How To Block Someone On Spotify

It became a daily habit. I opened Spotify, clicked on the search button, then clicked on his username. His list of “recently played artists” showed up. And that was my way in.

This wouldn’t have happened if Spotify had a block feature. I was being so diligent with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Strava and Snapchat (do people still use Snapchat?). I removed and blocked him from all those platforms to help block my urges to look him up. I had to.

I knew I would go to Facebook Messenger to see he was “Active 34 minutes ago”. I would use those time frames to give me an indication as to what time he got up or went to bed. I knew I’d search his name on Facebook to see if he posted in any public groups or was tagged in pictures with mutual friends.

I knew I’d check the Snapchat map to see where his avatar showed up. Sometimes I would be able to pinpoint his exact location (yes – this is a thing, disable if you must!). I would do the same using the Strava app to see his bike routes.

What would I do with all this information? Absolutely nothing, other than fulfill this unhealthy need of knowing what he was up to and how he was doing.

After almost 2 years of the always ill-advised “on and off” relationship, I was finally ready to follow the break-up advice being thrown at me from articles, podcasts, and friends. I disconnected from him in every single way I could.

But then there was Spotify. While I unfollowed him, I still had access to his profile and couldn’t figure out how to block him. I turned to Google for help. Comments like this one made me feel less pathetic about myself as I saw a large calling for this:

“I can’t believe this option doesn’t exist. Blocking exists literally everywhere. Even on Neopets.”.

Seriously! Wait, did I have him on Neopets…

The only actionable thing I could find was a petition that a certain “Liam” started in 2013 asking for this to be a feature in the Spotify Community forums. It got its 14 746th vote from me at which point it was still “under consideration”.

As Spotify works out a blocking feature, I thought I could relish this one opportunity I had left to get a tiny glimpse into his life.

It started off with seeing his list of recently played artists to give me a hint as to how his day was going.

One day, I laughed as I saw the following on his list:

Natalie Imbruglia

Vanessa Carleton

Michelle Branch

He must have been listening to a playlist of early 2000s pop songs. I imagined him dramatically singing along to Torn and A Thousand Miles, putting on his usual theatrics. I hoped he was in a good mood that day.

Another day, I saw Fleet Foxes come up, his favourite band. I wondered if he was going through something. He had told me he often listened to them during a momentous occasion in his life, good and bad. I hoped he was getting through it okay.

Or maybe he was just listening to Fleet Foxes because he felt like it, come on Ayushi.

As I started to see artists we had bonded over, I then used the list to give me a hint to something else. Was he thinking about me?

When I saw The Head And The Heart, I thought about the time we saw them in concert. We had some of “our songs” through them. I wondered if he was listening to Library Magic, one of our favourites.

At the concert, as soon as they started playing the first few guitar chords of that song, we looked at each other and smiled excitedly. Later, we looked at each other again, and smiled longingly when they sang “the best advice we ever received is for you and me to stay together”.

One night, my eyes widened as I saw that he was listening to Neil Young. He must have been listening to Harvest Moon, right? We had slow danced to Harvest Moon on my driveway one late night. Another time was at the end of the Head And The Heart concert. Of all the songs, that one came on as everyone was clearing out. We stayed back, danced, and looked at each other as we smiled longingly again, ending off a perfect night.

Here I was thinking back to some of the most perfect moments in our relationship as I combed through his Spotify. Just a few months ago, I was thinking about the most painful moments that eventually led to my blocking spree. Moments that all happened after we called our final “off” stage and tried to sustain a friendship.

How naive we were to think we wouldn’t bring any of the emotional baggage from the romantic relationship into a friendship. But the grief of letting each other go was too much to bear. He especially was going through a tremendous amount of loss with his family, health, and job. These losses were particularly heightened as they coincided with the loss the whole world was feeling in the middle of a global pandemic.

How could I put him through losing our friendship? But we’d both soon learn that in trying to avoid the grief of losing each other, we couldn’t escape the grievances we were carrying. This friendship was just a fragile security blanket filled with resentments that would air out overtime. And it got ugly.

One time, I accused him of gaslighting me the day after he buried his grandmother who had passed away unexpectedly. The pain in his eyes was palpable as he couldn’t fathom how I could accuse him of this when he was going through one of the most difficult times of his life. I thought about all the texts I sent him impulsively, expressing my disappointment in how he handled things in the past.

Another time, he accused me of weaponizing my anxiety. I thought about the way he validated all my insecurities by saying that I’m not that good of a friend, that I’m not that good at my job. That I failed him by not providing the right supports as he continued to struggle to recover from his concussion. Something I should have been able to do as a healthcare professional who works with this exact population. For someone who had always subscribed to the core belief that “I am not good enough”, hearing him say all that was particularly traumatizing.

And yet, in the truest form of overcompensation, I wanted to fight for the friendship to prove to him that I can be a good friend. He was someone whose approval I always desperately yearned. Eventually, I couldn’t keep up any longer as I realized that his opinion of me was dictating my own opinion of me. I had to let go of my fight response, so I shifted gears to flight.

We stopped talking, and I stripped away all these means of connecting with him. Soon, I stumbled upon the one connection we had left.

It was almost cathartic that Spotify was the one place I could never block him. My connection to him through music could never be truly severed. It was in fact our shared interest in music that facilitated our transition from volleyball team mates to friends to eventually something more, only to go back to being strangers.

While I deleted our 3-year history of communications and pictures, the music remained. I could delete all our chats and all our pictures. But that one text or that one picture could never quite elicit the same feeling I would get while listening to that one song. For so long, I wouldn’t dare listen to any of “our” songs as another way of blocking myself from thinking about him.

At the same time, I wondered if these songs would elicit the same memories and visceral reactions in him as they would for me. On some days, I fell back into this thought pattern of seeking his validation whenever I’d see an artist pop up on his Spotify that we had bonded over:

“He must be thinking about me.”

“Hopefully thinking fondly of me.”

“This must mean he doesn’t hate me.”

On November 10, 2021, Spotify posted an update that they added a blocking feature. It only took 8 years since the initial request was made. After several months of Spotify-stalking, I could finally tie up that last loose end. I clicked on Block.

But I could still see his profile. The only change was him being removed as my follower. And now I only have one follower! Sigh. I’m sure my best friend feels honoured though.

I know I have full control of my actions, but maybe this is Spotify’s way of telling me that music could become the safest way for me to remember the good times in the relationship. I shouldn’t block those out, especially after putting so much energy into thinking about the hurtful times. I can still think back fondly on those perfect moments while putting the painful moments into perspective – that hurt people hurt people.

After denying myself of listening to Library Magic, it popped up on a playlist one day. Instead of skipping it as usual, I let it play. As I anticipated the one line I knew would make me think of him, my attention went to a repeated line I had previously always glossed over: "There will always be better days." How could I have forgotten about the better days?

I know this habit of looking him up on Spotify will slowly but surely fade. For now, next time I see that he’s listening to The Head And The Heart, I can smile as I think back fondly on the better days. While I have no control over what he is thinking, I can only hope that as he listens, he smiles too. And we can both smile with a quiet yet joyful sense of nostalgia. Just no longer at each other.