He first opened his . He knew blocking was usually hidden in plain sight. He went to his list of conversations, but Priya’s was gone. So he tried the other method: He went to Settings > Phone > Blocked Contacts . There she was, on a list with a few spam numbers he’d blocked years ago. A simple swipe to the left and a tap on Unblock did the trick. One problem solved , he thought. But he also had her on other apps.

Next came . This was trickier. He searched her username. Her profile came up, but all he saw was “No Posts Yet” and a greyed-out Follow button. He tapped the three dots in the top right corner of her profile. A menu popped up, and halfway down, it simply said Unblock . One tap, and her photos, stories, and the Follow button returned to normal.

Marcus’s journey to fix his mistake became a crash course in the quirks of modern communication.