Sometimes, when an emotionally manipulative person seeks to cause drama, you might want to offer a response commensurate with their behavior. Except, you should really consider doing the opposite: Namely, acting like there’s nothing you can offer in terms of engagement, and remain as placid as a lake on a wind-free afternoon. Genuinely manipulative people, and likewise those with narcissistic personality disorder, drive conflict and chaos. In order to deprive their combative fire of its true life force, consider “gray rocking” them, which, yes, involves acting as if you were as unremarkable as a stone. What is gray rocking? Gray rocking involves making oneself as uninteresting as possible in an effort to disengage from potential conflict. This isn’t quite the same as giving the cold shoulder, though it might seem that way at a glance. Emotional stonewalling, after all, is something that’s completely unwarranted when it occurs, while the gray rock method is almost a form of surv...