Oh, BY, how your post made me laugh.

one of my very favorite AWADers and i began our correspondence, and a great friendship, in exactly that way... we were both in "online" at the same time, and were both strangers, IIRC, so the PM i received a few minutes later (asking me if i felt like a voyeur, as well) was one of the first in my inbox =)

Rapunzel, i use it in exactly the same way you do. if someone (usually max, for some reason; i guess our schedules coincide) is showing "new reply", i tend to hang around to read it.

which brings me to my own question:

Is it just me, or do any of you ever spend WAY more time than you intended to in this forum, only because every time you get ready to log out there's another 'NEW' tag, and it's just too hard to resist??