Explain to me the post-break-up "Facebook Block". (men???)

[andreasperks]

Can I jjst get a bit of insight into what the "Facebook Block" thing is all about, having had three men do this to me in less than a year - which I have found a little insulting.

I'm no fool and understand the block function is there for people who are stalking you, people causing you bother or whatever and I do also understand that in some instances "blocking" might be done for the purposes of self protection (ie: I don't want to see your happy posts thanks!)

But if we are talking in terms of grown adult men around the 40 mark, who you have split up with after short relationships, where they are the ones who have ended it......what is the "dump and block" about?

I am reading into it that they are saying...."I am worried that I dumped you and you will take to my Facebook page slagging me off or having a hissy fit in public so I am blocking you to prevent that".

Which I find immensely insulting! I'm a 35 year old professional woman who's never done anything like that in her life.

I can understand maybe not wanting to "stay friends" in which case..."unfriending" is surely adequate? Perhaps done quietly a few days or weks post break up out of politeness? I have done this.

But a block. That feels quite like a slap in the face. Dump and block. Ouch!

Incidentally the three men who have done this blocked me only on Facebook and stayed open with me via all other communication - in fact some continued to text me for a while.

I have plenty of ex boyfriends, serious or otherwise, who are my friends on fcebook and we get on perfectly fine. I never post anything angsty or wash dirty laundry and am a perfctly normal and rational woman.

Any ideas? Does this happen to anyone else?

[Whitechocolatetoblerone]

OP, I think you’re getting a hard time.

I too see blocking as quite an extreme thing to do and would only do it after a massive falling out or similar. It’s just quite OTT and not really necessary if you’ve only been dating someone a short while and it ends. No biggie surely?!

I think a lot of people have a good ol’ nose at their exes FB profile at some point, I see it as perfectly normal and just human curiosity, so long as you’re not checking it multiple times a day obsessively!

I don’t get the ‘blocking so they don’t realise they’ve been unfriended’ thing either. It is quite easy to work out if someone’s blocked you, and, as I view it as quite an extreme thing to do, I would be a lot more hurt than if someone had just simply unfriended me.

You know you haven’t done anything wrong so hold your head up and forget about them, just strange, drama queenish people.

[ThisIsFolkGirl]

She hasn't really got a hard time most people have just reassured her that people use fb in different ways and not to take it personally.

[ThisIsFolkGirl]

I think a lot of people have a good ol’ nose at their exes FB profile at some point,

If you are right, then this explains it perfectly. Perhaps her exes don't want their ex gfs having a "good ol' nose". That's fine. I wouldn't.

[FrameyMcFrame]

I really think it's because they're seeing someone else actually, and they don't want you to see it on Facebook.

[BrandNewAndImproved]

Op I agree with you and don't think your whiny or dramatic.

I've also had a few dates with someone and still kept them on my fb without either of us being childish and blocking for no reason. I've also looked at ex partners profiles every now and again. Not obsessively just natural curiosity now and again.

I haven't had what you've said but I wouldn't bother texting someone back that I dated a few times, didn't like and had the pleasure of being blocked from.

[tashee1989]

Totally agree OP, I had a messy break up the beginning of this year with a guy I dated for 7 months (he cheated ect, I found out I was pregnant one week after I caught him out) A little support from him was too much to ask, he carried on with the OW and blocked me on Facebook. I have never and will never air dirty laundry on Facebook. I was really upset by his block and have no idea why he felt the need, I felt as though he thought I was a psycho and was protecting himself against me.
I'm friends with a couple of exes on Facebook from years and years ago. I'd be offended by a block from anyone unless I knew I had behaved badly and therefore deserved it.

[OutToGetYou]

The problem is that everyone has a different view of what blocking is 'for' or why people do it. I go through phases of getting irritated with people on fb so I block them (these being people I cannot avoid by just unfriending [not that they ever were friends], mainly family members who are friends of other family members I am friends with).

If their view was 'blocking is there for stalkers' then I can only assume they are massively insulted. But it's more, for me, blocking is there so I don't have to see your inane views on everything, and so you can't see my responses to things my friends post (and comment on them, with your previously mentioned inane views).
I wouldn't go to the pub with these people so why do I want to see their 'conversations' on fb?

Equally, I don't want to go to the pub with an ex if they hadn't 'stayed friends', so I also don't want to see their conversations nor have them 'liking' things etc. If you have no mutual friends it's easy to just defriend, but if they are going to keep popping up because you do have mutual friends then blocking is the only answer. It also just gives you a break while you're trying to move on from the relationship.

I don't go round nosing into my exes profiles though so I don't tend to think that is normal but now I know people do it makes me more likely to block someone!

Having said all that I have at least three exes on my fb - but all of them became exes well before fb existed so it was a different thing. They were 'added' as friends later. One is genuinely a friend (and as we dated nearly 25 years ago I don't really consider him an ex any more), one is actually a friend of his so part of an extended friendship group with whom I have a hobby in common, so he stays due to that, and the last is an ex from 20 or so years ago who is now married - I think he added me actually. But I purposely never comment on anything he posts, nor 'like' it . Odd really that he added me and there has been no interaction - maybe he wants me to nose around at his profile?

[andreasperks]

Like someone said upthread, I was hurt because I percieved it, as a malicious thing.

To me it seemed very OTT and totally unneccessary if you have no mutual friends and a pretty obvious statement of "I want you to disappear". The message I want after someone breaks up with me is "this didn't work out, I am sorry but I still think you are great" and I suppose my perception of their actions was a lot more negative.

I personally viewed blocking as something malicious and have never been blocked by anyone, including long term boyfriends with very painful splits before this.

Exactly as someone said, it made me feel like they were saying I was a psycho or someone awful and after having been already dumped it's insult to injury from my perspective.

If I am honest it is only the third one that has really hurt and bothered me.

The first one is big baby who blocks people frequently and wasn't happy with the split. The second one was attention seeking and I think both were just man children hence it was not workign out to begin with.

But the third one is someone I have known over a year, liked very much as a person and respected a lot.

I dated him once before and split very amicably and remained friends on social media and in real life so I could not figure out why this would be necessary.

He sat there on Wednesday, "liked" my photo, then an hour later sent me a message to say he didn't think I was around enough for a proper relationship and then blocked me.

Being blocked never feels nice, but from this particular man I could honestly not figure out why he wanted to stop me seeing his page (which is all public view anyway so he can't stop me), why he wanted to stop seeing mine or why he felt anything positive or helpful would come from that action.

I am starting to think that the length of someone's block list says far more about them than it does about you - but the thread has definitely helped me allow it to roll off my back and not take it personally.

I can see people have totally diferrent perceptions so I can see maybe the inferences were diferrent.

[andreasperks]

And outtogetyou I think what you said just summed this up. This was a person I would have still gone to the pub with. We did the last time we split and used to swap ideas about work / go for the odd drink. So I suppose I was insulted for the reason that I didn't get why just because we weren't dating it meant our long friendship was done. I thought I mattered to him as a friend. Clearly not.

[ThisIsFolkGirl]

I know it's done and dusted now, but with regards to your last bf, the one who has upset you by blocking you, it's interesting that this was the second time you dated.

When I was 18 (long before fb!!) I dated someone. We split on friendly terms and kept in touch for a few years after I'd moved away.

When I was 21, we got back together briefly. When I ended it the second time, it was so much more painful all around and I've not spoken to him since. Now 20 years ago.

I think that when you split for a second time, it's so much more final.

Maybe that's how it felt to him. Maybe he didn't want to risk giving it another go.

[tashee1989]

Too harsh brokenhearted. Plenty of people add each on fb once they are on first and last name terms. It's not abnormal to feel upset by being blocked. It's a big statement for somebody to make, in many people's eyes. Take your crap elsewhere perhaps....

[OooMatron]

The answer is not to add short term boyfriends to FB.

[ThisIsFolkGirl]

I suspect that there is a generational difference here.

I'm 40 and although I use fb, I don't place any importance on it.

The person I unfriended who subsequently dumped me irl is mid 20s.

Personally, I do find all the angst a bit bemusing, but it was clearly a thing for the op.

I suspect the people who'd be upset/offended by it are under 30 and those who would are over 40.

[ThisIsFolkGirl]

*who wouldn't

[andreasperks]

I think that I just felt no pain from the breakup, but did feel hurt from the block. It's someone I have known a while, and been very nice to, have had a relationship with that went beyond romantic and there was no big angst or drama. Just two people who got along great but had busy schedules and didn't really have time or chemistry to make it into a "relationship".

If he had ended it with me and not blocked me, I would have walked away feeling fine.

The blocking read to me as "fuck ff a die". Maybe not to you - but to me it reads that way.

From where I was standing he was still someone I wanted to know. I never thought the relationship was going places but I really liked him and counted him as someone who updates were interesting and am hurt that he did not have the same sentiment.

Brokenhearted it annoys me when people say things like that. Not just when they are said to me, but when they are said to anyone and I suppose that's the entire point of this thread.

Why is there no longer any expectations of basic manners? Suddenly somewhere along the road it became normal to block people, to dump by text messages, to treat other people in strange ways from blowing hot and cold to dating multiple people.

We might all see the world diferrently but if I like someone enough to share a meal with them or a date with them or to add them on Facebook in the first place; then I like them enough to go out of my way to behave in ways that are positive towards them unless they have done something to deserve otherwise. To me that's just acting with a bit of class.

There's a big danger being lined up in the world where any woman who gets pissed off at being randomly blocked, multi dated at the early stages of a relationship or not phoned after sex becomes cast as the one with the problem is told she is not owed anything.

I don't agree. I think you are "owed" something by every person you interract with - being basic manners.

Even here on a pro-woman chat page like mumsnet there are people saying in effect that the problem isn't someone doing something a bit crap - the problem is me giving a toss that they did.

And you begin to feel embarrassed (like you have made me feel), as if somehow being hurt or upset by behavior that is inherently hurtful or upsetting that you are somehow a bunny boiler obsessive, web stakling nightmare who needs to get a life and man up a bit.

I think whoever feels the need to go to the trouble of blocking someone without there being any need to do so is inconsiderate of the other person's feelings and is probably the one with the problem.

All that said, I am willing to take on board the suggestions that intent, motivation and meaning can differ from person to person and that perhaps I have read more into it than existed but I am not needing to "step away from Facebook" because there's absolutely nothing wrong with getting offended by behavior that you personally find offensive.

[Starspread]

Yeah, I think people use blocking very differently. I've blocked two people on Facebook, ever, because they're people who I don't want to be able to see even the public information visible from my profile (not much) or any comments I might leave where they can read them, because I don't want them to know anything about my life nor where I am nor how to get to me. Ever.

On the other hand, my ex's new girlfriend went through a bizarre cycle of blocking me, unblocking me to get in touch and request an apology for things that she was never quite clear about, fail to respond to my agreements to meet up and talk, cancel at the last minute, and block me again. After a few rounds of that I stopped wondering what was going on, though it drive me crazy at first!

[DoubleNegativePanda]

It may have nothing to actually do with you, and be no reflection on your personality. My personal experience with this isn't a short-term thing but a ten year marriage ending, and my ex immediately unfriended and blocked me. It hurt my feelings terribly, because a) I'm very private and wouldn't have aired our dirty laundry in a public forum and b) we were at the time sharing custody of our daughter and I liked that we could see the fun stuff she was doing and that she was happy.

But while he had blocked me, he hadn't blocked our thirty-odd mutual friends, many of whom immediately started texting me screenshots of the horrendous bullshit he was posting about me. Posting flat-out lies, posting screenshots of text conversations with texts removed to make what I was saying sound awful. Telling people I cheated on him. Posting that I was mentally ill. On and on it went. I still never even addressed the fact that I had gotten divorced on facebook. But I was the blocked one!

Now three years later, he had re-friended me and I had accepted because I find holding a grudge hurts me more than the other person, so I let it go. However, I recently took him back to court and got full residential custody of our daughter and there was an awful lot of ugliness involved. So I decided that other than as a "co-parenting (what a joke) relationship" I have no use for him as a human being and I certainly don't need to see his asinine shit in my entertainment time. Unfriend and block. Done and done.

Facebook isn't real life. It doesn't matter. Don't let it bother you so much.

[Starspread]

(And for what it's worth, the two people I blocked were never even 'friends' on Facebook; I did it as a preemptive measure as soon as I found out they'd made an account)

[DoubleNegativePanda]

Let me clarify one thing. It hurt my feelings because I had hoped we could remain friends through our divorce as my parents did...I only had my parents divorce as a role model and they behaved as intelligent, sensitive humans to each other. The way he turned on me and blocked me for the purpose of bad-mouthing me in a small village, that's what hurt.

I honestly don't give two shits when people unfriend or block me on facebook otherwise.

The whole point of my post was to illustrate that he may not have blocked you because he thinks you're a bunny boiler about to go bonkers but because he's a nasty shithead.

[MagicalMrsMistoffelees]

I bloody hate Facebook!

[SoupDragon]

How do you know you have been blocked rather than just unfriended?

[Starspread]

SoupDragon if someone has completely disappeared, ie they no longer show up if you search for them, don't appear as a friend on their friends' friend lists when you look, and their comments have disappeared from conversation threads with mutual friends (which can be a bit weird when you see the comments either side responding to them!) they've either done a massive account deletion, or blocked you.

[andreasperks]

*Yeah, I think people use blocking very differently. I've blocked two people on Facebook, ever, because they're people who I don't want to be able to see even the public information visible from my profile (not much) or any comments I might leave where they can read them, because I don't want them to know anything about my life nor where I am nor how to get to me. Ever.
*

Yes, Starspeard that is exactly what the blocking function to me means, and hence I was upset. As I said I have taken on board now that other have explained they use the function for less offensive means and therefore I am not upset about it anymore.

Facebook isn't real life. It doesn't matter.

I really don't understand that statement at all. Of course it's real life. It's not fake or fantasy or a video game. People are accountable for slander and any other crime online as well as offline and we now live ina world where "cyber" is vry much real. When your ex was lying about you and posting awful things it was real and happenning the same as if he was down the pub doing it. I'm lost on that logic.

We all have our standards I suppose and for me the behavior is disappointing.

[andreasperks]

Soupdragon, I got a message to say he was ending it on Facebook, I clicked reply and it said "you cannot respond to this message". I clicked his profile and it was not available.

I genuinely don't think the problem here is me. That is shit head behavior.