My lack of understanding jokes

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I know that feeling, except I often ask people why that's funny and have them explain them in great details.

In my adulthood I try to drive the conversation and tell lots of jokes myself. If I talk most of the time then I can avoid not understanding other people's talking. If I have to listen I've learned to fake attention and understanding. It's not I don't want to listen, I just can't follow other people's thoughts easily.

That makes sense.

Yes the psychology of jokes is complicated. Personally I've always understood most of them ever since I was a child, unless they made reference to stuff I didn't know about. For some reason, even though I "get" most jokes, the ones I find the funniest are quite hard for me to explain the reason why they're funny.

There's a theory of rebellion in jokes that says the joke comes from something that challenges social norms but isn't so challenging as to offend people. I think there's something in that, but I don't think it explains all jokes.

That makes sense.

I have been known to make jokes in bad taste that insult people. Like a coworker who was divorced from a Japanese woman told us the Japanese translation of some nasty word and I made a joke that the word had something to do with his divorce. Oops, I can read an icy expression however .

One of the earliest complements I got from my father was that I had a good sense of humor. My mother was on the spectrum, I don't remember any complements from her. I tried hard to correct that with my kids even though giving complements doesn't come naturally to me, to put it mildly.

That makes sense.

For whatever reason, my brain functions in a certain way where I end up day-dreaming and thinking of things that happened like years ago, but I still find funny. At times it can bring me to tears. I've only realized in high school that people find this incredibly strange, to just be smiling warmly/intensely at something that is completely out of context, or to be brought to tears when nothing around me is going on.

This must be an autistic thing, or lack of masking because it is a compulsion for me and I really can't help it but I've never had anyone tell me that they do this.

That makes sense.

I almost always get jokes, but occasionally take something too literally and miss the punchline. I crack a LOT of jokes and typically get favourable reactions/big laughter. Just the way my brain works I can be Extremely quick-witted with responses to things and situations that have people laugh Really hard. Some of the jokes I've made have been brought up by friends/old coworkers literally yeeeears later because they made them laugh so hard they're good memories.

Sometimes they're just super quick simple little things, or a play on words, or on the situation at hand etc but they really get a good laugh. Here's a couple examples:

Construction Boss says to me in front of a couple heavy duty equipment operators "Hey, <name>, that German girl that was by earlier was pretty hot, eh?"
Me: "Maybe she has a younger brother."
Those three guys *laugh so hard they double over and damned near fall off the edge of the wall they were standing on* (They didn't know I was gay.)

Same boss one time drove his wife's Honda civic to work (he drives a lifted F-150), him "My truck is in the shop."
Me: "Yeah, that's what I tell people, too."
Him: *laughs so hard he's almost in tears*

Just quick little quips like that that are just my instantaneous reaction to things tend to make people laugh pretty good - in part it's the timing.. when they're just a lightning strike-like reflex reaction type response no one's excepting but they just fit the moment so well they can really make people LOL.

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