We didn't do IM's (this has all been discussed here a great deal before) because the discussions are lost as soon as they are finished. No one who lurks (and they out number the posters by the thousands) would get a chance to learn from the previous discussions. The reason this board has a search engine is so that new people can go back and hopefully get tons of information from previous discussions that will help them.

Also there is a cost function to have real time chats that OCF would have to float and we can barely make ends meet on the donations that we get now.

If everything was real time, people in different time zones particularly like Cookey and those like across the pond or down under would never be part of our discussions.

The board allows you to exchange what information you like privately, that includes phone numbers and chat contacts if you want to. If you look at the who is signed on link on the boards, there are seldom more than 2-5 at a time..... and those may not be the people that you wish to talk to. So you would still be setting up talk appointments.... might just as well give each other your phone numbers or whatever and talk. But if you guys want to IM each other off the boards there is nothing keeping you from doing so and your profile will collect your IM information to display. The biggest loss in my mind is the old threads that are very useful.

And last Suemarie, you are assuming that the person that volunteers to talk with you on the phone actually know something about your situation so that they are helpful, and have the people skills to emotionally support you. The variables in these things from person to person would make the experience sometimes great and sometimes worthless and empty.