Quote Originally Posted by robbermagnet
What would be the real time equivalent of brackets? Do you think it's something that naturally develops in a relationship, or is it a skill that can be taught?
I'm not sure exactly what the first part of the question is but to try to answer what I think it is ...

On-line the time taken to type the brackets was .. er .. the time it took to type the brackets. In real life it really is a mix. Sometimes it may be one or two words, or maybe a whole 'break' could be thought of as being in brackets. So anything from a few seconds to maybe 15 minutes.

The second part of your question is easy for me, although it may be different for others. It developed naturally as we went along, although it was started by lucy. I think that it could be taught but would depend on the people involved.

It is such a good way of getting over thoughts and feelings that we now use it in normal chat online as a way of saying our underlying feelings without 'hurting' the other person. Its almost that what we write in brackets is 'privileged' information and therefore cant be used against you in an argument (its not quite like that but I cant think of any other way to describe it).

We have even managed to partly transfer this to real life conversations although it tends to end with laughter as the whole thing gets too silly to sustain, with us saying "in brackets of course" after each sentence until we forget what the original discussion was about.