Even if your blog has developed a small following of a few dozen friends and random readers, you should probably expect some romantic interest as your posts receive more traffic. Managing a blog shows real intelligence, and let’s face the facts: brains come before beauty in our online lives.

However, flirty comments from strangers might make you particularly uncomfortable. It’s best to set some boundaries to ensure your readers know if you don’t want the attention. If you are dating someone, you can easily make that information known in a post or your blogging profile. Under absolutely no circumstances should you post your personal address or phone number. (That’s just crazy and invites trouble from other crazy readers.)

Of course, there will always be those persistent few who never get the hint and keep posting subtle comments about dinner or even seeing you in your birthday suit. Talk about tasteless. You can always delete an inappropriate comment (your blog, your rules). Also, some blogging platforms have filters that enable you to automatically delete (or cue up for moderation) comments based on a user’s email or IP address.

Unfortunately, IP addresses don’t mean squat when your “fan” can leave a comment from any library computer, or through a web proxy. Avatars are created with dummy email accounts all the time, just to keep admins off one’s scent.

If your standard filters and your relationship status aren’t getting through to the reader who refuses to stop posting lewd comments on your blog, then you may want to take more drastic measures. First, block all their comments – manually, if you have to. Then, completely ignore them, which will hopefully cause them to lose interest and find another writer to pester. And if they still persist, tell them straight up: I’m not interested, and this needs to stop.

Your last resort – taken at your own risk – is to lure them into a trap if they refuse to take no for an answer. If they have a valid email address, contact them directly and try to sound friendly. Once you have their personal information, threaten to contact the authorities. Antagonizing them and scaring them off may be your only recourse sometimes, so if you’ve had enough of their badgering, don’t be afraid to call them out.