If I can give my two cents worth--I actually agree with you. Although contrary, to the other posts, I have a different theory why. I do not really know what Scion means by "being afraid of monkeys on the other side" but it sounds very rude in my opinion. I think people do not want to chat either because: a) they know Japanese is not your native tongue (so do most of us) so they doubt if there is a point for blind men to follow someone who is half blind, so to speak; or b) they know your native language is English and would probably chat in English. This gives them the shivers because they are not so confident about their linguistic ability. On a cultural note, Asians are generally--for lack of a better word--shy. I think this holds true, especially if they know they cannot meet what they perceive as ideal. So rather than look stupid--or at least as how they look at it--they would decline or not hazard to strike a conversation at all. I don't know if I am making any sense. In any case, I agree with you.

hi.i hope i can help your questions somewhat. 1st)mojority of my chatmates are male,not famale.so your gender is male,so some famale might be causious to you. (i am famale) 2)some.many people might have difficult time to type because if you type so fast or the level of voca is very high.(while typing,we sometimes have to rely on a dictionary.on the othere hand some people might ask a question like "what do you mean?" and if you answer the question,you might have more chatmates to communicate with. but if you get irrited to be asked,you might lose chances to communicate. 3)if you are very alert,some people might be alert as well.for example,i personally hesitate to communicate with people who belong to religion since i don't know much about that. 4)i might be alert since some japanese become a kind of victims in some countries.japan is generally very safe country compared to other nations as far as i know.some of japanese might be causious to you since visitting your country is not always safe and not easy bucause of your value of currancy and the difference of life style.(sorry if i disturb your feeling)some of japanese might think "why are you learning japanese although japanese is a kinda minor language?"something like that.maybe english is more common language and some of japanese might wonder "why do you wanna learn japanese?" 5)1week is not enough to make some chatmates. this is just my personal answer.i hope this answer somewhat help you.

I don't know.... maybe they do not check their messages on a daily basis? Are you always online? Sometimes it just takes... time hehe.

PS.don't get me wrong.i mentioned that most of my italki mates are male.i also wanna have famale mates to talk to or chat with.but it is not easy to find some famale members to learn english and japanese.why is it?it doesn't mean u don't wanna chat with/talk to male.i wanna learn/practice english.well.it is not the answer to your question although.

simply because we are afraid of monkeys on other side?