Why are Aspies o slow to pick up on jokes?

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I only have a problem with taking things too literally. Sometimes this makes me seem a little obtuse when I don't realize someone was just kidding around with me, but other than that I "get" most humor. Personally, my sense of humor is very dark, and a bit barbed and cruel. I've long since stopped judging myself on that, because it's something I was born with, not a choice I made. I think I have it in order to balance out my otherwise kind nature, it makes me more complex.

I hear that. I'm a nice guy with a mean streak, though it isn't something I'm proud of. But I am only human after all.

It depends how u say it but i don't mind a bit of banter as i always do it on a cricket pitch.

I generally get jokes, and often don't think they're funny.... especially the ones that do NOT make fun of people nor are based on cruelty. Low-grade slapstick american or european "humour" doesn't do it for me. We British folk have higher standards than that.

And if it isn't dark humour then I generally don't care to laugh besides.... because it tends to be less funny if nobody is getting hurt.

Besides... I've had a lot of people tell me that I'm good with the word-play and witticisms, though they're usually not the ones on the receiving end of them, as if I can ever get away with making THOSE at someone's expense then I will.

Im useless at jokes, and realising they are jokes.

Another thing im useless at is hints.
And social clue sort of things.

Does anyone else struggle to pick up on people being gay?
There have been two people in particular where I've made myself look like a total idiot because I just don't pick up on the clues/hints/whatever they're called. I felt really bad and stupid afterwards because the advice I gave was even more stupid than usual.

People being gay?
I can't be sure if I struggle on it or not, as it isn't often confirmed....

BUT... I'm fully aware of how other people have picked up on folks being gay, and while they can be inconsistant about it, I can make consistant check-overs for such things if necessary.
As such, I believe I have a fairly good judgement on whether someone is homosexual or not. That said... most of the strangers I have thus analysed, I have never seen kissing someone of the same gender for the finalising proof.... so I'm left uncertain in that respect.


If you want one of my "better methods"... watch peoples eyes when they don't know you're doing it. If you have good 3D visualisation skills and a fairly good grasp of geometry (tracing lines and angles in the air with your mind), you can discern very quickly who they are looking at.... and make a log of their eye-movements in your mind. Keep an eye out for what sorts of other people they look at, for how long, and how much it disrupts their general train of process. Gay people will tend to be more distracted by people their own gender than the opposing gender.
Likewise, head movements and changes in tension levels around the shoulders and hands are tells... though I'm not particularly attuned to reading those.

I used to be that way now I do stand-up comedy


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpqXTYI-lIk[/youtube]

Gay-dar, it's called. The effortless ability to detect gays.
Supposedly every straight person has it.

I thought only GAY people were really supposed to have that. Most boys at least USED to be taught not to use certain words or motions, etc... If they DID, they would be ridiculed. I ALWAYS felt odd towards those words. Ironically, one was the word GAY as in "Don we now our GAY apparel.". I had NO idea that homosexuals even existed. YEAH, I know! NAIVE! It also doesn't agree with my idea that perfection doesn't exist.

Anyway, I thought paul lynde( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lynde ) was just weird. I figured that might all be an act simply for comedy. I felt the same about elton john, though I never really saw elton john, but merely jokes about his glasses, etc... As for libarache(sp?)? I didn't know WHAT to make of that person.

AND, though today I would peg them all as homosexual EVEN if they looked different and had different names, etc..., what about rock hudson? I didn't even think he was off or weird. BTW What about Jim Carrey? My new standards bring him close to being taken as Homosexual. He has a girl, JEC(Interesting that her father JIM is JEC also! ), and married within about the normal time. Still, you have to wonder, and many homosexuals DO try to look straight.

I do get many jokes but one sure thing that'll get me laughing is if I see someone fall over walk into something. I know it's terrible and it shouldn't be funny but I can't help it. lol

I have got very used to smiling at the right point in the joke, even if I dont find it funny - particularly useful in france where often I dont even follow the words properly, and just smile either when everyone else laughs, or when the tone of voice has indicated a lead up to something.

I do tend to take things seriously even though I know they are jokes though. The other day there was a strange noise coming from someone else's computer and the person next to me said it was my cell phone. One part of me knew they were only joking, but I still had to say 'I dont have a cell phone' in protestation. And this happens fairly frequently. Maybe Im a bit of a joke destroyer.

some jokes are body language oriented, i see people studying the joke teller, they do something and everybody but me laughs

Marty moose, you are one funny guy!

You are so good.

My husband is Aspie and is SO good at telling jokes. Actually, many people don't get his jokes. He uses a lot of analogies in his jokes. I am the one who often doesn't understand jokes, but I am ADHD and generally a scatterbrain. Poor hubby.

He just told a joke. We were talking about a movie that is kind of slow (for me), and he said "You have to wait for the climax." I said something stupid and he said, "You have to get through a lot of cinematic foreplay before the climax..." but it was better than that. He says stuff like that all the time. He seems to relate via riddles and analogies. To get his point across, he tells me some kind of funny analogy. I am cracking up all the time. It kind of makes up for the lack of eye contact.

I get almost all jokes. I find that NTs are more easily offended and literal-minded than I am.

More importantly, I can take a joke, and that's more than I could say for most people.

I can take a joke, but I can also take an insult. There's a difference between a joke and an insult. You'll know the difference when you hear it. Jokes amuse, insults offend.

I’m one of those people who get’s accused of not getting jokes because I simply don’t register them correctly. I almost always understand jokes when I hear them in their entirety, yet in noisy social situations I can never completely follow what people are saying. When NT’s get really animated they tend to start laughing extremely loud and talking all over each other. This creates an indecipherable cacophony to my ears. The end result, I'm always left out of the loop.

Most common jokes don't make me laugh anyways. I'm usually slightly amused by them but it takes something a bit dark/absurd or slightly off-color to give me a real belly laugh. I have a taste for humor that other people either don’t get or find offensive. I mostly just keep my lips tight around people and indulge in my sense of humor privately.