It appears that you expect from your "friends on italki" to treat you like your real friends do. Do you really think "friends on italki" means "friends" literally? After all - that's just some kind of politeness and conventional style. Or maybe you think it's possible to become real friends just with a few presses of a button? :(

I think the problem might be that one gets too many 'followers' and messages, and one simply can't reply to them all. Some of the followers and messages are very casual "Hi!" types. It seems too casual, maybe. Other messages are too long for a first introduction.

One has to be patient, polite, and just keep trying.

You must understand this. Everyone here are free to reply or not and you also free to do the same. Problem solved

@Georgi So you don't think that you can find real friends the Internet? Really? Why not? You chat with real people who have feelings...just from different countries. What if I tell you that I have found a few friends in social networks? And I met 2 of them in real life. :)))))))))))

No @Nastya, I think you can make friends everywhere, I said only, that just because you do it on Internet, doesn't make it's easier (or faster) for both of you to become real friends. I meant that you wouldn't expect from every acquaintance to respond promptly to all your requests. You said you "found a few friends in social network" - I hope you found much more in real life, right? :)