The issue is related to how the chat function has been incorporated. The programmers of many gnutella client programs have not put a lot of thought into the chat function b/c it had a lowish priority. Some people don't enable chat either due to ignorance or simply because they don't want to receive chat from a stranger. You'll find LW users are the most likely to enable chat.

By the way if you don't like mac then stick with the ever so reliable M$ windows machines. lol