Keep Your Friends close and your Enemies on your Follow List

Dear Cybersorter,
I regularly check my followers on Twitter every four to five days. If I find someone has unfollowed, I usually do the same. I just find it rude. I noticed that @namewithheld had unfollowed me, but noticed that I wasn’t following him either. I thought it was some mistake on my part, so I refollowed and sent an apology to him.
We had exchanged tweets only last week about how the joy of being on Twitter was the chance to debate different viewpoints. This is why I am surprised that he seems to have blocked me. I’ve tried to follow again, but when I check back, I’m not following.
How can you find out if you have been blocked? To be honest, I don’t really care, but I’ve read that if you are blocked, it affects Twitter apps. I haven’t been able to access my Twitter for iPhone app since yesterday morning, which is annoying.
As for @namewitheld, I’m not worried about him. He’s a bit nuts, and I enjoyed reading his hysteria but it doesn’t worry me if he has blocked me. Losing my Twitter app for 24 hours did annoy me though.
– TM

Dear TM,
Sometimes when people set out for their day on Twitter they could use a mummy figure, a big bird – if you like – to remind them to play nicely with the other tweeps.
Your Twitter row sounds remarkably similar to those occasions when conversation gets heated in a bar. Then, perhaps someone steps in or one of you becomes reasonable, everyone shakes hands and backs off. Afterwards, though, both parties call each other various forms of eejit to everyone else and threaten to deck them if they ever come within swinging distance again.
The joy of the nearly-bar-brawl has been moved on to Twitter, only, when we are being pointed on Twitter, in only 140 characters and with a thin veil of pseudo-sophistication, we can come across as sharp.
It is passive aggressive to admit to the benefits of engaging with differing opinions and then cut dead anyone who disagrees with you, but since you are not keening the loss it also doesn’t matter.
With regards to your Twitter app, one person blocking you should not affect it, it’s more likely you merely needed to update the app or that it had crashed for that period of time.
You can now easily check if someone has blocked you by clicking on their profile and clicking the “Follow” button. This will explicitly tell you if you have been blocked.
If he was particularly vindictive he may have blocked you and reported you as spam. Twitter’s Trust and Safety team investigate reports of spam and shut down spam accounts. However, one malicious report will not get you cut off from anything.
I’m curious about your policy to unfollow tweeters who unfollow you.
While there is sense in basic manners, would it not be good to know what your enemy is thinking? Keep your friends close and your enemies on your follow list, unless, of course, they’ve blocked you.