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Hello, my (internet) name is Avie. I've known about this site for a little over a year, have viewed it occasionally and decided to join today. I have always liked the name--"Wrong Planet." As a child, people would torment me and say things like, "What's wrong with you? Why are you such a weirdo? Act like a human, for once!" And finally, I said, "I am not human. I am an alien. I am here on Earth to observe you and your strange customs." Although I meant it as a joke, it felt really good to be able to say it. Almost like it was the truth.

I have Asperger's Syndrome. I don't dislike it, as it is an integral part of who and what I am. I don't view it as a positive or a negative. It just is. My most prominent source of angst is that I have difficulty communicating with others. It's not that I can't communicate; my command of the English language is highly accurate. Maybe a little too accurate. I tend to speak/write literally. I understand figurative language, but only if I'm heard/read a particular saying at least once and have had it explained to me. This causes misunderstandings that cause people to mistake me for either an imbecile or a sarcastic person. I am neither. When I try to explain, it becomes clear to me that their impression of me is set and cannot be changed.

Aside from, or perhaps due to, the communication difficulties, there's a deep feeling of disconnect and loneliness. Do not misunderstand--I enjoy being alone! Being lonely is a different matter entirely. I enjoy talking/writing with others. I retain almost all information I hear/read and I like to share it--knowledge should never be hoarded! Unfortunately, when I speak/write, a great majority of people filter out words they deem to be insignificant. (My mother often tells me that if I can't tell her something in 25 words or less, she doesn't want to hear it. As a result, she doesn't truly know me.) When I talk to people, I feel as if there's a barrier of some sort. Every once in a while, there's a special person that manages to connect with me. I am truly grateful for them, for however long they are with me. But I still have this feeling of being divorced from any real semblance of a community. It is unpleasant. I hope that in here, I can experience a little bit of what I'm missing out there.

Greetings and welcome to WP!

Welcome.

Hi Avie. Welcome to WP. Hope you like it here!

Although you clearly meant it as a joke and I understand that, saying to people that you are "not human" who you don't explicitly trust almost with your life will not end at all well.

If you don't see yourself as human, other people won't see you as human either and you are therefore giving them a green light to mistreat you.

Don't dehumanise yourself or encourage others to dehumanise you. It's very last thing on Earth you want.

Thanks for the nice welcome messages!

Tequila, thank you for the input! Your reasoning is sound. Others may see the "not human" comment as being self-depreciating, even though I never thought of it that way. It makes sense, though. Most people see humanity as superior over all other species, so to not be human is to be inferior. I still don't understand that concept and, to be perfectly honest, I stopped trying a long time ago. I've accepted that it just is. The alien joke was my attempt at humor when I was a child. I haven't used it since then because it didn't make the teasing stop. It actually got worse until I changed schools. (Probably because they saw it as a green light to mistreat me, as you said.)

As an adult, I only joke with people who know of and understand my idiosyncrasies or with people who have no way to use it against me in a substantial manner. As my therapist has pointed out, humor is useful and healthy. But I have found that it is also culture and language-dependent. Since my use of language (along with my limited use of body language) is often misunderstood, it would follow that in many situations, my humor may be more of a hindrance than a benefit.

Yes, which is why I said it. You're essentially saying that you have no real voice, that you're not one of them, that you aren't like them in the same way as they are. Which is alright when you're talking on simply a social level but in most other contexts is very dangerous indeed. People generally get around to mistreating those they don't see as their equal or their superior. Don't fall into this trap.



Not necessarily, and not always. There are a lot of environments that humans cannot survive in yet other animals manage perfectly fine. But these people generally do not venture into these kinds of environments anyway.



Yes, as I say - all the major genocides and mass murders have only really been able to have been done because the people who were perpetrating them saw their enemies as subhuman and inferior.



Good for you. It seems that you're on the right track.



Not always - it can be used to ridicule, demean, punish, segregate, humiliate, isolate and attack others. It depends on the tone of the joke and of its audience.

Ah, it's a matter of hidden meaning:) I have a bit of difficulty with that. It's as if everyone around me decided that certain words mean other things and elected not to inform me. I know that's not how it really happened, but it feels that way. I never thought of not being human as having no real voice. (Other species command my attention much more than humans.) I thought of not being human as behaving differently and possibly even identifying with other species. As in, it's something that just is. Not better, not worse. Just there. All the same, thanks for the "heads up" on how others perceive things. I'm certainly taking that into consideration now!

I do agree with what you said about certain animals flourishing in environments where humans are at a disadvantage. In the ocean, a human is helpless and the shark is the master. As you said, the people we're talking about wouldn't consider that.

Certain members of my family are notorious for using what my father calls "hostile humor." I don't find that kind of joking healthy at all. Especially because I'm usually the target. Even when someone else is the target, I don't find it very funny. My family's humor is used to belittle and make the target of the joke look foolish. Not fun, not funny. When they start in, I'll go into the other room with a book and forget their existence for a while.

Yes, for example, when I say humour can be demeaning, I'm thinking of a joke like this:

Does that give you a good idea of what I mean or not?