Note that Chat and Social settings are kept for each character, so if you roll more than one, don't forget to set them again on the new one. The defaults have you see all the chat, and not automatically decline duels. You won't automatically accept either, but you'll have to hit the "decline" key manually. There's a lot of other per-character settings, but those two have most effect.
If you have friends
then you'll see when they log on or off in the chat box. Fellow Guild members are not automatically friends.