broken friend links

So i left my server to avoid an abusive person, i changed the character name, and then some friends begged me to come back, so under my new name i returned. There were no friends listed in my friend list... but the people who i had friended before had my NEW character name in their list. And when i refriended them, they didn't get prompted.

This means abusive person has my new character name in their friend list, i blacklisted them so there's that... But tell me, is this the expected behavior? Maybe my case is rare and odd. Should my new name be on my friends lists, before i even friend them on returning to my old server? And not be on my list at all? Thanks!

Yes that's just how the friends list work. It takes both parties to set up the friends link, but if one person removes it, it doesn't automatically remove them from the other person's friends list. That also means they don't need to confirm when you readd them because as far as they're concerned they already gave you permission/you're still on their list.

Because you are still the same character, when you moved server your name would have changed to "(Deleted)" on other peoples friends list/linkshells (because it doesn't handle cross server friends lists), but when you moved back to the server it would change that (Deleted) back to whatever your current name is (as your character is still the same).

Unfortunately there's no way to check if someone still has you on their friends list, but if you're getting harassment problems, just report them to the Square Enix anyway.

Interesting... thank you... and if it happens again, i will report it. /sigh