Posted by NaOH 2 days ago
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.
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.
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.
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.
Anyone having these sorts of people problems I would highly recommend https://youtube.com/@DoctorRamani
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.
It's not making yourself lesser, it's basically "not taking the bait," which is very much a strength, not a weakness.
Edit: Oh lol. I guess you just have to click the captcha. Never seen that in an archive before.
Though it might possibly vary depending where you come from, using cloudflare for dns, what browser plugins in effect, etc.
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.