http://www.aim.com/help_faq/starting_out/getstarted.adp#6_12 That's the link that tells you how to block people on aim. Make use of it if you need to. In case you didn't know there's also an invisible mode where you don't appear on peoples buddy lists but you can still chat with people. Be careful with that though; if somebody looks up your profile it will show up even if you're invisible (if you're offline it won't show up, thus people can still tell whether or not you're online even if you're invisible). If you have a gmail account chances are good that when you check your mail you'll show up as being online on the gtalk network. At the bottom of the page there's a link that says 'Standard without chat.' Clicking that will get rid of the chat features of gmail. Also, if you're trying to not talk to someone, spending lots of time on facebook (remember the news feed) or even worse, posting pictures from parties or other events that you recently attended isn't advisable. It's difficult I know, but these are the things you need to be aware of. Hope that's helpful. Talk to you all soon. Or maybe not :-)