Yes, this could be a large undertaking, I know but here goes.
Could we have another nav link on the left called Private Forums. Every user gets a private forum and a little text box at teh top, if you enter a username in there, then your forum will appear under their private forum tab. So let me give you an example. I click on private forums so that Solo, me and Havac can chat. We agreed to use my forum so I add their names. They go to private forums and now they can access their own, or mine. They go in mine and we can all chat together.