I'm not sure about all of it either, except that I'm chatting through the site rather than emails. I saw that in the live chat rooms they have the nics colored as blue or pink to designate if someone is male or female (I'm female, 48 if you're wondering.) It does say on the individual's profile on the site which helps to save asking, much of the time anyway. I think it might also be possible to have private messages but I'm not totally sure yet. Still working on figuring it out.