You send a private messgae either by clicking the pm button on the persons post that you want to pm or you cna click on your mailbox button and select new message. If you don;t know someones "handle" you can select look for name or some such.
If you have a pm it's usually indicated down in the lower lerft hand corner fo the screen, or you can move you;r pointer to the mailbox buttton and it will tell you how many pms you have. After you send a pm, if you look in your outbox and you see it's still there it hasn;t been read, if it's not there it has been read.
dun