unable to chat

Hello, I'm new to the game and I'm unable to figure out how to chat. When I put my cursor in the chat box (global or help), the arrow disappears and the cursor just looks like a line or bar. I can't type anything. I've seemingly tried everything. I don't have any friends yet in the game. Can you only chat if you have friends?? Otherwise I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

http://i39.tinypic.com/v74apg.jpg

In this pic, I'm in the Help tab, and my typing is at the bottom, where it says "type your text here."

Oh sheesh, so simple yet I didn't see it. Thank you, Hobknocker!!

Haha