Does this ever happen to anybody?

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Often when an NT tells a joke and/or uses sarchasm I take it literally. However, whenever I try to do the same with NT's, they take it literally. Does this happen to anyone else on the spectrum or is it just a result of me being chronically irony-prone?

Yes it happens to me all the time. People can never tell when I'm joking , it probably has something to do with my lack of non verbal language and monotone voice.

Yes, this happens sometimes. I understand sarcasm itself but I can't always tell when people are being sarcastic. When I say something sarcastic - which is fairly often - people generally don't get it. I guess people don't think I have a sense of humor.

Yep. All the time.

This is really funny, I never thought it in that way: NT's are very literal people.

I'm very ironic, when somebody didn't understand me: I used to think was because they didn't have an smart sense of humor, or was the lack of confidence with me in order to laugh about my 'serious joke'

Nice observation!

Dude, this is pretty much daily routine for Autistic folks....

I'd say it has a lot to do with the amount of inflection in your voice. If you have the same tone of voice all the time, it's extremely difficult to tell if you are sarcasm, since sarcasm is basically all about tone of voice.

Yes but sometimes people know I am kidding once they know me.

I am terminally literal.
Add to that a Saharianly dry sense of humor.
So yes: When others are kidding I take it quite seriously and when I am kidding (which almost never happens) others think I'm serious...
Cest la vie.

How do you do to know how monotonal is your voice? Somebody told you?

I mean: I don't like my oun voice in a record, but can't know how normal is.

Same with my gaze, now I know I almost don't see the other people eyes, but I see their mouth. Just don't know how normal they see that.

If people don't get my sarcasm I go extra dry and start exaggerating. They quickly get the point.

i rarely bother to listen to people who talk while they are laughing. most people laugh or smile when they joke, so i know they are joking, but i have no clue as to how it is funny, so i do not smile back at them because i can not fake expressions.

when i joke, i guess i am not really "joking", but trying to say the silliest things i can think of. everyone thinks i am serious when i do this because i remaain deadpan and act in no way different than normal, but they should know i am not serious by the content of what i say
.
an example is when i was at a lunch for some employee who was leaving, i was stuck amidst some ladies who got talking about how hot it was getting at this time of year, and they were going to buy those little battery powered fans that they can put in their handbags for when they go outside. i said nothing at that point, and i imagined that a fan clipped to the visor of a cap would be handy. then i thought it would make me look a bit "propeller head(y)" (which was not an obstacle), but i can not wear hats as they drive me insane within seconds so the idea was out. i was starting to get into a funny mood where i become silly...
anyway, one woman said "i like those little slim line numbers(?) that use one aaa battery". another woman said "oh no! i like more power than that. i like those ones that use the larger D battery". i said "i am thinking about getting a 5 horse power industrial fan with 1.5 metre blades and a 12V car battery welded into it's stand".
they looked at me with puzzlement and one asked "why in god's name would you want such a big fan?", and i said "because i will get very hot lugging it around with me on the streets in summer". she said "oh" and immediately got back to talking among themselves (which was fine because i suspect my inner motive for actually saying it was to excuse myself from their further attention in a way).

another quick example was when i was stuck in a group of people waiting for a meeting to start, and their topic of small talk was global warming and sea level rises. they were specifically talking about waterfront real estate and it's degree of peril. then they got on to how to solve the rising sea levels (yawn) and they all contributed hackneyed ideas they had learned from the media. i said "i think the US government should provide funding to manufacture a quadrillion "shamwows"* and then dump them all in the ocean. you know they soak up 12 times their own weight in water?". someone said "tehh.." and then the door opened and the boss walked in and the meeting started, but they all thought i was serious.

* "shamwow" is a product which has a very intentionally annoying ad in australia at the moment and i think it is an american product. it is basically a chamois type cloth that holds a lot of water.

b9 wrote