for your own sanity, use the damn block button.
don't engage trolls or provocateurs, block them and move on.
if you're on here you probably don't like algorithmic feeds, guess what not having one means? The block button actually fucking does something! so use it to moderate your experience.
My problem with "blocking" on many platforms is that all it does is mean you don't see their comments. But if they can still see yours and reply to them, you leave yourself at a disadvantage where to outsiders it may seem as though you had no response, and thus they appear to have "won".
and? so what? getting the last word in isn't everything.
For some, a temporary lack of self growth; for others, certain mental illnesses. It's as awful as it sounds if you really sit and imagine. The self awareness needed to rise above some of that? Many will live and die never having reached it.
The misguided brain can hang itself up on nearly anything, and for many it's the semblance of validation. There is quantifiable pain behind the need to interact for some people.
This is the poison at the heart of all social media: the sick social cycle of victim punishment
the people who think that "no response" = win aren't going to engage with what you post regardless, why take the time to respond to someone who categorically will not listen or care?
if you have a comeback that will leave them shitting and pissing or that you think will cause onlookers to slightly chortle then by all means go ahead, i love a good joke, especially ones directed at cunts, but make sure that it remains just a joke. that you're not checking your notifications half-hoping that some rando on the other side of the planet left a brand new reply for you to epically pwn.
speaking from experience it is not a worthwhile use of anyone's time
On the platform formerly known as 🐦, there was the option to completely block a user (mutually invisible), not only muting (invisible for me) them, which avoids this problem.