I went in a few times and there was never anyone there when I did. I even let it stay in all day once and no one came in the whole time so I stopped.

I think an issue is that people are just stepping in for short bits of time mostly and then leaving. Pretty much all "successful" chat rooms I have been in tend to have a "base" of idlers who just stay logged in continually. Then occasionally they may start a conversation, or someone new comes in and starts a conversation up. When no one is in there, people just don't stick around. And I've sometimes seen people enter into other chat rooms, say something and then not get a reply for say 5 minutes and leave, only to have someone say something the sixth minute before they realize the other left.

This is why I don't chat.

I feel more comfortable within the discomfort of dealing with a person face to face because I tend to read the unconscious communication between myself and others much more than the spoken words.

I say the discomfort of dealing face to face because it took me a long time to become comfortable in meeting someone new and I'm not sure if I have still mastered it.

I read people better when I am directly talking to someone or looking at someone who is looking at me.

I can instantly pick up the mismatch when someone says something but deep within felt a different way about it. (I believe that we all pick it up but have habitually chosen to ignore and dismiss those clues)

The ability to stay anonymous and answer the occasional question allows me to hide from the rest of you that most of my answers are not that good.

My technique of answering a question for the most part doesn't work in this type of medium because when I put down the answer I am actually talking it out into words in real time.

It is as if we are sitting in a room and I am telling you what I think.

Ah... but then you say, hey wait a minute, that’s exactly what chatting is all about, so what's the problem?

The problem is that (as I said before), I am embarrassed to share all my answers because most of them are not worth reading and when I do the spell check and edit for grammatical errors I discover that it is either already covered by someone else or that it has nothing to do with the question; not to mention ideas that begin great, but go nowhere as they are unraveled.

And lastly, an occasional dip into this inward quest is all I need for I never made this journey of transformation with an expected outcome or destination.

I discovered some time back that when you try to demand inner growth from yourself you weave a tangled web of expectations and disappointments.

It seems that at every step of the way simplicity and the release of expectations is what has allowed understanding to take place.

To me that simplicity is to do only what I feel and not do out of obligation.

Being anonymous and not being obliged towards anyone here allows me the freedom to disappear and have time for myself without having to explain it or feel guilty about it.

So that's my excuse and it works for me.

I went in a couple of times. The first time, nobody was in there. The second time, I saw you and Whit Tiger, but no chatting. I had never been in a chat room before. I did say something, but didn't see any other replies. Also, I logged in and kept the window open while I was on other pages, so I don't know if I missed anything.

Just speaking for myself Jai, but I prefer the format of putting a question out there on IQ and receiving responses from a wide group of people as they have time to read it and think it over, as opposed to popping into a chat room, posing a question and having perhaps just a couple of people to talk it over with, and that would be whoever happens to be there. We are a varied group and have contributors all over the world, so there are time zones to consider and etc, as far as finding people you would like to chat with live. I hope this made sense, but the bottom line is that I don't plan to be on the chat much, or at all. For those of you who were hoping for a more lively chat room, I do hope it will pick up soon.

Well maybe Simon (the owner of this site) could consider this alternative: instead of a link to a chat box, maybe just put a random shoutbox at the top or bottom of this site where people can just type random stuff or talk to each other if they wish to, it is what I have seen worked pretty well on some other sites and forums.

I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement though since there are obviously some issues and limitations to the script Inwardquest is running on.

i think it is not working because i have went in the chat fairy princesse and someone else was there i have write and nobody answer. so i think it does not work or people do not want to talk.