Private Numbers.

I've always hated private numbers. When they call you, you never know who it is until you pick up the phone. The whole reasoning behind caller ID was to identify the people who call you ahead of time. It leaves too much mystery, and that's possibly why people just don't bother to pick up blocked calls. 

When a friend is like a private number, it's hard to deal with the entire relationship. You never know what to expect from them. You could have the best time with them one day, and it could make you believe that times like that are what keep your friendship in tact. Other moments might be more disappointing, and you'll question what it really is that keeps you around. In the end, you realize who they are...you realize who you are.  If the friendship ended because of negativity, you find yourself wondering what you would have done had you have known who "your friend" really was. You wonder if they would have befriended you had they known who you were, too. Of course, people naturally put up a "private block" in order to protect their interests.  And the image they convey is what they'd like to be, but not necessarily who they really are. 

The point behind private numbers is to hide who you really are, and if that's the case, it represents how scared you can become to let others know of you. There's a certain dishonesty that leaves others with disappointment due to unfulfilled expectations. There's nothing wrong with a private number until you let it hurt someone else.  If the issue you're hiding could be detrimental to another, it's important to be honest about it all.  People should have a right to know whether they want to pick up the phone, and ultimately allow that person to talk to them, so to speak.
 

In the end of it all, we want the option of not picking up if we feel the circumstances aren't right. The same goes for any kind of relationship. We should all be able to determine who we do and don't want in our lives.  When people put up these private blocks, they sneak into our lives without any real consent, and that's what hurts the most.