# Connecting with other members

**Category:** [Community](https://help.totalctrl.app/hc/totalctrl/totalctrl-help-center/en-US/categories/community-1)
**Updated:** 2026-10-04

## A connection is between two people

Visit another member's profile and press **Connect** to send them a connection request. There is no admin or Group scoping here — it is a private, peer-to-peer relationship, the same shape whether the two of you share a Group or have never crossed paths before.
### Accepting, declining, and asking again

The person who receives a request sees it in their **Connections** inbox and can accept or decline it. Declining is not permanent: if either person sends a new request later, it simply becomes pending again rather than being refused a second time.
### Messaging

Once a request is accepted, a private message thread opens between the two of you — reachable from the Connections inbox or the **Message** button that replaces **Connect** on that person's profile. Nobody else, including community admins, sees the messages in that thread; an admin's audit trail records that a connection was requested and accepted, for abuse investigation, but never the content of what was said.
### Notifications

A new request, an acceptance, and a new message each send an email, gated by the recipient's own “Connections” notification preference — unlike an event cancellation, nothing here is urgent enough to override someone who has turned that category off.

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## Related Articles

- [Track community analytics](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/track-community-analytics)
- [Registering for an event, and the waitlist](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/community-events-registering)
- [Moderate posts and comments](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/moderate-posts-and-comments)
- [Community events you can subscribe to](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/community-webhooks-and-api)
- [Groups: sub-communities with their own admins](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/community-groups-overview)

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