The uncomfortable pause between posting something potentially insulting/offensive on chat and posting an emoticon such as :P or ;) as a desperate attempt to mitigate the damage. An emotipause occurs because the poster is worried that the silence from the other end is due to the perceived insult, and hence posts the emoticon after a while as a fire-fighting measure.
When Jake didn't immediately reply to her "I hate you!" chat message, she added a ":-P" after 15 seconds of emotipause.
by eridanus May 1, 2013