Appearance of a Gray Man
The first, and most obvious, element of being a Gray Man is that of appearance. Generally speaking, people see you first, usually long before they hear, smell, or touch you. How you look can go a long way towards keeping your profile low or indeed raising it. If low profile is the direction you want to go, then dress accordingly.
If you dress like those around you, it will enable you to blend passively. That is, your appearance alone will help you “go Gray”. If you look like you belong where you are, you will better pass as one of the crowd and be much less likely to stand out. This is critical if you want to avoid being noticed by someone who sees you from a distance or is “scanning” the crowd. You want people to simply gloss over you, never perceiving that you are there. Become visual “white noise”, if you will. Just part of the scenery.
Once you have dressed appropriately, your appearance is set. It’s always on and needs no further involvement on your part, until and unless your environment changes. Like I am constantly saying, pay attention and you will notice when and if your surroundings change enough to require you to change your appearance.
Your look can be changed on the fly, but it is not always the easiest thing to do. It generally requires you to carry clothing with you, which may or may not be feasible. It is much easier to simply dress in a way that is going to allow you to look low profile in the specific situation you expect to be in. If you foresee your circumstances changing along the way, understand the challenges you are going to face.
Adding or removing a hat is simple and fast. It can generally be done with a minimum of noticeable fuss, so that making such a change with little notice is practical. The same can be said of putting on or taking off a sweatshirt of jacket, although carrying such a garment can provide minor challenges of its own. You can always just throw the clothing away when you take it off, but that can become pricey fast.
Swapping out pants and shoes can also be done, but here we find more significant challenges. Carrying shoes and pants can be bulky. People also tend to notice someone openly carrying footwear and/or pants. This can be mitigated by placing them in a bag or backpack, but this requires some additional thought as well in order to stay gray.
Changing shoes and/or pants also takes time and both will generally get the attention of those around you if done openly. As a rule, changing pants requires a degree of privacy if it is to be done without drawing the attention of everyone within eyesight. This can also be much more time consuming, especially if your pockets are full of your every-day carry gear that has to be swapped out.
By the time you realize you need to change your clothing, it can often be too late. Of course, if things change too fast for you to leave or change clothing, you will not be the only one standing out in the new reality. Others will have been caught off base as well, so at least you will have some folks to blend in with.
It can be a logistical challenge to have extra clothes with you at all times. It is much easier to make a habit of dressing in a low-profile manner in order to fit into the most varied surroundings.
To do this, wear the expected clothing for the area. Think of it as a uniform, if that helps. Wearing a uniform when I was in the Army made me almost invisible when I was on post and surrounded by hundreds of others dressed just like me. Nobody noticed me as being any different than anyone else until they got close.
If you are just walking around your local community, have a “style” that facilitates your Gray Many lifestyle. Muted colors and a slightly roomy fit are the rule for me. Comfortable is key, as most folks just won’t make a habit of wearing uncomfortable clothing (with a very notable exception being a huge chunk of women’s fashion, especially shoes).
Dressing for your environment might mean deviation from this standard is required. Sporting events, for example, can dictate such a change. The university I went to as an undergraduate had school colors of red and white. When the football team played a home game, everyone wore red and white clothing to show their support. Walking around not wearing red and white made you much more likely to stand out.
Dress appropriate to your age. When my 6-year-old son wears a blazer, fedora, and khaki pants, people take note. He’s adorable, sure, but he looks like he is heading off to star in a conservative podcast. Likewise, if you are in your 60’s and still wearing board shorts and Chuck Taylor’s when you live 300 miles from the nearest beach, people will notice you. If getting noticed is your objective, rock on. If not, well…
Bright colors are noticeable. The Gray Man avoids them, unless called for in a particular situation. For example, I ran the bulls once in Pamplona, Spain. Those who ran wore white pants, white shirts, a red bandana, and a red sash around their waste. So that’s what I wore. Striking colors, sure, but I effectively disappeared into the sea of people dressed exactly like me. Had I been wearing muted earth tones, I would have stood out. A lot.
Logos are noticeable, but not the end of the world as some might have you believe. Context is important, as always. Logos on clothing is a point of remembrance to some people, typically those who have an interest in that topic. Go to a Red Sox home game wearing a Yankees jersey and you will see what I mean. Go to that same game wearing a Red Sox jersey and you will fade immediately into the background. Those who do notice you will be very likely to only remember your jersey and your skin tone, if that.
I always love it in movies when actors wear a baseball hat and sunglasses in order to disguise themselves. While such a “disguise” may well make it more difficult for an eyewitness to accurately describe and identify you in a photographic line-up, it does precious little to make you less noticeable in the first place, context notwithstanding. It can often stand out in a crowd, so keep that in mind.
Tactical, or “shoot me first”, gear gets a lot of attention in this realm. People seem to have pretty strong opinions on how this kind of clothing and equipment impacts one’s ability to go Gray.
I’m fairly ambivalent. I still own plenty of this stuff from my career as a federal LEO, though I do not wear such clothing much anymore. I call it “cool guy clothing”, but whatever you call it, it is clothing that either is military, is based on military designs, or it has symbols, emblems, or words announcing that the wearer is to be seen and feared. The reality is, most people are pretty unobservant. They do not pay much attention to others and when they do, the majority may be able to tell “military style” clothing but have no clue what “tactical clothing” is. Of course, we are not really worried about most people.
Many cops and defense-oriented citizens can also recognize tactical clothing. They know what it looks like because they own and wear it, their friends wear it, and they look at it in magazines. It shows up a lot in their social circles and daily life. When they see it, they notice it and pay attention to the person wearing it. For the most part, we are not worried about these folks either, beyond a general desire to be unnoticed by all.
Who we are worried about are those bad actors, people who are willing to engage in criminal predation and violence, who might key in on tactical attire. While most of them do not know any more about such clothing than anyone else, some do. There are bad actors who know what cops look like and how they dress, which often means they also recognize tactical clothing.
Now there is an argument to be made that appearing to others, including potential bad actors, that we are prepared for any eventuality (including violence) is a good thing. I have heard others say that they are safer if they appear to be a law enforcement officer or soldier, or just a person who can and will take care of themselves. The argument is that dressing in tactical clothing is a deterrent to being attacked. Fair enough.
Such an approach sacrifices some anonymity and relies on appearance to intimidate, or at least show bad actors that they are in for more of a fight attacking the guy in the tactical attire. Tactical posturing, if you will. Knowing that bad actors tend to want a victim, not a fight, this method has some merit if one’s only concern is preventing attack. Of course, it leaves the choice to engage or not up to the miscreant(s). Depending on rational decisions from criminals can be an iffy proposition. Certainly, it might work. It also might not.
The problem as I see it is that choice, at this point, is not up to you. It is up to the villain. The Gray Man approach is one that seeks to avoid problems in the first place by not being noticed at all. Bad guys do not get to choose to avoid you (or choose not to) because they never notice the Gray Man in the first place. Nobody notices the Gray Man, neither good guys nor bad. This, in turn, leaves the maximum number of options available to the Gray Man. I would suggest this is a better way, but to each his own.
If you want to go Gray, do not openly carry a firearm. Read that entire sentence again. I am not saying that you should not carry a firearm for self-defense. Not at all. I support the right to carry firearms, wholeheartedly. Carrying openly is part of that approach and I support the right to do so. However, it is bad tactics and I would never do it, so I do not recommend it. Especially if you are trying to go gray. An openly carried firearm is noticeable. Indeed, it draws attention like a magnet. If this is your goal, fine, but understand that it is not going to help your cause in avoiding attention.
How you dress stems from your mindset and compliments your behavior. Context is critical and you should always dress with this in mind. When you are walking the path of the Gray Man, how you appear is going to go a very long way in keeping you from being noticed, which is the point of the entire effort.
