The idea of the "Hide" feature is interesting, in my opinion it prevents the possibility of blocking people without reason. However, it should be improved, in fact to get the "block" back it is sufficient to put the user in the favorites, or write a simple "hi". To make the hide truly effective there should be an interaction between people (e.g., at least 5 messages exchanged), so I would at least wait for the other person to respond, otherwise it is easy to get around the idea of the hide.