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On Facebook I get a lot of messages from muslim brothers who come across my profile who greet me with salam, and at first I used to say waalaykomassalam in response, and then they expected a conversation which was usually regarding how they were looking to see if I was interested in marriage to them. Seeing as I am not looking for marriage, especially by random strangers, now I don't respond to them at all in order not to waste my time having a pointless conversation with them. Is it okay that I am not responding to their salams? I have heard on several occasions that you MUST respond to salams.

Salaam, I would like some advice on the relationship between dream interpretation and Istikhara prayers. I want to ask about marriage proposals and Istikhara. My friend was offered a marriage proposal last year and she and her mom were doing Istikhara prayers almost every week. At first she didn't like this man and she was against the idea of marrying him. When she first started doing Istikhara she had bad dreams and was very uncertain about the whole matter. Then she started to become close to this man and to know more and more about him and slowly she realised that she was becoming to grow fond of him. He had told her that he was becoming fond of her too and enjoying getting close to her. During this time she was still doing Istikhara and then started having very very good dreams about her marriage with him. Dreams that are interpreted to mean a union of two people. But unfortunately, the marriage proposal didn't work out between them because of him, he left her all of a sudden with no valid explanation. So is there a connection between dreams and Istikhara?? When we do Istikhara and have dreams, is Allah speaking through them to us? Or dreams so not count when we do Istikhara?? If my friend was having good dreams about her matter with this man, why did something tragic happen all of a sudden? I want to know because now I feel that I lost all hope in doing Istikhara prayers and I dont feel they will really lead me in the right path anymore. Are dreams really part of our Istikhara, or just our conscious thinking about what's going on in our lives???