Literalist Humor

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I am not always a comfortable fit with NT's or fellow Aspie's, due to a host of reasons and issues, mostly perceived existential threats, my obsessions involved socialization, studying human cognition, behaviors, and cultures. Out of all of this though I did develop a few useful skill sets and a host of unwanted neurosis. Now, I would not be labeled as a literal Aspie, folks who know me seldom guess that my inherent way of thinking is literal, it mostly comes out only when I am tired or stressed (I can stir up some Facebook drama then). Instead I channeled a lot of it into my sense of humor, so when someone says something, I interpret literally then cognitively understand that is not the intent, but it still rattles around in my head and I find that I often need to get it out, to vocalize it in some form so I can process it and move on. So, I took a page from Maine Humorists (I spent a sizable chunk of my youth there) and turned it about into something more socially endearing and it has worked rather well. We are all a bit different, this may or may not work for you, but for some folks it could be a possible avenue to explore so I felt that sharing it would not be such a bad idea and I am sure there are more than a few others out there who do similar things.

An example of literalist humor is for example, when my wife says "I'm taking a shower", almost without fail my response is "Where are you taking it too?" By changing my inflection though instead of making it a statement I do it with a smile, or I often add something else like "That sounds heavy, wear a back brace". I am also noted for commenting on street signs, so we pass a sign that says "Slow Children", I might say something akin to "I feel bad for those poor kids" or "finally someone I can beat in a race". I remember laughing hysterically as a child listening to Tim Sample and other Maine humorists, jokes such as: A man from Massachusetts is lost on his way to Bangor, so he stops to ask a local for directions..."excuse me sir, does this road go to Bangor?" to which the local replies "I ain't seen this road go nowhere yet"

I am interested in other humorous workarounds and input from folks, maybe some folks have a few good jokes, maybe this is useful, and maybe some people can see the value in this sort of verbal processing. In a way, I wish I hadn't had to learn some of these skills, to have been able to be comfortable in my own healthy sense of self-identity, but in the case of humor at least, I can live with being forced to learn how to make folks laugh.

I had more trouble with literalism when I was younger. Because I have always been a voracious reader, on a wide variety of topics, I was exposed to more "conversations" in print, which gave me the time to analyze, and better learn how to interpret statements that could be misinterpreted if taken literally. Over several decades, I have become much better at dealing with it. Like you, I do sometimes amuse myself by allowing myself to think through the literal path of a statement, even while I correctly analyze it, and come up with the right response. Making a joke about it, even if I am the only one in on it, is better than getting upset about it.

I do this sometimes too. Sometimes I'll visit him at work and he asks me how I got there, meaning what direction and roads I took, but I respond to him "I drove the car." At that point he bursts out laughing.

I have always found general, or "normal" humor, not humorous.

The type of humor you state is something I have found myself doing, so some similarities there.

The type of humor I find hilarious, however, is irony, understood after analyzing something. This usually makes me appear odd, as I tell people irony while laughing, and they might not even understand what I'm talking about in the first place.

Example of something that makes me laugh: The only creatures that make mistakes are intelligent creatures.

I just find that hilarious.

We see eye to eye on this, (even though I'm not going to give you any eye contact, hahaha.) Literalist humor helps me survive my day to day, but also with my lack of filter gets me into trouble with NTs! They usually don't get when I'm joking just as much as I don't get when they are. Reading a lot as child and continuing that habit into adulthood definitely assisted me in socializing, but only to a certain point. My tendency to string a bunch of topics together by either word association or definition association gets me a little more trouble, because once the association is made in my brain, I usually speak it aloud, and then try to cover it up with my sense of humor as I so with literal mindedness. It's good to see I am not alone there.

Thanks all for sharing, it seems to me that such things seem very obvious, but at the same time it is fascinating to really consciously process how our inherent brain wiring finds so many creative workarounds! @Stonethistle I have been known to get myself in trouble for some interesting thought chains as well, and humor is absolutely my go too approach to soothe rattled nerves or help put things into context. Satire and humor have a long history and important role in society in being able to tackle subjects many consider taboo, and I try to do that often, challenging the dominant paradigm's assumptions is how we expand and educate after all, but humor is often far more effective then overwhelming them with stats and studies that they just zone out on and never really hear or process.