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A tiny research question

…that I could probably answer myself but instead I am lazily asking the internets:

What does it look like when someone blocks you from IMing them? Do you get an actual message that tells you that they’ve blocked you? Or???

Yes, this is for a story…

Thanks in advance for any info/insights!

March 24, 2006 By

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  • jennekirby
    March 23, 2006 at 2:03 pm

    It just looks like they signed off.

    Haha. My ex-girlfriend just blocked me five minutes ago. This is a perfect post for the top of my flist. …sigh.

  • babymowgli
    March 23, 2006 at 3:10 pm

    You just can’t see when they’re online. So of course you get someone else to log in and see if the person is online. If they show up on that buddylist, but not yours, then you’ve been blocked.

    It’s only happened to me once, but it’s the worst thing ever!

  • intothebassment
    March 23, 2006 at 10:17 pm

    Yeah, you just all of a sudden can’t “see” them. They don’t appear on your buddy list, and you can’t get buddy info about them. The person who blocks you gets a little message informing them that they have blocked you, and you get put on the “blocked” list of their buddy list.

    As for the mechanics of figuring out if you have been “blocked,” see above post. Then of course the blocked person gets a new screen name and confronts the blocker…..

    I am a child of the IM generation :-p

    Hope that helps!

  • anonymous
    March 24, 2006 at 1:18 am

    Sara, I have read (but not used) that teens often use something called an “away” message and can assign that away message as a reply to only certain IM users, so the person could be online chatting to some people while others trying to reach them are told they are “away.” I think this was mentioned in the latest PEW study…jules

  • kathmuse
    March 24, 2006 at 2:31 am

    I think on AOL, for example, you are able to see when someone has logged on, but they can block IMs. I am not sure if that is specific to the person, but I know you can get a message that they are not receiving IMs.

    kath

  • thisisnotanlj
    March 24, 2006 at 3:22 am

    thanks, everyone! — i’m interested in the difference in responses from people who’ve experienced being blocked & those who haven’t…i’m realizing that gen x is the last generation where rejection only happened via public shunning, phone calls, and handwritten notes.

    following up on ‘s response — has anyone had someone you’ve blocked confront you using a new username? or have you done that after being blocked? what was it like?

  • estarial
    March 24, 2006 at 11:14 pm

    I did that not that long ago actually, XD I was having a debate with a girl I know who was a self-proclaimed racist, sexist, etc. and believed that women are the source of the world’s problems, that they’re all sluts, and that men should slap them around some more (and that .0001% of all the men should have sex with women so that the rest can be gay for her entertainment/anime/yaoi purposes). I was genuinely trying to debate this and got a message from her saying something along the lines of “I don’t want to ruin our friendship, bebe, and lets just end this because blahblahblah women are sluts” and blocked me. I responded from a different username. Of course, I use Trillian which allows me to have multiple screen names signed on at once, so sometimes I don’t even notice when I’ve been blocked.

  • R. C. Beckom
    February 12, 2008 at 9:48 am

    It comes a time in a person’s life where they will have to look at things like blocks as you call it, as stepping stones to get to your acheivements. so I would consider stumbling blocks to be stepping stones, as the old sayings go: ” If all you got is lemons, sell lemonade,” “If others are selling new clothes and you can’t,Sell used ones!”