Not understanding what people are saying?

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I chat online on a lot of different sites. Lately I feel I am often not understanding what people are saying. If it's a site such as WP I'll ask the person what they meant, but I don't know how to deal with it when it's with a neurotypical person. It never used to happen, just lately. Does this happen to anyone else? Do you think it is autism or could it just be stress?

NTs seem to use a lot of cultural references. For example, "The boss eighty-sixed your project" uses the cultural reference of "eighty-six" as slang for getting rid of something, ejecting someone, or refusing someone's request.

So if you fail your saving throw in a conversation, it helps to remember that not everyone can be a quiz-kid or a science officer on the Enterprise.

Yes this happens to me. I usually don't ask because I don't want to make myself look slow or stupid. I will even look words or phrases up online to see what they mean to figure out what the person meant. Or I just ignore it if it's not possible. If I am not even talking to the person, it doesn't even matter.

Yeah, there are a lot of pop culture references, but even without them, I still sometimes get confused.

Glad to know I'm not alone.

And here me making anime references is seen as weird ... but I guess these people aren't quoting episode numbers so I can see why.

I notice that I have this problem in general but it does get worse when I'm stressed. I think when I'm stressed my brain is on overdrive and I just can't process any more information. I think of it like my hard drive is full and can't store any more data. I have to ask the person to repeat themselves.

When I don't know something I just sit there, shut up, and listen and only then I'll actually learn something.

It takes time to learn idioms (culture specific terms). Time and many instances of someone willing to explain them. But even NT people get them wrong! Take heart and remember that the reason many idioms change over time is because NT people use them incorrectly, but the listener still picks up the intended meaning from the context. Also, I've noticed that we autistics tend to decode each word much like Google translate, while NT people tend to not listen very carefully and just act upon whatever they feel the sentence or statements meant in aggregate. And while they are often at least slightly wrong, when both parties are doing it somehow it doesn't matter that they are slightly misinterpreting each other so long as some key point is communicated.

Normally I'm quick with picking up hidden cues and understanding what people are saying, but just lately I keep missing these things and being really confused. When somebody's unexpectedly joking with me, I know that it is a joke, but because I wasn't expecting them to talk to me, I don't hear what they've said properly, which leaves me staring at them with a confused look, and just as I managed to piece together what they said and react by laughing at the joke, it's too late, and they awkwardly say "it was a joke". But my hearing isn't that good, and I am under a lot of stress at the moment, so hopefully that's why I'm missing social cues sometimes. It just feels odd for me because usually I'm pretty good at naturally picking up social cues.