe a bit unhealthy – it becomes a form of self-betrayal, where you repeatedly suppress genuine negative feelings about dealing with someone difficult. These feelings are there for a reason, even if expressing them with the person triggering them would be counterproductive.
Also, in more extreme cases, the sort of people who are prone to creating drama and conflict pick up on the technique and make it into a battle of wills – who will break and give up first. And they may be a lot better at it than you are, because for them it is a central feature of their personality, and for you it's just a tactic for immediate relief.
One of the smartest engineers I worked with ever, used to say "you always have a choice to not get involved". He was older than me (at least a decade) - I didn't understand him at the time, not sure I understand him fully today after all these years.
But he's got a point. Lots of time, we do have a choice. This is especially true online. We know someone is saying/doing crazy things just to get attention, but we still engage, especially when it comes to topics like politics and religion. At that point, I suppose it is more of our fault.
That said, this is unlikely to fully work with colleagues, family, friends. So maybe the always part is not true?
This is all easy in theory, but the difficulty comes in having the discipline to practice...
Well said. In essence grey rocking itself is a form of defensive manipulation. Most of us are prosocial and find it really laborious to keep up. It's an ok tactic when communication is ineffective or harmful. It is probably a bad idea to use it with someone you simply have a point of friction with. It can be hard to know the difference sometimes though.
Maybe, but not all of us really need to do this. It seems to me that “gray rocking“ is a corrective strategy for the type of person who easily overreacts.
Put another way, the type of person who is naturally “boring” and not very reactive probably won’t get themselves tangled with the kind of person that needs to be “grey rocked”. If you are always a gray rock, then you are not an easy target for a manipulator.
Hm
Grey rocking has one definition, or use I guess, when one is in an abusive living situation, this is maladaptive strategy to just.. kinda.. curl up on not a ball, take your metaphorical or physical kicks, and let the aggressor just kinda... Get bored.
> In essence grey rocking itself is a form of defensive manipulation.
Maybe it is defensive but it can also be aggressive. For situations where time is on their side, it can really just be a means of handling the situation - there is no reason to think it is only a defence against aggressors. It is ultimately just a manipulation technique.
Perhaps it's a stretch, but I think the policy that Google has in place, where they are notoriously hard to get a response from, is an example of aggressive grey rocking. They have no interest in hearing your possibly justified complaint - if they make it impossible for you to speak, you have no ability to seek redress. Endless complaint procedures are the same thing. Being put on hold for hours also.
Manipulation is right. It can also be used as an offensive manipulation. In relationships, grey rocking can be a punitive form of emotional abuse. Adjacent to silent treatment or stonewalling. Sometimes people may justify it to themselves as a tactic for when communication is ineffective, but more often than not, it’s avoiding the type of communication that’s needed in healthy relationships.
I knew a person who constantly grayrocked even people she has never met before who she totally could have been open with. Just like any method you can use or abuse it.
If you find yourself in the blast radius of an abusive narcissistic person for example, grayrocking is totally a decent way to deal with them, while keeping your calm. But using it towards everybody whom you're not 100% on board with is probably a bit overkill.
> Long-term, it can be hard to sustain, and maybe a bit unhealthy – it becomes a form of self-betrayal, where you repeatedly suppress genuine negative feelings about dealing with someone difficult.
It is unhealthy simply because it's a rebranded form of passive aggression. The real problem is not yet having figured out why someone like that can get under your skin in the first place.
The exact same situations that can bubble up unhealthy amounts of negative emotion in younger people don't do that in older people. Older people have already been there and done that. They fully understand the behavior and instead of anger or retaliation they usually feel pity or nothing at all. Which mind do you think is healthier?
In other words, there's no escaping life's lessons. Your best bet is to minimize the unavoidable consequences and stay out of trouble. For sure, a big part of that is cutting out bullshit like Esquire. This "grey rocking" stuff is just woo woo nonsense that was meant to prime you for ads that already happened back in 2021.
> Your best bet is to minimize the unavoidable consequences and stay out of trouble.
That's the exact definition of "grey rocking." It's a harm minimization technique taught to victims of narcissists who are unable to immediately get away from the narcissist. Examples would be people who must stay in contact because of kids, or someone planning an escape over the course of weeks/months.
I know someone personally in the latter category. "Grey rocking" for the week prior to their escape was indeed "their best bet" and definitely not "woo woo."
The "woo woo" part is that people are talking about it like it's cognitive behavioral therapy for assholes. Then we've gone and made a buzzword so people will respond to ads.
I suppose I have been doing something akin to this for 30+ years now... a defense mechanism I developed in adolescence.
I don't know that I'd recommend it. It started as a means to get people to leave me alone, but at some point, it just became who I am. I struggle to get excited about anything or to express strong opinions about things. This makes life very flat. For someone who is living with a bunch of drama, they may look at my life and see it as peaceful, but it is also really mundane. I worry I will get to the end of my life, look back, and realize that I never really lived. But at this point, I've been this way for so long that it's all I really know. I have vague memories as a child of not being like this, but I don't see a path back as an adult.
I've been climbing out of the same state after… long story; Fiancée was nearly dead from a badly missed Type 1 diabetes diagnosis. She was severely ill for years, the full last year so gravely sick that most people would have died. She was out of her mind. (Her brain shut off entire non-critical sections like the frontal lobe so those would still be there when she got back. It's marvelous. And horrifying.) I had to assume an impeccable bedside manner. Grey rocking someone's severe illness can mess you up bad.
As far as I understand it, part of how we suppress emotion is that we stop reacting to it, and we stop breathing in accordance with requirements for proper functioning of emotion and emotional reaction. We get lost inside it.
At least the article is honest about this technique being a bit of a nuclear option rather than this one cool trick to remove drama from your life. In essence, the technique tells you to suppress your own personality in your interactions with other people to not feed THEIR psychological flaws. If you do this to people who you actually want to keep in your life, I think you'll find that they'll eventually stop inviting you to things.
I don't know. Sure, if being stalked by your ex is making your life a living hell, maybe this is a better alternative. But I couldn't imagine living like this long term, and I know that I would also lose contact to a friend if they chose to just erase their own personality like that.
A man changes into a grey rock and finds certain areas of his life have improved. But then he attributes the improvement to the magic properties of grey rocks.
But what if grey rocks are not that special? Could it be that a change into anything would bring some degree of improvement? Maybe the actual driver is to change yourself instead of waiting for the world to change? If so, maybe there are better things than grey rocks?
I like the idea of a Yellow Rock, still shining, smiling and being the positive old self, just giving absolutely nothing in return for toxic behavior... In my situation, morale improved across the department and the mental beatings came to an end.
Grey Rock method worked against a particularly toxic work conflict that was keeping me awake at night... but... the reality was that it produced zero work results for any of us.
I had a difficult family member who used to give drama, telling intense and fantastical stories. My go to word just became a simple ‘Yikes’ and then silence.
After a while they tended not to talk to me at family functions.
I use it when dealing with over-sharers or people who are after a reaction and attention.
I’ve seen this work spectacularly well for a journalist who was being hounded online by a mob. The journalist just made the most insipid and boring posts for almost a year. Like talking about how great a glass of water was. The mob moved on.
Grey rock is a very valuable technique, but also often a symptom of having low boundaries yourself. It can be exciting to have the attention of a grandiose person at first, but having people you can't say no to is a huge problem.
I find Ramani to be rather contemptuous of or bitter about people she doesn't like. In other words, to me she comes across as somewhat hypocritical.
If you enjoy Ramani, you may also want to read the works of Dr. Lindsay Gibson. She does a great job of guiding people who suffer from having emotionally immature parents, without dehumanizing them. She doesn't even use clinical terms in her books, even though she is a clinical psychologist. The principles are the same even if the people you are struggling with are not your parents.
Therapists can get burned out, especially those who work with NPD people, and Ramani seems over it. Unfortunately that comprises her usefulness as a therapist and as a source of expert advice. Dr. Mark Ettensohn of the YouTube channel Heal NPD is a better source, imo.
Ramani specializes in NPD. People with NPD are not able to provide for themselves emotionally so they rely on others, their “narcissist supply”, to which they become dependent. It’s very much like addiction, except instead of abusing a substance, they end up abusing people in order to meet their needs; people become objects and resources instead of being people. That objectification, if not treated, is how narcissism spreads. That’s the great benefit of grey rocking; they aren’t attracted to people who don’t give them energy and will leave them alone. Yellow rocking is a more positive way to interact with the world, but you have to be really good at setting boundaries, otherwise someone with NPD will misjudge polite engagement as a willingness to give them energy. With NPD people, imho it’s more kind to grey rock, as yellow rocking can make them feel rejected, which adds to their trauma. Like addiction, the thing that helps them recover is to be cut off from their supply, so they can learn to provide for their own emotional needs instead of relying on external sources. Very often empathetic people unintentionally end up acting as enablers which causes more harm. Objectification harms the objectifier as well as the person being objectified; if they see others as objects, they internalize that themselves as well, and become the source of their own trauma.
> Dr. Mark Ettensohn of the YouTube channel Heal NPD is a better source, imo.
Thanks for the tip, I will check him out.
I will admit that these days I do not consume any material that deals with NPD, because while I found it useful early on to contextualize the behavior of a couple of people who have abused me, it is not my responsibility to either diagnose or treat them. Instead, my attention has shifted to folks like Tim Fletcher and Lindsay Gibson, who elaborate on the path to recovery.
> Like addiction, the thing that helps them recover is to be cut off from their supply
There appears to be quite some debate around whether or not folks with NPD can be treated at all, with only a few therapists seemingly confident that they can genuinely help them, such as Diana Diamond et al.
This is pseudoscientific drivel btw. If you want to learn about people, go interact with more people, don't fall into this analytical rabbithole of labels, disorders, personality categories, flowcharts for what to say to X if they do Y, etc. This is not only inefficient for achieving your own goals, it's also gonna make you into a weird human being and a pain in the ass to deal with.
I ended up doing this for too long, thinking it would improve my situation. It only gave me an excuse to continue giving away my time and energy to being around people whose mere existence triggered me, and on top of that saying or doing anything to stand up for myself would then aggravate the situation. No contact was the only thing I could have done to save myself.
In hindsight, I understand this is a technique for when escape isn't possible. When you're still in the stage of blaming yourself and them alternately, suppressing your true feelings leads to feeling like you've abandoned yourself and there's nobody safe to talk to. In a sense, it's kind of what some narcissts want you to do - to become meek and obedient, feeling that any criticism you can say to them is undeserved.
I've found this helpful for getting along with family who I know wouldn't like certain aspects of my life but for whom going no-contact is more trouble than it's worth.
"How's your job?"
"About the same. Still just working with computers."
"Any girls in your life?"
"Nah not really. Hard to meet people these days."
"What kind of music do you listen to?"
"Whatever they play on the radio I guess"
"You go to church?"
"When I can"
"Who are you voting for?"
"I haven't thought about it too much. Who are you voting for?"
Answer the question but reveal nothing and they have nothing to pry at. Worst case, turn it around and let them talk about themselves for awhile. Throw in a "Uh huh," "Oh man," and "I'd never thought about it like that" every few minutes until it's time to go.
What you're doing isn't really grey rocking, it's just a normal conversation between 2 people who aren't very close (like a coworker you speak to once a month) and frankly don't care too much.
Personally, I’d rather go nuclear, punch their nose, cut all contacts, move 500 km away and ignore their phone calls, than just going passive. I understand it works, I understand not everybody can leave right now, but grey rocking sounds like the behaviour of a hurt animal that has even lost the energy and will to live. It’s the ultimate tactic that requires self-annihilation. Get used to it too much, you find out one day you can’t get your personality back.
Life is too short to deal with assholes. Even if they’re your parents. Even if they’re the father/mother of your children. The world is vast.
Not sure I like how this is framed. If you don't like someone or what they do, ignore them and what they say, don't engage, it is as simple as that. You don't need some special "grey rock" technique or change who you are or present as anything else. Someone is a piece of shit to you? Don't change yourself to be boring, just don't interact with that person. That is as "boring" as it gets.
Doesn't this just lead to being steamrolled on every decision or would be conflict? Seems like it would work if the person is addicted to drama but not if they're happy to simply use you.
To me it seems like the crux of the technique is "don't engage in drama" but making yourself lesser to do that seems problematic.
I believe the goal of gray-rocking here is to defend yourself against overly dramatic and abusive bullies which you are forced to have some minimal contact with (family member, co-worker on another team, friend-of-a-friend), not someone you have to deal and negotiate with daily. Those require different and situation-dependent strategies.
It's not making yourself lesser, it's basically "not taking the bait," which is very much a strength, not a weakness.
> To me it seems like the crux of the technique is "don't engage in drama" but making yourself lesser to do that seems problematic.
Grey rocking is variant of the old message board adage about not feeding trolls, the defenders don't lessen themselves, but reduce the opportunity for abuse.
If I understand this correctly, it means to modify your behavior to avoid unwanted reactions from others. Some call this walking on eggshells and it also means you have pressure to not be yourself.
It's masking your feelings, behaviors, and especially reactions to be as flat, boring, and neutral as possible. Your mission is to be unremarkable, so they leave you alone.
Walking on eggshells is more of an anxious behavior.
It's a tool to deal with high conflict, high drama people who you must interact with, to make interaction with them less harmful to you. Not a way to go through life in general.
For some people it needs to be extremely forced as its 100% against their nature and internal 'clock'.
It's like force walking when you have been a runner for a decade.
Imagine being forcibly downshifted into lets say working at PizzaHut as it's the only job you can get despite your IT career etc etc.
In order to avoid conflict, shame, drama you learn to just STFU and not reveal nothing personal to protect your sanity and privacy - even when some youngster in the kitchen bragging that he is the king of hackers, or when your boss is talking extreme nonsense that normally would you correct on the spot...
It's like literally being a fucking superman and you NEED to let someone die on your eyes just to keep your cover.
Yeah, I would just call it, "don't take the bait." But I guess giving this a label helps some people internalize it as a technique they can deliberately practice. Which isn't really a bad thing.
It's a valid tactic to use when bullied, but you need to be aware that this is what is happening and take other steps to stop it. Bullies will use any emotion you display against you. Happy about something? It's dumb and so are you. Sad about something? You're pathetic. Becoming an expressionless rock is a viable way to cut off that particular avenue of abuse, but they will likely find others.
If you find yourself doing this out of self-defence with someone, they're likely a bully and you should do your best to cut them out of your life. Rocks can still be pissed on. Another thing to be wary of is that, if you spend too much time grey rocking, you might become a rock to people who are kind to you.
Bottom line, if you need to "grey rock", you have a problem that might require a better solution.
If this article resonated - I highly recommend Bill Eddy and his books and podcasts. He does a good job on providing nomenclature - 4 or 5 cluster B personality disorders which he tones down to "high-conflict person" and patterns on dealing with them.
I worry this idea is being taken up as the next trend in our societal descent into antisocial avoidance.
Could it be useful if cornered by a predator at a bar, or a technique for dealing with racist grandma you can't otherwise engage with? I guess. But more likely this will be co-opted as an excuse for being unresponsive to their partners, friends, co-workers, etc., shutting down communication exactly when it is most impactful.
Be warned this is NOT a reasonable way to engage with the world. I dread a future where this is normalized into a real world form of ghosting, which is already a terrible trend turning everyone into avoidant turtles.
It is harmful to both parties - they don't know why you avoided them so they can't fix anything, and you lose assertiveness and the ability to handle any level of discomfort. And as a society we grow more and more disconnected until we simply stop breeding, like pandas.
I'm glad that you said this. I am currently on the other side of behavior similar to this with a friend and it feels horrible. Its not the first time it has happened to me so I know i can cope, but I feel like a stalker for just reaching out. The worst I witnessed was my wife being ghosted by a very close friend of hers. It left us both rattled for a while and makes your head spin with theories all the while feeling sad. Can't recommend.
Yep avoidance is massively damaging to people around the person adopting these strategies. In attachment theory for example, avoidance is basically the most harmful way of participating in romantic relationships, and caused massive trauma for partners.
But I agreed, modern society seems to be normalizing these tactics. Instead of encouraging people to do the hard work of behaving in healthy ways.
The article describes a technique for not engaging with "psychopaths and malignant narcissists." You worry that adoption of this technique will lead to the end of the human race.
I find the people most likely to call others "psychopaths and malignant narcissists" are most often the ones least likely to be qualified to make those diagnoses and most likely to abuse the label.
I have a lot of experience with this, and it sucks. But it works. People will learn to stop expecting things out of you that don't happen. And once there's nothing left for them, they will lose interest completely.
Wow I'm in shock, I didn't know until now that there is such a term!!!
I'm using this technique currently, after decades of being super loud, open, known and visible at the workplace.
My whole modus operandi is:
minimum talking = lower probability to get into conflict with coworkers, hr or boss (my job is literally life saver now)
minimum talking = more privacy (I'm homeless for a while and I don't want to talk about my personal problems or anyone to know anything about me, including absolute overkill with skills and education level etching)
minimum talking = they don't fuck with you as they don't know you. They don't know if you are kind or not etc.
It's a shame that it took me 2 decades to understand that some people are silent and avoidant not because they are shy or stupid but as a strategic choice.
Downside: no parties or romantic adventures at work at any cost too. (bye bye numerous beer invitations from hot blue-haired 19yo intern ) .
Works like a charm. Sometimes it's sad and lonely but it's net positive on the long run.
Some prepubescent edgy Cosmo writer somehow got published in Esquire (alas just about everybody’s standards have slipped), so good for her - but it’s impossible to get through this type of writing.
Not really. Stoicism is first and foremost about how you deal with yourself. Gray-rocking is a tactic for dealing with others. I suppose it fits with Stoicism in that dealing effectively with others can be good for you.
It’s different in application. Grey-rocking is where you maintain firm boundaries but otherwise refuse to engage in drama.
This has the effect of completely disabling people who thrive on causing drama, or people like my neighbour who only seem to be content when everyone else is making accommodations for her poorly-behaved kid and/or telling her how hard her life must be.
People like that will decide one day that they’re not getting enough attention so they will create situations where they have the opportunity to be offended about $issueDuJour. Grey-rocking prevents them from their parasocial behavior using you as leverage.
Adjacent to this, my life got immeasurably better when I stopped trying to prove myself to everyone. I always tried to share my ideas and opinions in every meeting. I was obsessed with trying to "read" people to figure out their unspoken priorities, what made them tick, trying to predict what they would say and do next, and match my actions to elicit their approval.
What a huge goddamn waste of time that was.
It got to a point that to preserve my sanity at work, I kept my head down, did the work that needed to be done (whether assigned or not), stopped going to meetings I didn't care about, and stayed mostly silent in all others. All the while dreaming of a new career or early retirement. But then a strange thing happened... It turns out that if your reputation is one of quiet confidence, people start to actually listen. They assume that when you do talk, it's only going to be about something important and worth hearing. Instead of co-workers on other teams trying to throw their work over the wall at you, they begin every innocent question with an apology: "hey, I know you're super busy, but I was wondering if I could bug you real quick..." Borderline indifference is so far my favorite superpower that I've accidentally discovered.
I've done this my whole career. I'm happy doing whatever is in my bubble. Its really hard to get promoted though, you need skip level managers to hear about you and you need to sell yourself and your work upstairs.
I don't really like the grey rocking idea, I think it has its place, the article covers this, there are a few true psychopaths out there where the best strategy is to totally disengage but if you can't do that the next best thing is to grey rock around them.
But beyond that I wouldn't use it, I think it creates a boring and stagnant life. What I think is better is to have a few "north stars" and pick your battles. Only pick the fights which bring you closer to your north star and which you have a good shot at winning. Go ahead and pick those with reckless abandon, and when you run out of them you really do just get to turn off, go home, watch some TV, maybe meditate on where you might find more of those battles, but otherwise ignore anything and everyone you feel like ignoring.
This will create a way more interesting and fruitful life than a general policy of being boring in order to be ignored. This is how you carve out a life which is exactly what you want to live, instead of living in reaction to others. Just be smart about when you stick your neck out or spend your energy and attention. Especially in the modern era where attention is the most valuable resource in existence.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DnvFOaBoieE&list=RDDnvFOaBoieE...
Yes, similar experience.
Same experience
I think this is something you can/should do when you get to where you want to be in your career. If you do it from day one, you'll stay junior for your whole life. Put on your Hustle Face, be the life of the party, get involved with workplace drama, and make those stupid "ambition noises" for the first N years of your career, until you get to the point where you're making "enough" and have some job security, and then Grey Rock until FIRE or retirement.
I don't get these people who just stay Type A HustleBros their entire careers. Like, where are you going, man, and what are you really hoping to get? At some point $SALARY X 1.1 is just not worth the mental toil.
From experience: it works, and can be an effective tactic when no other options are available.
Long-term, it can be hard to sustain, and maybe a bit unhealthy – it becomes a form of self-betrayal, where you repeatedly suppress genuine negative feelings about dealing with someone difficult. These feelings are there for a reason, even if expressing them with the person triggering them would be counterproductive.
Also, in more extreme cases, the sort of people who are prone to creating drama and conflict pick up on the technique and make it into a battle of wills – who will break and give up first. And they may be a lot better at it than you are, because for them it is a central feature of their personality, and for you it's just a tactic for immediate relief.
One of the smartest engineers I worked with ever, used to say "you always have a choice to not get involved". He was older than me (at least a decade) - I didn't understand him at the time, not sure I understand him fully today after all these years.
But he's got a point. Lots of time, we do have a choice. This is especially true online. We know someone is saying/doing crazy things just to get attention, but we still engage, especially when it comes to topics like politics and religion. At that point, I suppose it is more of our fault.
That said, this is unlikely to fully work with colleagues, family, friends. So maybe the always part is not true?
This is all easy in theory, but the difficulty comes in having the discipline to practice...
Well said. In essence grey rocking itself is a form of defensive manipulation. Most of us are prosocial and find it really laborious to keep up. It's an ok tactic when communication is ineffective or harmful. It is probably a bad idea to use it with someone you simply have a point of friction with. It can be hard to know the difference sometimes though.
Maybe, but not all of us really need to do this. It seems to me that “gray rocking“ is a corrective strategy for the type of person who easily overreacts.
Put another way, the type of person who is naturally “boring” and not very reactive probably won’t get themselves tangled with the kind of person that needs to be “grey rocked”. If you are always a gray rock, then you are not an easy target for a manipulator.
Hm Grey rocking has one definition, or use I guess, when one is in an abusive living situation, this is maladaptive strategy to just.. kinda.. curl up on not a ball, take your metaphorical or physical kicks, and let the aggressor just kinda... Get bored.
> In essence grey rocking itself is a form of defensive manipulation.
Maybe it is defensive but it can also be aggressive. For situations where time is on their side, it can really just be a means of handling the situation - there is no reason to think it is only a defence against aggressors. It is ultimately just a manipulation technique.
Perhaps it's a stretch, but I think the policy that Google has in place, where they are notoriously hard to get a response from, is an example of aggressive grey rocking. They have no interest in hearing your possibly justified complaint - if they make it impossible for you to speak, you have no ability to seek redress. Endless complaint procedures are the same thing. Being put on hold for hours also.
Manipulation is right. It can also be used as an offensive manipulation. In relationships, grey rocking can be a punitive form of emotional abuse. Adjacent to silent treatment or stonewalling. Sometimes people may justify it to themselves as a tactic for when communication is ineffective, but more often than not, it’s avoiding the type of communication that’s needed in healthy relationships.
I knew a person who constantly grayrocked even people she has never met before who she totally could have been open with. Just like any method you can use or abuse it.
If you find yourself in the blast radius of an abusive narcissistic person for example, grayrocking is totally a decent way to deal with them, while keeping your calm. But using it towards everybody whom you're not 100% on board with is probably a bit overkill.
> Long-term, it can be hard to sustain, and maybe a bit unhealthy – it becomes a form of self-betrayal, where you repeatedly suppress genuine negative feelings about dealing with someone difficult.
It is unhealthy simply because it's a rebranded form of passive aggression. The real problem is not yet having figured out why someone like that can get under your skin in the first place.
The exact same situations that can bubble up unhealthy amounts of negative emotion in younger people don't do that in older people. Older people have already been there and done that. They fully understand the behavior and instead of anger or retaliation they usually feel pity or nothing at all. Which mind do you think is healthier?
In other words, there's no escaping life's lessons. Your best bet is to minimize the unavoidable consequences and stay out of trouble. For sure, a big part of that is cutting out bullshit like Esquire. This "grey rocking" stuff is just woo woo nonsense that was meant to prime you for ads that already happened back in 2021.
> Your best bet is to minimize the unavoidable consequences and stay out of trouble.
That's the exact definition of "grey rocking." It's a harm minimization technique taught to victims of narcissists who are unable to immediately get away from the narcissist. Examples would be people who must stay in contact because of kids, or someone planning an escape over the course of weeks/months.
I know someone personally in the latter category. "Grey rocking" for the week prior to their escape was indeed "their best bet" and definitely not "woo woo."
The "woo woo" part is that people are talking about it like it's cognitive behavioral therapy for assholes. Then we've gone and made a buzzword so people will respond to ads.
It's nonsense.
Huh, I guess so!
I suppose I have been doing something akin to this for 30+ years now... a defense mechanism I developed in adolescence.
I don't know that I'd recommend it. It started as a means to get people to leave me alone, but at some point, it just became who I am. I struggle to get excited about anything or to express strong opinions about things. This makes life very flat. For someone who is living with a bunch of drama, they may look at my life and see it as peaceful, but it is also really mundane. I worry I will get to the end of my life, look back, and realize that I never really lived. But at this point, I've been this way for so long that it's all I really know. I have vague memories as a child of not being like this, but I don't see a path back as an adult.
Proceed with extreme caution.
I've been climbing out of the same state after… long story; Fiancée was nearly dead from a badly missed Type 1 diabetes diagnosis. She was severely ill for years, the full last year so gravely sick that most people would have died. She was out of her mind. (Her brain shut off entire non-critical sections like the frontal lobe so those would still be there when she got back. It's marvelous. And horrifying.) I had to assume an impeccable bedside manner. Grey rocking someone's severe illness can mess you up bad.
As far as I understand it, part of how we suppress emotion is that we stop reacting to it, and we stop breathing in accordance with requirements for proper functioning of emotion and emotional reaction. We get lost inside it.
At least the article is honest about this technique being a bit of a nuclear option rather than this one cool trick to remove drama from your life. In essence, the technique tells you to suppress your own personality in your interactions with other people to not feed THEIR psychological flaws. If you do this to people who you actually want to keep in your life, I think you'll find that they'll eventually stop inviting you to things.
I don't know. Sure, if being stalked by your ex is making your life a living hell, maybe this is a better alternative. But I couldn't imagine living like this long term, and I know that I would also lose contact to a friend if they chose to just erase their own personality like that.
A man changes into a grey rock and finds certain areas of his life have improved. But then he attributes the improvement to the magic properties of grey rocks.
But what if grey rocks are not that special? Could it be that a change into anything would bring some degree of improvement? Maybe the actual driver is to change yourself instead of waiting for the world to change? If so, maybe there are better things than grey rocks?
(I myself like Harvey in "Harvey".)
I like the idea of a Yellow Rock, still shining, smiling and being the positive old self, just giving absolutely nothing in return for toxic behavior... In my situation, morale improved across the department and the mental beatings came to an end.
Grey Rock method worked against a particularly toxic work conflict that was keeping me awake at night... but... the reality was that it produced zero work results for any of us.
By all means behave like a grey rock when in an abusive relationship as described.
But as a modus operandi it sounds awful. The amount of people here yearning for a desert of grey rocks is disconcerting.
I had a difficult family member who used to give drama, telling intense and fantastical stories. My go to word just became a simple ‘Yikes’ and then silence.
After a while they tended not to talk to me at family functions.
I use it when dealing with over-sharers or people who are after a reaction and attention.
I’ve seen this work spectacularly well for a journalist who was being hounded online by a mob. The journalist just made the most insipid and boring posts for almost a year. Like talking about how great a glass of water was. The mob moved on.
Grey rock is a very valuable technique, but also often a symptom of having low boundaries yourself. It can be exciting to have the attention of a grandiose person at first, but having people you can't say no to is a huge problem.
Anyone having these sorts of people problems I would highly recommend https://youtube.com/@DoctorRamani
She is amazing. I particularly recommend the older "glossary" videos.
I find Ramani to be rather contemptuous of or bitter about people she doesn't like. In other words, to me she comes across as somewhat hypocritical.
If you enjoy Ramani, you may also want to read the works of Dr. Lindsay Gibson. She does a great job of guiding people who suffer from having emotionally immature parents, without dehumanizing them. She doesn't even use clinical terms in her books, even though she is a clinical psychologist. The principles are the same even if the people you are struggling with are not your parents.
Therapists can get burned out, especially those who work with NPD people, and Ramani seems over it. Unfortunately that comprises her usefulness as a therapist and as a source of expert advice. Dr. Mark Ettensohn of the YouTube channel Heal NPD is a better source, imo.
Ramani specializes in NPD. People with NPD are not able to provide for themselves emotionally so they rely on others, their “narcissist supply”, to which they become dependent. It’s very much like addiction, except instead of abusing a substance, they end up abusing people in order to meet their needs; people become objects and resources instead of being people. That objectification, if not treated, is how narcissism spreads. That’s the great benefit of grey rocking; they aren’t attracted to people who don’t give them energy and will leave them alone. Yellow rocking is a more positive way to interact with the world, but you have to be really good at setting boundaries, otherwise someone with NPD will misjudge polite engagement as a willingness to give them energy. With NPD people, imho it’s more kind to grey rock, as yellow rocking can make them feel rejected, which adds to their trauma. Like addiction, the thing that helps them recover is to be cut off from their supply, so they can learn to provide for their own emotional needs instead of relying on external sources. Very often empathetic people unintentionally end up acting as enablers which causes more harm. Objectification harms the objectifier as well as the person being objectified; if they see others as objects, they internalize that themselves as well, and become the source of their own trauma.
> Dr. Mark Ettensohn of the YouTube channel Heal NPD is a better source, imo.
Thanks for the tip, I will check him out.
I will admit that these days I do not consume any material that deals with NPD, because while I found it useful early on to contextualize the behavior of a couple of people who have abused me, it is not my responsibility to either diagnose or treat them. Instead, my attention has shifted to folks like Tim Fletcher and Lindsay Gibson, who elaborate on the path to recovery.
> Like addiction, the thing that helps them recover is to be cut off from their supply
There appears to be quite some debate around whether or not folks with NPD can be treated at all, with only a few therapists seemingly confident that they can genuinely help them, such as Diana Diamond et al.
This is pseudoscientific drivel btw. If you want to learn about people, go interact with more people, don't fall into this analytical rabbithole of labels, disorders, personality categories, flowcharts for what to say to X if they do Y, etc. This is not only inefficient for achieving your own goals, it's also gonna make you into a weird human being and a pain in the ass to deal with.
I ended up doing this for too long, thinking it would improve my situation. It only gave me an excuse to continue giving away my time and energy to being around people whose mere existence triggered me, and on top of that saying or doing anything to stand up for myself would then aggravate the situation. No contact was the only thing I could have done to save myself.
In hindsight, I understand this is a technique for when escape isn't possible. When you're still in the stage of blaming yourself and them alternately, suppressing your true feelings leads to feeling like you've abandoned yourself and there's nobody safe to talk to. In a sense, it's kind of what some narcissts want you to do - to become meek and obedient, feeling that any criticism you can say to them is undeserved.
I've found this helpful for getting along with family who I know wouldn't like certain aspects of my life but for whom going no-contact is more trouble than it's worth.
"How's your job?" "About the same. Still just working with computers."
"Any girls in your life?" "Nah not really. Hard to meet people these days."
"What kind of music do you listen to?" "Whatever they play on the radio I guess"
"You go to church?" "When I can"
"Who are you voting for?" "I haven't thought about it too much. Who are you voting for?"
Answer the question but reveal nothing and they have nothing to pry at. Worst case, turn it around and let them talk about themselves for awhile. Throw in a "Uh huh," "Oh man," and "I'd never thought about it like that" every few minutes until it's time to go.
What you're doing isn't really grey rocking, it's just a normal conversation between 2 people who aren't very close (like a coworker you speak to once a month) and frankly don't care too much.
Personally, I’d rather go nuclear, punch their nose, cut all contacts, move 500 km away and ignore their phone calls, than just going passive. I understand it works, I understand not everybody can leave right now, but grey rocking sounds like the behaviour of a hurt animal that has even lost the energy and will to live. It’s the ultimate tactic that requires self-annihilation. Get used to it too much, you find out one day you can’t get your personality back.
Life is too short to deal with assholes. Even if they’re your parents. Even if they’re the father/mother of your children. The world is vast.
Not sure I like how this is framed. If you don't like someone or what they do, ignore them and what they say, don't engage, it is as simple as that. You don't need some special "grey rock" technique or change who you are or present as anything else. Someone is a piece of shit to you? Don't change yourself to be boring, just don't interact with that person. That is as "boring" as it gets.
https://archive.is/9Mkoa
Denied :/
Edit: Oh lol. I guess you just have to click the captcha. Never seen that in an archive before.
archive.is/ph/today/etc has been doing that for a long time
Though it might possibly vary depending where you come from, using cloudflare for dns, what browser plugins in effect, etc.
Being from Finland..
Doesn't this just lead to being steamrolled on every decision or would be conflict? Seems like it would work if the person is addicted to drama but not if they're happy to simply use you.
To me it seems like the crux of the technique is "don't engage in drama" but making yourself lesser to do that seems problematic.
I believe the goal of gray-rocking here is to defend yourself against overly dramatic and abusive bullies which you are forced to have some minimal contact with (family member, co-worker on another team, friend-of-a-friend), not someone you have to deal and negotiate with daily. Those require different and situation-dependent strategies.
It's not making yourself lesser, it's basically "not taking the bait," which is very much a strength, not a weakness.
> To me it seems like the crux of the technique is "don't engage in drama" but making yourself lesser to do that seems problematic.
Grey rocking is variant of the old message board adage about not feeding trolls, the defenders don't lessen themselves, but reduce the opportunity for abuse.
I think it depends on the power dynamic. It’s probably easier to implement with family members outside of your home than your manager.
If I understand this correctly, it means to modify your behavior to avoid unwanted reactions from others. Some call this walking on eggshells and it also means you have pressure to not be yourself.
You did not, in fact, understand correctly.
It's masking your feelings, behaviors, and especially reactions to be as flat, boring, and neutral as possible. Your mission is to be unremarkable, so they leave you alone.
Walking on eggshells is more of an anxious behavior.
Well, the problem is though, that masking ain't great for you either.
There’s a recent Hidden Brain about masking. Yes it’s often not great, but if you have some antisocial tendencies it can be beneficial to mask them.
Don't I know that, heh.
It's a tool to deal with high conflict, high drama people who you must interact with, to make interaction with them less harmful to you. Not a way to go through life in general.
This is not a new idea. Here's the 1950s version, from the musical "How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying".[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyGsCB-5bgY
And what do I do if I am already really, really boring as heck?
For those of us who are not harassed by people seeking drama... I guess we read a different article.
Sit back and enjoy being in credit for once!
Mission accomplished
I don't really get this framing. You can not engage with drama and also not be boring or use this label. So maybe just do that?
You just don't get it.
For some people it needs to be extremely forced as its 100% against their nature and internal 'clock'.
It's like force walking when you have been a runner for a decade.
Imagine being forcibly downshifted into lets say working at PizzaHut as it's the only job you can get despite your IT career etc etc.
In order to avoid conflict, shame, drama you learn to just STFU and not reveal nothing personal to protect your sanity and privacy - even when some youngster in the kitchen bragging that he is the king of hackers, or when your boss is talking extreme nonsense that normally would you correct on the spot...
It's like literally being a fucking superman and you NEED to let someone die on your eyes just to keep your cover.
It's NOT easy, but works wonders in the long run.
Yeah, I would just call it, "don't take the bait." But I guess giving this a label helps some people internalize it as a technique they can deliberately practice. Which isn't really a bad thing.
It's a valid tactic to use when bullied, but you need to be aware that this is what is happening and take other steps to stop it. Bullies will use any emotion you display against you. Happy about something? It's dumb and so are you. Sad about something? You're pathetic. Becoming an expressionless rock is a viable way to cut off that particular avenue of abuse, but they will likely find others.
If you find yourself doing this out of self-defence with someone, they're likely a bully and you should do your best to cut them out of your life. Rocks can still be pissed on. Another thing to be wary of is that, if you spend too much time grey rocking, you might become a rock to people who are kind to you.
Bottom line, if you need to "grey rock", you have a problem that might require a better solution.
I would caution against this approach. It may be a band-aid to avoid interaction, but it won't replace good communication skills.
"Stoic" "Sigma" "Grey-rock"
It's all fine until they do something that requires an action on your part to fix or correct. It is not a useful long-term strategy.
I can say from experience, years ago, that this doesn't work as a kid in school.
If this article resonated - I highly recommend Bill Eddy and his books and podcasts. He does a good job on providing nomenclature - 4 or 5 cluster B personality disorders which he tones down to "high-conflict person" and patterns on dealing with them.
I worry this idea is being taken up as the next trend in our societal descent into antisocial avoidance.
Could it be useful if cornered by a predator at a bar, or a technique for dealing with racist grandma you can't otherwise engage with? I guess. But more likely this will be co-opted as an excuse for being unresponsive to their partners, friends, co-workers, etc., shutting down communication exactly when it is most impactful.
Be warned this is NOT a reasonable way to engage with the world. I dread a future where this is normalized into a real world form of ghosting, which is already a terrible trend turning everyone into avoidant turtles.
It is harmful to both parties - they don't know why you avoided them so they can't fix anything, and you lose assertiveness and the ability to handle any level of discomfort. And as a society we grow more and more disconnected until we simply stop breeding, like pandas.
I'm glad that you said this. I am currently on the other side of behavior similar to this with a friend and it feels horrible. Its not the first time it has happened to me so I know i can cope, but I feel like a stalker for just reaching out. The worst I witnessed was my wife being ghosted by a very close friend of hers. It left us both rattled for a while and makes your head spin with theories all the while feeling sad. Can't recommend.
Yep avoidance is massively damaging to people around the person adopting these strategies. In attachment theory for example, avoidance is basically the most harmful way of participating in romantic relationships, and caused massive trauma for partners.
But I agreed, modern society seems to be normalizing these tactics. Instead of encouraging people to do the hard work of behaving in healthy ways.
I think you are catastrophizing.
The article describes a technique for not engaging with "psychopaths and malignant narcissists." You worry that adoption of this technique will lead to the end of the human race.
I find the people most likely to call others "psychopaths and malignant narcissists" are most often the ones least likely to be qualified to make those diagnoses and most likely to abuse the label.
I have a lot of experience with this, and it sucks. But it works. People will learn to stop expecting things out of you that don't happen. And once there's nothing left for them, they will lose interest completely.
Bless your heart, back home we call it southern hospitality.
Wow I'm in shock, I didn't know until now that there is such a term!!!
I'm using this technique currently, after decades of being super loud, open, known and visible at the workplace.
My whole modus operandi is:
minimum talking = lower probability to get into conflict with coworkers, hr or boss (my job is literally life saver now)
minimum talking = more privacy (I'm homeless for a while and I don't want to talk about my personal problems or anyone to know anything about me, including absolute overkill with skills and education level etching)
minimum talking = they don't fuck with you as they don't know you. They don't know if you are kind or not etc.
It's a shame that it took me 2 decades to understand that some people are silent and avoidant not because they are shy or stupid but as a strategic choice.
Downside: no parties or romantic adventures at work at any cost too. (bye bye numerous beer invitations from hot blue-haired 19yo intern ) .
Works like a charm. Sometimes it's sad and lonely but it's net positive on the long run.
Some prepubescent edgy Cosmo writer somehow got published in Esquire (alas just about everybody’s standards have slipped), so good for her - but it’s impossible to get through this type of writing.
They have to give these silly names to ordinary things. "SinkGhosting is the toxic behavior ruining 46% of relationships..." not doing the dishes.
Paywall
Sounds like stoicism.
Not really. Stoicism is first and foremost about how you deal with yourself. Gray-rocking is a tactic for dealing with others. I suppose it fits with Stoicism in that dealing effectively with others can be good for you.
It’s different in application. Grey-rocking is where you maintain firm boundaries but otherwise refuse to engage in drama.
This has the effect of completely disabling people who thrive on causing drama, or people like my neighbour who only seem to be content when everyone else is making accommodations for her poorly-behaved kid and/or telling her how hard her life must be.
People like that will decide one day that they’re not getting enough attention so they will create situations where they have the opportunity to be offended about $issueDuJour. Grey-rocking prevents them from their parasocial behavior using you as leverage.
What a dramatic way to describe not participating in drama.
Give it a name, capitolized even, and exhort to embody being less flappable with all your might.
It's kind of like how religious people can only conceptualize atheism as the atheist religion.
It's goofy.
Next there will be GreyRock Scrum Masters to teach everyone the Principles of not taking invalid things seriously.
https://youtu.be/oTwV3vG73cU
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