* **I cannot stress this enough, but make sure to give every contact a different z-addr (z-address)!**
### HushChat handshake
Alice and Bob first have to initiate the HushChat initial communication handshake otherwise HushChat will not work correctly and you will end up with garbage, like this:
1. Alice asks Bob for a HushChat z-address (z-addr) to start communicating.
<imgsrc="images/hushchat-tab-indicators.png">
1. Bob clicks on the "Zs1" button in his HushChat tab. The result is that the wallet creates a new z-addr and copies it into his clipboard. We'll call this Bob's HushChat z-addr.
1. Bob shares his newly created HushChat z-addr with Alice.
1. Alice receives Bob's HushChat z-addr.
##### Alice adds Bob as HushChat contact
1. Alice clicks on the "add contact" button in her HushChat tab, which is to the left of "Zs1". The result is the "Send Contact Request" screen appears with a new z-addr, which we'll call this Alice's HushChat z-addr. This screen appears as:
1. Bob clicks on the "incoming contact request" button in his HushChat tab, which is to the left of the "add contact" button. Note that Bob sees a red 1 here instead of the zero, as seen above. The result is the "Incoming Contact Request" screen, which is shown here:
1. Now Bob sends a HushChat message to Alice. It may take a few minutes. This process became twice as fast as of November 2020 at Block 340,000, when our block time decreased to 75 seconds.
1. Alice then responds once she receives Bob's message.