The “grey rock” technique was, from what I can inform, coined by this blogger on this submit. The thought behind grey rock is that folks with narcissistic or Borderline Character Dysfunction traits are drawn to dramatic interactions, so to get them to depart you alone, you must act as boring as potential.
Your responses needs to be brief and bland, and you must give no attention-grabbing info that may spark a dramatic response. When coping with people who find themselves hooked on drama, being boring is a really helpful method that may work lots faster and extra simply than you’d guess.
Picture: Courtesy of DrPsychMom
Grey rocking additionally implies that you don’t reveal any private details about your life that may later be used towards you by folks attempting to attract you right into a dramatic interplay.
Don’t focus on any issues or worries you may have about something, something about your relationships, something deep about your work, nothing an excessive amount of about your well being, actually nothing in any respect. Keep on with subjects like chores you might be doing, your schedule, the climate, and no matter else the particular person finds very uninteresting. By no means ask them questions, as a result of that extends the interplay, and your objective is to restrict the time spent speaking.
Be aware that YOU stands out as the dramatic particular person in a few of these interactions. That isn’t talked about within the Grey Rock technique however sarcastically for the title of the tactic, it’s fairly black and white. There are extra shades of grey in interpersonal interactions, and generally, as with the flirtation instance under, you could be a giant a part of any drawback, and your grey rocking is finished to guard your self from YOURSELF.
Grey rocking could be achieved with anybody, together with:
- Individuals who wish to be pals/greater than pals that you just don’t like
- Your children once they begin drama
- Your coworkers when there’s some dramatic factor happening at work
- Coparents once they make hurtful feedback
- Spouses which might be dramatic
- Individuals who flirt with you if you end up in a monogamous relationship (OR who you might be simply interested in)
- And, after all, tough mother and father/members of the family who attempt to begin issues/gossip about one another/trigger drama at household occasions, on the telephone, or through textual content
Listed here are methods to make use of the grey rock method on every sort of particular person:
- A girl at work retains asking you to hang around. You get drinks as soon as however understand she likes to gossip about folks at work which you don’t wish to do, and also you don’t wish to hang around anymore. You grey rock her by being fairly bland and by no means participating in any conversations with any emotion or drama.
- Your teenager says, “You by no means do something for me! I hate you!” Normally, you interact on this and it finally ends up being an incredible struggle with slammed doorways that later makes you are feeling ashamed of your self. This time you nod and say, “Okay, sorry, let’s simply discuss later, I really like you” blandly and quietly, and maintain that tone it doesn’t matter what else they are saying.
- Your coworker needs to bond over how “everybody” hates your boss and you recognize this can be a dangerous dialog to get entangled in if you wish to maintain your job. You say, “Hmmm” and alter the subject to some uninteresting facet of labor.
- Your children’ dad says you’re ruining the youngsters’ lives like your mother did to you. You say, “Hmmm, oh, by the way in which, I did purchase them the socks like we talked about and they’re going to deliver the brand new socks to your home Tuesday.” When he says, “What? Did you even hear what I mentioned?” you say, “Sure, I heard you. So we may have extra socks which ought to forestall the sock drawback and in addition they’ve some books from Scholastic to deliver over.” (Coparenting is stuffed with a lot boring crap to debate which you can grey rock immediately and endlessly at any second.)
- Your spouse says you’re lazy and getting fats. You say, “Oh, hmmm, okay, so I’m going to do the Residence Depot run we talked about now.”*
- Your mom says that sleep coaching your baby is merciless and you’re a dangerous mom. You say, “Oh, okay,” and alter the subject to some boring facet of your own home repairs.
- In fact, in conditions the place you’ll be able to fully cease talking to the tough particular person in your life, you’ll be able to simply try this. However that’s not at all times potential and it isn’t at all times the selection you wish to make, no less than not straight away. Grey rocking may give you a while you see if it’s potential to take care of superficial relationships with tough folks in your life earlier than deciding to completely disconnect. And naturally, in some circumstances, like when your teenager could be very tough, you can not disconnect.
Be aware that grey rock shouldn’t be the way you interact in a conjugal relationship long run. Nevertheless, when your partner could be very moody and you are attempting to make issues work, e.g. by going to counseling, then grey rocking could be a good emergency response when they’re uncontrolled and you recognize that participating will solely result in large battle in entrance of the youngsters.
Most individuals are so fearful of being regarded as boring that they by no means actually attempt to grey rock anybody. It’s amazingly helpful. It feels insane and uncomfortable to take care of an intense emotion within the face of somebody who’s expressing no emotion in any respect. Most individuals will settle down in a short time when you don’t interact of their emotional dialogue as a result of it feels ineffective and even embarrassing to be emoting within the presence of somebody who’s emotionally absent.
A final observe: Grey rocking can be achieved to keep away from flirting with folks when in a monogamous relationship. That is particularly protecting if you recognize you are typically somebody who’s drawn to emotional or bodily affairs. Attraction can’t be constructed when one particular person is being bland. General, post-infidelity, individuals who have cheated and who wish to work on their marriages should be taught to grey rock folks of their lives who pose a menace to their ongoing faithfulness.
Attempt grey rocking in some tough conditions with dramatic folks in your life. On the very least, you’ll really feel a bit extra management over the scenario. In a best-case state of affairs, you’ll be able to “faux it until you make it” by first pretending to not care after which ultimately really not caring about what this particular person says, thinks, or does. Typically you could get drawn into drama once more, however that needs to be handled as a minor relapse after which you’ll be able to climb proper again in your huge grey horse.
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, aka Dr. Psych Mother, is a scientific psychologist in personal follow and the founding father of DrPsychMom. She works with adults and {couples} in her group follow Greatest Life Behavioral Well being.
This text was initially revealed at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the creator.
