In the second example, I would do instead:

    if (user.blockingId == otherUser)...

Even if there is some scary logic you would argue you need to hide, I'd go further to say you have a UserLocks module so you can do:

    if (UserLocks.getUserBlockedId(user) == ....

Kind of a hard example to work with because I'm not sure why a user would block exactly one other user, but yep.