Grey rock

Grey rock is a way of dealing with a difficult person by being as boring and unresponsive as a grey rock, giving them no emotional reaction to feed on.

The longer explanation

Wikipedia says the term was coined in 2012 by an American mental-health blogger using the pseudonym Skylar, and that no clinical studies have tested whether it works. The page also carries a warning that its sourcing is weak, and describes the evidence as anecdotal. People use it when they can't fully cut contact, such as co-parenting or a shared workplace: short, neutral replies, no personal details, no arguing. It's a tool for contact you can't avoid, not a replacement for leaving.

Example

You answer "Pickup is at 5." with "Okay." and nothing else, even when they bait you.

What it is not

Going cold to punish someone isn't grey rock. Neither is the silent treatment used to win an argument. It is a calm, neutral way to limit contact you can't end.

Online use vs research use

Online, grey rock is advised mostly in narcissistic-abuse situations. There are no clinical studies on it, and it isn't a treatment.

Avoidant or narcissist?

The method was built for people who use your reactions as a tool for control. An avoidant ex is often pulling away from closeness rather than hunting for a reaction, so "no reaction" can just read as a second wall. If you can't tell which is happening, plain no contact, or clear and kind limits, is simpler. Avoidance is protection; abuse is control, and they can occur together. A 2025 meta-analysis (Mohay et al.) reported that vulnerable ("covert") narcissism links most strongly with preoccupied (anxious) attachment, moderately with fearful, and only weakly with dismissive; grandiose narcissism wasn't linked to attachment style. It's correlational, and it describes groups, not any one ex.

Nothing to see. Nothing to take.