There is nothing more dreadful than ‘liking’ something you’ve never intended to like (not in a million years) especially from a post made by someone you certainly don’t want to have anything to do with. I know, I know…. you’re all probably asking, “then why are you even in that person’s timeline to begin with?”

Here’s the complete scenario. Over a year ago, I had an altercation with someone on Facebook over a demeaning status post he made about a street beggar who was allegedly ‘inconveniencing’ him while dining out. The post was hashtagged which meant it was supposed to be made public. Anyone who sees it has the right to give their two cents about it. Well, knowing me,  I did, and it sparked a debate between us, where at one point, he made some threat in one of his comments to his friends that he was going to use his gun on me. Long story short, the feud was cut short as he deleted all the posts he made about me, and I refrained from retaliating. We have moved on from it but we never really became friends both in Facebook and in real life.

Now, years have passed, I have a really good friend who has recently become the subject of that same person’s madness. I was told of the whole story and how it all came about. My friend sought the help of a legal counsel and was advised to gather as much evidence as she could which meant doing screengrabs of the posts while those were still up on his timeline. I thought I would help out with screengrabbing, but I was using a Samsung phone which screengrab process requires me to press both the right button that is the POWER key and the middle and lower button that is the HOME key at the same exact time.

I was on the third screengrab when my right thumb unconsciously pulled away from where it was supposed to be and ended up accidentally “liking” one of the mean posts he made about my friend. As soon as I heard the click sound effect, I freaked out and immediately “unliked” it. But I was already in sheer panic! I have never been back to that profile after the altercation, not even a peek… but just this one time when I did, I screwed it up and made him aware that I was just there lurking!

The first thing I did was blocked him, half hoping that blocking him would prevent him from getting notified of the “like” activity I made. But I stopped and thought it all through. I am pretty sure that even if I blocked him, the notification would have already been sent to him and my name would have already been shown. If he clicked on the notification, he would only be led to what was liked, but he won’t be able to view my profile anymore; which was pretty obvious to him that he got blocked immediately.

I can only imagine the smirk on his face upon realizing that I did go to his profile and accidentally liked his post but was coward enough to make it known. And I certainly am not a coward and I am not afraid of him at all! I just do not want to go through another episode with him on Facebook. He, as I look at it, seems to be very proud to share his dirty laundry in social media.

Do take note that it was two in the morning when it happened.  I unblocked him and decided to test how the like/unlike process really works. I logged in to my son’s FB account in my computer while I remained logged in to my own account in my mobile. Watching the FB newsfeed of my son in front of me, using my mobile, I liked and immediately unliked one of his posts. I read in some of the article that there’s this grace period when a notification is sent after you have liked something. That is not true at all! Because as soon as I hit the like button from my FB mobile, my son’s notification lit up immediately and showed my name on it. It therefore follows that if the guy was online exactly the same time I liked his post, it would have shown up and he would have seen it. Even if he wasn’t in front of his computer at the time, as long as he is logged in, the notification would pop up and would stay there.

Now, I logged out of my son’s FB account from the computer while I remained logged in to my own account in mobile. I, once again, hit like and immediately unliked another of my son’s post. Then I went to the computer and logged in to my son’s account. Upon logging in, there was no notification at all. Tried it three time and the results are all the same. They have to be logged in to see the notification despite immediately unliking the post.  But if they were not logged in at the time the like/unlike action happened, they won’t even notice anything happened the next time they log in.

And I did the math. It was 2am. I don’t really think he’s like me who sometimes works online at 2 freaking AM! He’s probably out getting hammered somewhere or had probably already dozed off. So if the same thing happens to you and it’s not after midnight, just pray to all the saints that the person is NOT logged in to his account.