To be frank with you, I do not like blocking others on the Internet because of how casual and mindless that can be. If you carelessly keep blocking other online users around you just because you do not agree with them or do not like them much, you will likely end up being stuck in your own echo chamber as dreadful as a sort of hell shown in Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” (2010), and that may make your online life all the more miserable and frustrating.

However, today, I decide to block a certain fellow user on several social network service applications including Instagram because I finally become more honest about this guy’s toxic influence on me after several months. Yes, I tried to have a serious romantic relationship with him during those several months, but now I come to see that what I suffered and endured during this problematic period were occasionally downright abusive in many aspects, so now I decide to block him once for all, no matter what will happen next.

Of course, he seemed to be a pretty nice guy I can hang around with. We came across each other in last October via Grindr, and our first meeting went fairly well as we talked with each other more and more. He is a graphic novel artist who has been known rather well in the gay society of South Korea, and I became more interested in getting to know because of that. In the end, I told him that I would drop by his nearby residence later if I could after an afternoon meeting with some other guy, and I eventually came to notify him that I would come to his residence in the following evening.

Although our first night was not particularly dramatic except lots of cold rain being poured outside, we came to interact more with each other during next several weeks. At one point, I gladly invited him to my hometown Jeonju, and we stayed together for three days in my family residence while my parents happened to be conveniently absent due to their oversea golf tour.

Around that point, there were several small bad signs of which I should have been more aware. Just because of my considerable promiscuity during last five years (My pathetic excuse: I was simply doing a carnal research for firmly concluding on my sexual taste). he often called me “pig whore”, and I let him insult me just because 1) I felt ashamed of my rather messy sex life and 2) I did not know whether he was just making a fun of me. In addition, he blatantly criticized me for bringing him into the family residence without telling anything to my parents, and that certainly made me feel not only lousy and but also unsure about my relationship between him. After all, he lives in Seoul while I live in Daejeon, and, as many of you know, long-distance relationship is usually demanding and difficult besides being quite tricky to handle.

In the end, he announced to me that we were no longer in relationship just because I let him down inadvertently around the end of last year. I was eager to present him to my parents as well as my brother and his future wife, but they stopped my plan at the last minute, and he was not so pleased when I told him about that later. Yes, I surely screwed up things from the start, and I accepted the consequence without much hesitation.

After that point, he and I were supposed to be just friends, but we only ended up exchanging more texts between ourselves during next several weeks, so we came to begin again during that time. We seemed to know and understand each other more, so it looks like we could be much closer to each other than before, and I also adored his pet dog even though I have been a cat person for years.

However, there also came more bad signs to notice. On one Saturday, we were simply supposed to enjoy a little but special exhibition in a nearby art museum near to his residence. I tried to be frank and direct about my opinion about the exhibition as much as possible, but he kept insisting that I did not understand anything because I am snobbish and superficial, and our so-called discussion went nowhere as a result. In addition, he often accused me of flirting with anyone clicking “Like” on my Instagram posts, and he also often told me that I was actually a notoriously promiscuous user on Grindr.

Above all, he confused me more and more during last several weeks. He said we would be just friends at one point, but then he said how much he missed me not long after that, and this happened more than once at least. During the last week of this February, he came to visit me just because he missed me again, and we tried to have a sex later, but he later said that he and I did not click together that much together because I am too fat to be attractive to him.

After that, we were supposed to be friends again, but, what do you know, he approached to me again around last weekend, and he eventually crossed the line today. Just because I was not responding to his texts, he casually hurled very insulting words to me as shown from the picture above, and that made me all the more confused and stressed than before. Believe or not, he subsequently apologized as expected, and he even said that we should meet again during this weekend.

In the end, I finally decided that enough is enough. Although I agreed to meet him during the next weekend, I consulted with several gay friends of mine, and they all confirmed to me that I have been stuck in a very bad circumstance from which I should get away as soon as possible. He was indeed as abusive and crappy as I have always felt, and all of my friends advised me to block him right now without any hesitation.

How could I let this happen to myself? The first reason I can think of is that I was not so serious about my relationship with him from the start. Because a considerable physical distance between him and me, I thought I could simply terminate the relationship whenever I wanted, so I did not take those many bad signs of his that seriously, and I consequently ended up being a classic case of abuse and manipulation. Besides, I am a lot more emotionally vulnerable than I can admit, and that certainly contributed much to this big problem of mine.

I must confess that there is some doubt somewhere inside my mind, but I must also admit that I have not been happy at all especially during last several weeks. There were surely some good times with him (For example, he could be a fairly good fellow movie audience), but I could not help but feel burdened instead of delighted whenever he approached to me for spending time with me, and I often found myself being rather dishonest during my conversations with him. As a matter of fact, he is trying to reach to me right now at this very moment, and I felt a bit queasy in my stomach.

This is my second failure in romantic relationship, but I am glad at least that I can terminate this on my own terms as before. Maybe I am totally wrong about him, but my mind and heart still do not feel right about him at all, and I will soon throw him out from my inconsequential daily life without any compromise. I do not know whether he will not cause any more stress or annoyance to me later, but I can tell you that I begin to feel a bit better as I am finishing this paragraph.

Am I harsh and heartless? I cannot answer that question for now, but my mind is going back to the grand emotional finale of William Wyler’s classic film “The Heirless” (1949). Like Olivia de Havilland’s heroine in that film, I may be destined to the life of solitude and lovelessness in the end, but, despite my big mistakes, I have learned and then get things under control at present just like she did in the finale, and now I am a little less afraid of being alone for the rest of my life. After all, that is a much better alternative than whatever I suffered during last several months, isn’t it?