To my original question, is there a way to make them not appear?

I've had different blogs before, all of them public - and not only on WP, but WP is simply still the best!
I'm not complaining here, I'm just suggesting an improvement.

As you know, anybody can find public posts through search engines. More than that, within WP anybody can see any public post simply by browsing topics in the reader, no need to be a WP blog follower at all.
Also, people can have any blog they choose in their (private or public) blogroll and people can subscribe to any blog they choose to receive notifications by email...
There are lots of possibilities for anybody to see the contents of a public blog and that's fine with me as far as my blog is concerned! :)

My issue is about equality, coherence, fairness, principles, whatever we may call it.
If somebody has a private blog, no matter what reasons for it, that's his/her right.
If somebody wants to have only invited followers, that's his/her right too.

But then, and when it comes to WP blog followers, people who have private blogs can choose who to follow them - only by invitation - but they can also choose whom to follow - no invitation at all needed - and that's the point! They can invite and they don't need to be invited, which basically means they get a special treatment. That's not fair and that's not coherent.

I think we should have the option of rejecting followers who have private blogs which we are not invited to, that's all.
They could still see our contents, if they wanted to and by any other mean of their choice, but wouldn't be in our blog followers list and wouldn't get our posts in their reader unless having to search for them through the topics.

But private blogs shouldn't be following others that aren't allowed (invited) to follow them! It seams to me this is a matter of respect and basic Ethics!

Could there be a way of blocking a private blog from following us (at least without asking for it)?

Thank you in advance.

Yesterday I accidentally published a private post (no private information but a standard bit of text I want to add to every post), because after I had written it and made it private, I updated it (and clicked updated). The private setting was gone and it was published. At least I think I have done it that way. I might have done something slightly different, it was late and I'm tired (still :P), but I think this is what I did.
I don't want to test again because I don't want to harrass my (7?) followers with (more) nonsense posts, so I can't check. But maybe you know if you did something similar?

ps: I noticed it was published because I subscribed with e-mail to my own blog, so I see what others see in their mailbox.

I'm hoping maybe someone can explain why a post listed as private could be visible to anyone other than me and possibly list some steps to take to make sure certain posts stay hidden... because so far the "private" distinction doesn't seem to be keeping things private.

Apparently password protection seems to keep it hidden. Any other suggestions?

I't s just confusing to me-- the function of a 'private' distinction, in my mind, would be to keep that particular post hidden from others... why else would that option even be available? In this case someone was able to see a post I had listed as private, and that's a big deal to me because I thought it was hidden from the public.

I flagged this for the staff to help -

Why is someone able to like a private post?

It shouldn't be visible to just anyone if it's listed as private.

Private: Post Title Here

Posts that are marked Private will show Private in the Post title

why would i have to make my entire blog private when i only want certain posts hidden?

i just made it password protected. maybe i'll have to do that to ensure my privacy