I don't respond to a “brand new” user who sends me a very brief and very general message, especially when I can't tell who they are from their page, because in 99 % of the cases like that, their accounts get deleted soon or become completely inactive (maybe they abandoned the account); I mean, I suspect they're scammers. I don't reply and just watch them until they vanish; I guess I've seen more than 100 accounts disappear like that, and they all claimed to be male. Why don't you pretend to be a pooch if you seriously want to lure me into something?🤔 The recent trend is that they first follow me, like my Moments, and then send me a message. I don't reply and just wait and see, then yeah, they also just vanish (get deleted or stop being active). The sneakiest one was a guy (?, they claimed so) who left a few comments on my Moments. He sounded kinda cheerful. After the conversation on my Moment, he started to message me, I replied, and he started saying he was too busy to log in to HT so he wanted to connect with me outside of HT. I politely declined, but he insisted. I declined again and stopped responding. He said he came from LA and had worked in Tokyo for a year, but he didn't have a very basic knowledge of Japan, plus he asked me something that real Americans would never ask. I doubt he's American. And his account got deleted too. I also don't respond to a very simple and general message, hi how are you, are you Japanese, or something like that. I'm the type who takes the time to learn about someone before starting to message them. I guess there is no right or wrong way to use this opportunity on HT, but I believe we’ll find a better match if we look for someone who takes a similar approach. Happy learning!