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We live in the Microwave era – relationships sprout up so fast, and they die equally as fast, if not faster. Then what follows? Well, ghosting, of course!
Sometimes the ghosting happens in subtle ways and without any warning. One night you’re there doing video calls till the dead hours of the night. The following day, that person is unreachable, and their avatar is invisible. This article will show you tell-tale signs that a person has blocked you on Instagram (IG).
How to Know Someone has Blocked you on Instagram?
Let us start off with a disclaimer. Just because you cannot reach someone on any social media account does not mean they have blocked you. They could be on a social media sabbatical. They deactivated their account or deleted it altogether.
So be careful not to make the issue about yourself. They could be on a social media detox. As we all know, social media is not exactly good for your mental health every time, all the time.
1. Run a Search for their IG Profile
While logged into your IG account, go to Instagram search and search for their user name, as you’ve known it all along. If their account is private, and upon your search, you find nothing, they have probably blocked you.
If you find their account but with the message ‘This Account is Private,’ then they have removed you from their list of followers, but they have not blocked you. If their account is public, but on your search, you cannot see them. They have blocked you.
2. Check Old DMs
Even if someone has blocked you or deactivated their account, Instagram will still maintain your old chat history in the DMs (Direct Messages). If you suspect someone has blocked you on IG, the quickest way to confirm it is by checking on your old DMs.
Simply go to your IG DMs, open your chat together, and click through their name which should lead you to their IG profile. If the link leads you to a blank page saying ‘No Posts Yet,’ then that person has blocked you.
However, if the link opens to a page saying ‘This Account is Private’, that person removed you from their followers’ list. To confirm this, you can check if you can see them in any group chats you both were in before. If you can still see them in the group chat, but you can’t see them on direct chat or their profile; definitely they have blocked you.
3. Look up their IG Handle
This step requires you to check out their profile while logged out of your IG account. Ideally, you should conduct this on a desktop computer. Open a new browser (it might be different from your primary browser if you don’t want to log out of IG); on the address bar and type instagram.com/username.
The ‘username’ bit should be their account handle and open the link. Again, make sure you’re not logged in on IG on this particular browser. When the link opens, and you can see their profile, then you’re blocked. If you still can’t see their profile, it means they have either deleted or deactivated their account.
Wrapping up …
Being ghosted is not a good feeling for anyone, but don’t be quick to think that is the case. Sometimes a person might abruptly decide to get off social media without any warning to their contacts. There are various reasons as to why someone may decide to do something like that, including the need to detox from social media and protect their privacy. Whatever the case, you should respect their right to privacy and need not to get unsolicited attention.
