h2>Dating : You’re blocked — So Why Do I Still Want A Text From You?
P.S, I really hope he doesn’t see this article.
You know the feeling. A magical mixture of self-righteousness and self-preservation courses through you and hits just right, and you finally open their contact details in your phone and hit ‘block this contact’.
Ahhhh, peace.
Right??
A surge of elation pumps in your chest. You are finally free. The tap stopped dripping. The ringing in your ears is gone. You can take a full breath.
I know that feeling because three days ago I finally hit ‘block’.
Yes, never again do I have to see that name (with the two heart emojis next to it) pop up on my screen. I have been freed from being tied to my phone. And my synced watch. Shackled? Me? Nope!! Goodbye. Ostensibly, I don’t WANT to hear from him again. That’s why he is blocked. So why do I keep looking at the screen hoping to see a text from him?
It’s not just me, I know it.
Why are we built this way? I wanted to find an explanation, any explanation, and I wanted to share it with you.
They’re blocked. They can’t get through even if they tried. You don’t want them to — that’s why they are blocked.
So why do we still want them to?
We’ve probably all seen the meme, or something similar, where there’s a photo or gif of a sad person with the text, “When you’ve blocked his number, all socials, email, and Snapchat, and he still doesn’t reach out via carrier pigeon.” 🙁
So it’s not just me. It’s you. It’s all of us.
We want that impossible text.
But how are we expecting this is going to happen, actually? Why do we look at that screen, hoping for a text that would have to break the barriers of space and time in order to get through? Maybe it’s like that letter that Keanu Reeves sends Sandra Bullock in the Lake House. Maybe that text CAN travel from the past, where it wasn’t blocked, to the present, where it is.
Wanting to believe in magic can be powerful stuff.
(If our love was powerful enough it WOULD break science and physics!)
Or do we just hope they are going to text from a new number, a friend’s phone, a work phone? Less magical, but possible. But even though this scenario is less fantastical, it still doesn’t explain why we want them to text in the first place…because if we wanted them to text us, why did we block them?
It’s counter-intuitive. Contradictory. Are we gaslighting…ourselves?
Because we can’t all just be this irrational, right?
But then I realized that it’s NOT always the case that we feel like this when we block someone. I mean — when we block a telemarketer number or someone offering us a cheaper deal on gas heating, we don’t immediately start wobbling and checking our phones, hoping and praying that somehow, someway, the gas company will find a way to call us back.
No, it’s only during relationship breakups that we feel like this.
So why? One answer can be found in grief and loss theory. One in particular — Bowlby’s attachment theory.
We know that blocking them is what is best for us. We KNOW, at least on some level, that breaking this attachment is in our best interests. That’s why we feel that surge of self-love (and perhaps ex-hate) when we do it.
But attachments don’t die that easily.
They fight back. According to Bowlby’s attachment theory, there are three stages to a breakup:
- Protest
- Sadness and despair
- Detachment
So, it all comes down to where in the grief/loss stage — which stage of the breakup — we do the blocking.
You PROBABLY didn’t do the blocking during the ‘protest’ stage because that is when we fight to remain in contact. That’s the 16 calls in an hour stage. Bargaining. Denial.
The Blocking likely comes right at the end of that (when we realize contact is too painful) or at the start or during stage two.
This is the stage where we fall so deeply into sadness and despair, that self-preservation kicks in. They are no good for us. They don’t get access to us anymore.
But attachments don’t just disappear because we hit the block button or because we are really sad. For a while there, two competing sides of our nature are going to be battling a seemingly irrational war. We want them blocked, we want them gone — but we really really want them to text us.
And this stage can last a long time. Days, weeks, months. But the intensity always fades. And the best part? The less contact you have with that person that you were attached to, the faster the attachment fades. Blocking a person, going no contact, can actually help move you through this stage more quickly.
The good news? Once you’ve moved through the first two stages, and you finally reach the third stage, the detachment stage? You are not going to want a text from them anymore.
And then, peace.
In fact, when you reach this stage — you might not even need to block their number anymore.
Because you will be free.
