chat response that has me mystified
It means “I have a unibrow, a smirk, and a huge zit”. On the other hand, -# means “I’m a left-handed person with a unibrow, smirk, and Chex Mix stuck in my beard”.
What was the context of the response?
You could have…asked the person you were chatting with what they meant?
Well, |-| supposedly means asleep.
cite
Based on that … perhaps the emoticon in the OP means “asleep with drool hanging out of mouth”. Or, by extension, “bored”.
Google has nuthin, so I’m reduced to wild guesses. Here’s my guess:
:dubious:
That is, it looks to me like a mouth twisted up in a Church-lady skeptical expression. Sort of.
Daniel
She had just won a poker hand. (I say “she” because her game name is Debra.)
I said: Nicely done!
She replied: /-/*
Yes, I suppose I could have, but I didn’t.
Not to be flippant, but why didn’t you just ask her what it meant while you had her there?
Wait, wait. Are these American smilies or Asian?
I usually do in situations like this, but forsome reason, I was inhibited. It was as if everyone at the table knew and I didn’t. Stupid,of me.
It just occurred to me…
When I go back there (Ultimate Bet) to play, I’ll not chat at all until someone congratulates me for winning a hand and I’ll reply */-/
**
If someone asks what it means, maybe I’ll answer: I have a unibrow, a smirk, and a huge zit.
Anyone got something better? 
My interpretation of that emoticon, in the context given, is a further extension of even “bored”. Probably means something like “nothing to get excited about, not a big deal”.
see how effective it is!
Sorry. I should have given you credit for your line in my previous post. I took it for granted that everyone would have seen your gag, but on second thought, we all know that many of us just read the OP and have at it.
To me, it looks like Humphrey Bogart with a fedora, a popped up collar and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
*What doe /-/ mean? **
Let’s meet in Pisa and discover gravity.
If it came across my IM, I’d assume that my son had downloaded a set of smilies that worked on his machine but not on mine and that had devolved into it’s underlying text command. Which would mean that it could have been meant to be anything, and may have been meant to be animated.
The chat screens at the Poker sites I’ve visited are pretty simple,which might rule out animation possibilities.
If I see her again, I’ll ask her what it means.
Isn’t this a variation of ^_^’ ?
That is, the asterisk is an anime/manga “sweat drop”.
See: Manga iconography - Wikipedia
Just my theory.
If so, then the intent is a sort of “aw, shucks!” embarassed reply to your compliment.