Okay so I am seriously confused please help.?

[Emma B]

Right well I got twitter okay and I always thought that if you send someone an @reply they can only get it if they are following you. But what I have just seen is someone sending @reply's to people following them but they are not following this person and do not have direct message enabled so how is this person getting the message to reply to if they are not following the person they are replying to.

for example lets say we have two people called bob and sam. sam is following bob but bob is not following Sam. Bob does not have direct messaging enabled. So i go onto Bobs page and find he has sent an @reply to Sam. How has Sam got in touch with Bob for Bob to reply to him?

[The Girl]

twitter profiles are open so anyone can respond to anyone!