During your time in chat rooms, chatting may slow down or a topic might get dull and boring. At this point in time, you may want to initiate a conversation. Doing so may seem challenging, but it's really not all that hard.

A good idea for starting a conversation is to select a general topic that engages everyone. Maybe you'll want to bring up a local current event issue if you're in a geographic-specific chat room. Or, you can bring up national or international current event issue if you're in a chat room with people from all areas. You can also always discuss something that relates to the theme of the chat room, if there is one. Discuss religion or what it's like to be a single senior. The choices are endless.

At some point, you may also want to initiate a one-on-one conversation with a user. Start off by saying hello. Wait for a response before continuing. After receiving a response, ask a question. Start with something simple like, "How are you?" Then move on to more detailed questions like, "What do you do for a living?"

One-on-one conversations are how you will establish connections. Use chat rooms effectively as dating tools and don't be intimidated or scared by initiating a conversation.

When you're in single chat rooms and suddenly a conversation dies, you may be left wondering why. Like in life, people often run out of things to say and the silence grows awkward. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to rekindle a conversation. Here are some tips:

• Ask a few more questions. Make sure they are not "yes" or "no" questions or questions that won't open up a conversation.
• Go back to previous topics. Look through your chat window, and bring up topics that you merely touched upon before. Maybe you can ask your online friend to explain more about what their job entails or what it was like growing up in their hometown.
• Bring up topics of common interest. For instance, starting talking about a mutual hobby or interest.
• Discuss current events. Choose topics that are hot issues in the news. If you choose something that's not common knowledge, and the person you are communicating with isn't media savvy, the conversation will die quickly.
• As a last resort, you can ask "what if" questions. What would you do if you won one million dollars? Where would you go if you won a free vacation? These questions are not only entertaining, but they give you a chance to get to know more about someone's personality, too.

During your experience in chat rooms, some things might come up that you don't know how to react to. Here's what to do:

If someone ignores your messages

Don't sweat it. The person is obviously not interested, so there's no point in wasting your time and energy on them. Don't take it personal, there could be a hundred reasons why they aren't responding to you. Simply move on and begin chatting with someone else.

If a fight erupts in the chat room

If a heated disagreement starts in a chat room, the best idea is to ignore it. If things don't settle down after a little while, you'll probably want to leave and enter another chat room. People disagree about a lot of things, and some people like to start online fights. Since you are interested in online dating, engaging in a chat room fight is just a waste of time.

If someone is harassing you online

If you've been messaged by someone from a chat room and aren't interested, let them know. If they proceed to contact you and even resort to insulting or provoking you, ignore them. Either block their name or messages or contact the chat host and report them.

If suddenly have to leave in the middle of a chat

Maybe you just received an important phone call or remembered you had an appointment to go to, whatever the reason sometimes things happen and you suddenly have to leave a chat room. If you are in the middle of a good conversation with someone, briefly explain the situation before leaving.