difficulties with humour

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I'm trying to work out how to overcome my difficulties with humor

my insight into what my problem is specifically is limited, but I have a general idea.

To start with I have genuine difficulty working out if people are joking or not, there are many forms of humor that I find entirely alien.
A "joke" is generally OK, I don't often find them funny but I at least know by context when someone is making them, but it gets harder when people are begin witty, dry or indirect with their humor.

Often I offend people by laughing when they are not intending to be funny, often when people say something that is factually incorrect, or by hammering in a self depreciating joke.
Frequently someone will tell a joke (or even using language colloquially) and I will instinctively take the meaning as entirely literal, for instance today one of my co-workers said someone was "sticking their head in the sand" and I missed the point entirely, it left me wondering where the sand was, and why the person in question would do such a thing.

Sarcasm though is my greatest struggle, my success rate correctly interpreting sarcastic remarks is not much better than 50/50

people often find me amusing, but while I try to be good natured about this it is often amusement derived from my personal difficulties and it does not make me feel very good.

Though some mirth can be derived from these struggles, it presents a real barrier for me socially and often leaves me embarrassed.
I have tried finding some kind of technical guide to help me, but I have to this point had little success

How did you discover that "sticking your head in the sand" was just a phrase? You understand now that it was just a phrase for you to make this post, so where did that knowledge come from? The next time someone says that you'll at least know it is just a phrase and not to be taken literally.

Oh look I knew the phrase, but even then it's hard to break away from a very literal understanding of English,
most of the time I can work it out but the time it takes me means I can't respond appropriately.

And that's under ideal conditions, when i'm tired, stressed or overloaded it just gets harder,
on a busy day at work telling me a joke will just get you a blank stare.

I hope that you're aware that that phrase comes from what ostiches supposedly do: stick their heads in the sand to escape predators like lions. Which of course doesnt work. Just wondering if -in that particular case- the problem is that you dont know the derivation of the phrase (its easier to imagine an ostrich burying its head in the sand than it is to image a human literally doing that).


But be that as it may- what you're saying is that even when you know the expression you still have trouble making the intellectual leap when someone uses the phrase the way its commonly used- metaphorically. And you cant help thinking about your human coworker sticking his head into a sand dune at the beach, or something like that.

Gosh.

I have got a really strange suggestion.

What might help is some kind of mental training to limber up your mind to be quickly attune to nonliteral word usage. And the best way to do that might be to take some kind course in reading poetry. And instructor guiding you in discussing poetry, which involves mutiple word meanings, might be good training. Just a thought.

I am pretty good at getting a lot of humor and sarcasm.
But not necessarily right away.
Lots of times I have to learn what it means or how it is being applied, and then apply it the same way myself.
Almost daily I have to look up a word or phrase to better understand what is being said.
The online Urban Dictionary is often a big help.

When I was 15, I had trouble getting all but the most blatant sarcasm.

I had a good, but limited, sense of humor.

I don't take things literally like that. Once somebody said a saying I had never heard before (can't remember what it was now), but it was obvious that it wasn't literal, so I worked it out within 1 second and responded correctly. I mean, it isn't rocket science.

A few weeks ago at work a lot of us kept making little mistakes one Monday morning, and one of my co-workers said jokingly, "shall we all go home, and start again?" and we laughed. I knew right away that she was joking, but in my head I had a picture of us all actually doing it; all putting our coats on and saying bye to each other then all going home, then coming straight back to 'start again'. But I don't know, maybe everybody pictures the literal meaning which makes the joke funny.

I've always had trouble with jokes and taking things literally, and people can give you a hard time about it. I tend to still picture a literal interpretation of a phrase like "head in the sand," even though I've learned what the person means by now. If you're looking for something to say, try to practice what they call quibbles in Shakespeare. These are misunderstandings based on puns. He'll often have a character say something, and another character will interpret the first statement literally and then continue it literally, which leads to humorous confusion between them both. You could enjoy the exchange both literally and as a figurative expression of some idea or feeling.

This can be difficult at work, because you may have to catch yourself from saying a funny joke some would find offensive or they may think you're mocking the person when you're just amused at the idea of something (this gets me strange looks sometimes). I would tend to say something in a mock thoughtful voice like, "Yes, he's always digging around like that."

I have achieved a decent skill in recognizing humor and sarcasm.
This is most likely due to my musical training: i am able to distinguish the different inflections associated with such non-literal language.
Of course, this only works well with people i know well enough to have a "baseline" for, but it is still accurate enough to give me about 80% success rate with complete strangers.

This skill works two ways: i am also able to produce such inflections to indicate that i'm joking or being sarcastic towards other (NT) people (whether i'm actually joking or not), and to deliberately withhold these inflections to be dead serious in a funny situation, should i want to.