I got Blocked on WhatsApp: what Now?

January 9, 2021

By Alex Balaniuc

It happened at least once for pretty much anybody who uses social media or other online communication services to block somebody, or to get blocked. If someone has been pestering you and you became fed up with their shenanigans, it is only natural to block them, but you might be dumbfounded to find out that someone blocked you. Let’s consider WhatsApp, for instance, and see what happens when you get blocked on there.

Nothing says “I don’t want to talk to you anymore” more clearly than getting blocked on a messaging app such as WhatsApp. The reasons for which someone might block you on the app are many, but it usually comes down to a couple explanations. It is likely that you just had a fight and the other person doesn’t want to deal with you for a while – in which case, you would feel the same way – or maybe you’ve been harassing the person in some way without even realizing.

How to tell if you’ve been blocked by someone

There are some indicators that suggest if someone blocked you on WhatsApp, and these are:

you can no longer see a contact’s last seen or online status in the chat window. You can click here to find out more about these features
you can’t see updates to a contact’s profile photo
any messages that you send to a contact who has blocked you will always show one check mark (message sent), and never show a second check mark (message delivered)
if you attempt to place any calls, they will not go through

If you see all of the indicators above for a contact, this could mean that the user is blocking you. However, there are other possibilities. WhatsApp doesn’t flat out reveal to you that someone blocked you. The app made this intentionally ambiguous in order to protect the user’s privacy when blocking someone. Thus, WhatsApp cannot tell you if you are being blocked by someone else.

How should you react to being blocked?

What is a proper reaction to something like this? Here’s how you should take it: be mature and accept the other person’s decision to block you. Don’t be annoying and stubborn by trying to contact them via other mediums, or else you’ll make things worse. Just respect the person’s boundaries and let it go.

But what if that somebody blocks you seemingly out of the blue without an explanation? That would be pretty unfair. In this case, consider the last interactions you two had. Try to find a clue about what the reason could be, what you did wrong. We suggest that you talk to an outsider to the situation to get a different point of view from yours if you really can’t pinpoint the motivation behind the blocking.