The gray man mentality and situational awareness is about more than what you wear, it’s about everything you do that might make you stand out in a crowd. Being the gray man is about what you do and say on a daily basis, and who you say it to.

Throughout our daily live we do things trying to become the gray man without thinking about it. If you’ve ever tried to avoid eye contact with an annoying acquaintance or a street vendor, you have tried to become the gray man.

You can talk about operational security and situational awareness without talking about being the gray man, but you can’t talk about being the gray man without talking about operational security and situational awareness. Becoming unremarkable and unmemorable require you to understand your situation and act accordingly.

As I was growing up I was the gray man without even thinking about it. I was the quiet child that would always fly under the radar. My siblings were always busy talking, while I was always busy thinking about how to handle each situation.

Because of this I was allowed to do just about anything I wanted because everyone trusted me, and focused their attention elsewhere. Luckily I wasn’t a terrible child, but this did allow me to get in more trouble than I should have.

SPP289 Being the Gray Man & Situational Awareness (Replay)

This week in the show Lisa and I went over some of the things that help us become unremarkable and might help us blend into the crowd. We also talked about how the gray man theory changes depending on the situation you are facing.

Blending In

If you live in an urban area you might not want to be wearing cammo and carrying a tactical backpack or bug out bag. If you live in a rural area you wouldn’t want to be wearing a 3-piece suit and carrying suitcase. Fitting in means looking just like everyone else, and unremarkable in every way.

The same would hold true in a small scale or large scale SHTF event. If everyone else is starving and losing weight, yet you look as healthy as ever because you have prepared, you are going to stand out. If everyone is without power and they see light coming from your window at night, you will be a target.

Prepper Hate: There is also the phenomena that Selco called “Prepper Hate” that we need to consider.  This is when people form opinions about you according to their agenda, and rationalize stealing or harming you.

This might not be that big of a deal these days, but in any sort of disaster situation these people could say…

“They have way too much food; they must have stolen it”

“It’s not fair that they have food and we don’t, someone needs to make them share.”

These people could easily get other people on board with them and have no problem doing whatever it takes to feed their family…even if it means harming you.

In the show we mentioned when Selco was on the survival podcast and we recently had him on our show as well talking about