Honestly, the part that's weirdest to me is I didn't criticize her or disagree with her, or anything like that, as far as I know. It happened after I updated my profile pic, which is not something I would have expected to cause this, but it's quite possible. Thanks for the words, they help.

@PolyWolf Yeah that was just my experience. There are many possible explanations. She may have had a mental image of you and something about the profile pic violated that and caused her to judge you because of some association in her brain that you actually have nothing to do with. Science tells us that snap judgments are highly persistent. We're wired to do them because they are (or, really, were, on the savannah) a survival advantage. People cling to them even in the face of massive contradicting evidence. Usually this is a problem with initial judgments but sometimes it can be delayed too. Bottom line, she probably did you a favor because if she's capable of that, it's better that she betray your trust and regard early than late.

It was a blocking - someone checked for me. It's cool though.

@PolyWolf Sorry to hear that. Happens to all of us.

I was one of those people.

@Sticks48 I know. And I had thought someone blocked me too but he just took a break from the site.

I did not receive a message from them beforehand, no. I was actually looking at the message we had going already and it had a sudden mark next to it saying unavailable or whatever.

@PolyWolf if they block right after writing it, you might never see it, but being in the middle of the conversation like that... that does seem less likely. i wonder if they clicked block by accident?

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@genessa Unlikely, but possible. I think she'd have noticed anyway. Regardless, it isn't the end of the world, just interesting.

@PolyWolf still it creates a little sad hole somewhere. i lost a good friend on facebook a couple years ago. we were friends in college and after; i was at his wedding (catholic, my first time ever in a church, and i remember the priest wore tennis shoes at the ceremony). he and his wife and a few mutual friends used to drive down from new jersey to maryland or virginia (depending on the year) to visit me, until i moved to california. we lost touch and then found each other on facebook -- where he shortly blocked me. he'd become a born-again christian (his first NAME is "christian," actually) and was upset that i am pro-choice. mind you, i never actually HAD an abortion; i have never been pregnant. he was offended that i am in favor of other women making up their own minds about what can live in their bodies. he said we couldn't be friends anymore (see, he didn't block me summarily) and did not block me but unfriended me. i honored that and did not try to communicate with him after that.

another facebook friend i knew pretty well, albeit only slightly face to face (and from another online venue before facebook) also explained why he had to unfriend me. when i saw how trump was rising to power, well before he was elected, i made the comparison to the rise of hitler. i didn't call trump hitler (i could have!) i just compared methods. my friend, jewish like me, but unlike me (secular) orthodox, was horribly offended by the comparison, which in retrospect proves to be quite apt. he said we couldn't be friends anymore. i respected that except for one attempt i made to communicate with him, showing him an article (maybe a year later) that said pretty much what i had said. what did i get in response? "fake news!" i guess he drank the kool-aid.

is it better to know why? i guess. it's sadder, though. i can't hope it was an error.

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@genessa Can you tell when someone unfollows you on facebook? I did that with some people who I really didn't want to offend and I could not read their posts and not reply with something that would have offended them.

@Stephanie99 well, these two people actually told me they were unfriending me, and if you go to someone's page, and they have not blocked you, you can see you no longer have friend status with them. followers -- not so sure. i have a program i use called social fixer and it announces who is and is no longer your friend, as well as letting you customize the heck out of facebook (so you don't have to see those silly scrolling texts, for example). once in a while facebook changes an algorithm and social fixer has to adjust, but it generally works great.

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