Merit is what you received, Merit you can send is called Smerit. When you receive 1 Merit, then you will have 0.5 Smerit, but it won't show up, you need at least 2 Merit, then you will be able to see your 1 Smerit and send it to anyone.
I didn't understand Merit at first, but it became easy to understand when you had Merit. You only need to post some high quality posts and you will probably get them.