Boring, on purpose.
Grey rock means giving someone nothing to react to. Paste the reply you were about to send and the check hunts for nine things that hand them something — capitals, exclamation marks, accusations, charged words, questions that are not logistics, apologies, warmth, curtness, and length past about thirty words. Then draw a flatter one from seventy-two written for six situations.
Nothing to react to. Short, factual, no feeling in it — for contact you cannot end.
Check the draft
Free, no signup, and nothing to install.
Draw a response
Six situations that turn up in the same threads over and over. Draw one, draw again, or take the shape and write your own.
Pick a situation and draw.
What the check looks for
Nine things, each one a piece of you a reply did not need. Three of them depend on the mode: grey rock flags apologies and warm words, and yellow rock drops both and flags the opposite — a message with no greeting and no thanks in it. Six are checked in either mode.
Capital letters
What it gives them. Volume. Capitals are the clearest proof a message landed.
Flatter. Same words, lower case. The information survives, the noise does not.
Checked in grey and yellow.
Exclamation marks
What it gives them. Heat. One mark shows them where the nerve is.
Flatter. A full stop carries the same sentence and gives nothing away.
Checked in grey and yellow.
An accusation
What it gives them. A charge to answer, with the defense already written. It is the invitation to argue.
Flatter. Answer only what was asked. The history does not belong in a message about Thursday.
Checked in grey and yellow.
Charged words
What it gives them. Feeling. Every one of these tells them the message worked.
Flatter. State the fact and stop. "I will be there at 5." is a whole reply.
Checked in grey and yellow.
A question that hands back the turn
What it gives them. Something they get to answer, and then answer again.
Flatter. Unless it is logistics, make it a statement. "That works." ends a thread.
Checked in grey and yellow.
An apology
What it gives them. Something to accept, refuse, or bring back in six months.
Flatter. Cut it. "Noted." does the same job carrying nothing.
Checked in grey only.
Warm words
What it gives them. A thread. Warmth is the thing they pull on tomorrow.
Flatter. Flat is not rude. In grey rock, "OK" is a complete reply.
Checked in grey only.
No greeting, no thanks
What it gives them. A screenshot that reads cold. In a thread a judge, a lawyer or HR may read, curt reads as hostile.
Flatter. "Hi Sam," at the top and "Thanks," at the end. Nothing between them changes.
Checked in yellow only.
Length
What it gives them. Effort. A long reply says the message got to you before they read a word of it.
Flatter. Grey rock sits under about thirty words. One line per thing they actually asked. Yellow rock fits in about sixty: greeting, the answer, sign-off.
Checked in grey and yellow.
Flat replies for six situations
Seventy-two lines, written for this tool. Six for each situation in grey rock and six in yellow rock, so you can read the shape rather than draw one at a time. Take the shape and write your own if none of them is quite your thread.
A jab meant to start something
Grey rock — nothing to react to.
- Noted.
- OK.
- I read it.
- Nothing to add.
- I will leave it there.
- Understood.
Yellow rock — the same, with ordinary courtesy on top.
- Thanks for the message. Nothing to add on that one.
- Got it, thank you. I will leave that there.
- Received, thanks. I would rather keep this to arrangements.
- Thank you for letting me know. I have nothing to add.
- Noted, thanks. Anything about Thursday, I am here.
- Thanks. I will stick to the schedule side of things.
A guilt trip
Grey rock — nothing to react to.
- I hear you.
- That is yours to decide.
- I am not going to discuss that.
- Noted.
- I have said what I can.
- That is not something I will answer.
Yellow rock — the same, with ordinary courtesy on top.
- Thanks for telling me how you see it. I am not able to get into that here.
- I appreciate you saying it. I would like to keep this to the handover times.
- Thank you. I will keep this thread to arrangements.
- Understood, thanks. Let me know about Friday when you can.
- Thanks for the note. I do not have anything to add to that part.
- I have read it, thank you. Anything practical, I will answer today.
"That never happened"
Grey rock — nothing to react to.
- We remember it differently.
- I am not going to argue about that.
- Noted.
- I will leave that one.
- I do not see it that way.
- That is not something I will go back over.
Yellow rock — the same, with ordinary courtesy on top.
- Thanks for your message. We remember that differently, and I would rather not go back over it.
- Understood. I see it differently, and I do not think this thread is the place for it.
- Thank you. My memory of it is different. Back to Thursday: 5pm still works.
- Got it, thanks. I remember it differently and I will leave it there.
- Thanks for setting out your view. Mine is different. Anything about pickup, I am here.
- Noted, thank you. I will not go back over that, but I will answer anything practical.
A change to the arrangements
Grey rock — nothing to react to.
- That works.
- Confirmed.
- I can do Thursday.
- That does not work. Friday does.
- I will be there at 5.
- Same place, same time.
Yellow rock — the same, with ordinary courtesy on top.
- Thanks for letting me know. Thursday at 5 works.
- Got it, thank you. I will be there at 5.
- Thanks for the notice. That time does not work for me. Friday at 6 does.
- Confirmed, thank you. Same place as usual.
- Thanks. It is in the calendar.
- Understood, thanks. If anything changes, let me know by Wednesday.
An insult dressed as a joke
Grey rock — nothing to react to.
- OK.
- Noted.
- I will pass on that.
- Nothing to add.
- Got it.
- I will leave it.
Yellow rock — the same, with ordinary courtesy on top.
- Thanks for the message. I will pass on that part.
- Got it, thanks. Sticking to the arrangements.
- Noted, thank you. Anything about Saturday, I am here.
- Thanks. I would rather keep this thread to the practical side.
- Received, thanks. Nothing to add to that one.
- Thank you. Back to the handover time.
Fishing for a reaction
Grey rock — nothing to react to.
- Noted.
- That is not something I will discuss.
- Nothing to add.
- OK.
- I will leave that.
- That part is private.
Yellow rock — the same, with ordinary courtesy on top.
- Thanks for the message. That part is private, and I will leave it there.
- Noted, thank you. I keep this thread to arrangements.
- Thanks. Nothing to add on that. Friday is still 5pm.
- Understood. I would rather not get into that here, thank you.
- Got it, thanks. Anything practical, I will answer today.
- Thank you for the note. I do not have a comment on that.
How the check is worked out
The check is one function with no clock in it: the same draft always gets the same answer. It looks for nine things, eight of them in grey rock and seven in yellow, and each one is a piece of you that a reply did not need. Capital letters, in runs of three or more, with a short allow list so OK, ASAP, PTA, NHS and their kind pass. Exclamation marks, any at all. Eight accusation patterns, from "you always" to "you are the one". Forty-four charged words, from angry and unfair through typical and after everything. Questions — but only questions that are not logistics, checked against a list of twenty-nine practical words and a set of date and time patterns, because asking what time pickup is is the whole point of the channel. And the length, capped at about thirty words in grey rock and about sixty in yellow.
Two flags depend on which mode you are in. Grey rock also flags apologies and warm words, because in grey rock both are threads to pull on tomorrow. Yellow rock drops those two and adds the opposite flag: no greeting and no thanks, because a three-word reply reads as discipline to you and as coldness to a stranger reading the thread later.
Every one of those numbers is ours. Thirty words and sixty words are not published limits, no trial has tested them, and the word lists are not complete and do not have to be — a draft that passes is a draft with none of these eight things in it, which is a useful thing to know and not a verdict. The tool has no idea who you are writing to, and it will never tell you that a message is safe to send to a particular person.
Grey rock itself is a survivor's technique rather than a treatment. It surfaced on a support forum in 2012 and no clinical trial has tested it. Its mechanism is plain enough: some people run on a reaction, and a reply with feeling in it is the payment. The only thing on this page with published research behind it is the case for ending the contact if you can — Sbarra and Emery's diary study on contact, and Marshall's 2012 survey of 464 people, which found more distress and less personal growth among those who kept checking an ex's profile. The seventy-two example replies further down the page are ours, written for this tool.
Where these numbers come from
- Facebook surveillance of former romantic partners: associations with postbreakup recovery and personal growth — Marshall, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2012
- The emotional sequelae of nonmarital relationship dissolution: Analysis of change and intraindividual variability over time — Sbarra & Emery, Personal Relationships (University of Arizona research profiles)
Nothing on this site is medically reviewed and nobody here is a therapist. Every figure above was read out of the code that runs on this page, and where a number is our own judgement rather than a published one, the note says so and cites nothing. Method last checked 21 August 2026.
What grey rock actually does
Grey rock is a survivor's technique, not a treatment. It surfaced on a support forum in 2012 and spread through communities long before it reached explainer pages and therapists' offices, and no clinical trial has ever tested it. What it has behind it is a plain mechanism: some people run on your reaction, and a reply with feeling in it is the payment. Take the feeling out and the exchange stops being worth the trouble. The full write-up is here.
That is why the check above hunts for feeling rather than for rudeness. Length, capitals, apologies, questions that hand back the turn — each one is a piece of you in a message that did not need it.
Most people arrive having typed "what to say to a narcissist". Nobody can diagnose a person from a chat log, and this page will not try. Pattern language is more useful anyway: if every thread ends with you defending something you did not do, that is enough to work with.
Yellow rock, and why a court changes the wording
A three-word reply reads as discipline to you and as coldness to a stranger. Advocates who work with family-court threads name the problem plainly: months later a judge reads those flat messages and sees someone rigid and bitter. Yellow rock keeps the discipline and adds the courtesy — a greeting, a thank-you, a sign-off — so the record shows a person who is easy to deal with. Same information, different optics. If you share a child, a court order or a lawyer, use yellow.
Expect the pressure to spike first
When the reaction stops arriving, messages often get longer, sharper, or arrive from a new angle. People borrow the term "extinction burst" from behavior science for this. Be careful with the borrowing: that research is about treatment programs, and a review of 113 data sets found bursts in about a quarter of cases. It is a loose analogy, not a prediction about a particular person. What holds up is simpler — a move that has always been paid does not stop being tried the first time it is not.
When this is the wrong tool
Grey rock is for contact you cannot end. If you can end it, end it: no contact is the stronger position, and in a 28-day diary study the days with contact carried higher love and higher sadness both. And if someone is controlling, threatening or hurting you, this stops being a question about wording. The note above the questions has the numbers.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between grey rock and yellow rock?
Does grey rock make them angrier?
Is grey rock cruel?
How long do I keep it up?
Can I grey rock a co-parent?
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Flat on the outside still costs you something
Ghosted is where the rest of it goes: the reply you did not send, the days since you last reached out, and a panic room for the night after a bad thread.
