Presumably the person just thought you might like to chat. If you don't want to receive IMs (instant messages) from strangers, you need to change your settings.. . On your main Messenger screen (where your friends are listed), go to the Messenger menu (top left), then choose Preferences. A screen will pop up. On the left hand side, you'll see a list of "categories" - General, Alerts and Sound, Appearance, etc. Click on "Ignore List". This shows a new option: you can choose to either "ignore anyone who is not on my messenger list" or "ignore only the people below". If you choose "ignore anyone who is not on my Messenger list" it will do exactly that, and you won't get any more messages from strangers.. . A danger in adding someone is that *if* on the odd chance they're trying to hack your computer, at the point you add them, you open a "back door" into your system (so I'm told). I don't understand exactly how this works, but to my knowledge, unless you do this, or send or receive files via IM, you should be safe.. . If you're having problems while chatting in actual chatrooms, there are more alternative solutions. Let me know, and I'll elaborate.. . Hope that helps. :)