Understanding Sarcasm

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Last edited by nyarla_thotep on 08 Feb 2017, 3:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I guess this would be obvious:

Your facial expression says that you're taking what the other person said to heart. Perhaps, you believe there is a "grain of truth" to sarcasm/irony (which there is, usually).

What I would do would depend upon the context of the situation. If I were around co-workers, say, I would put on the "phony smile." If I'm amongst friends, though, I would tell them the truth I what I was feeling at the time.

See, that's what I'm afraid of. In my mind I'm reacting to it appropriately and smiling and whatnot, but my face clearly looks "off" somehow to others. Like, I know the issue is with my facial expression, but without seeing it I guess there's no way of knowing what I'm doing wrong. Maybe you're right and I should exaggerate my reaction around others even if it seems silly to me. Idk why I even asked this question...

I don't believe it's a good idea to exaggerate at all.

It would make you look silly and, perhaps, foolish.

I would err on the side of people "respecting" you. Then you could offer some sort of explanation.

There are (many) times when I don't know if people are being rude and verbally abusing me or it's just really a joke. I was always used to take these things to heart in the past. These days I do the opposite: I react as if it were just a joke until it becomes pretty obvious that the intentions from the other end are really aggressive.

To be honest, in my heart I always feel like people are masking what they really think of me with a thick layer of hypocrisy and pass as if they were joking. I hate that. Anyway, I learnt from experience that if I react like Justice intended me to by returning the aggression - either verbally or physically - it's not the other party who's deemed as the problem. It's always me who's frowned upon even when the insult was thrown at me in first place. It's a pretty unfair thing!

So... I fake it. I smile, pretend it's nothing and avoid any more serious controversies. Sometimes it's really nothing indeed.

Last Sunday I went for a visit to a Buddhist Temple with a friend and a couple of his peers. Among them there was a woman, a cousin my friend hadn't seen for many years. For some reason this woman antagonised me for the entire afternoon and everybody noticed that. At some point I had to stop her in the tracks and say: "Sorry to point this out but for some reason you're being absolutely passive-aggressive and that's not right. What's wrong? What did I do to you?"

What happened afterwards was beyond intriguing. Her husband tried to tell her "hey the man is right he's ok, he did nothing", while simultaneously she was telling me "no relax, I was just kidding"!

Therefore, there's a chance that you are right: the person was being rude, she hit you from behind a bush and went into camouflage before you noticed what was going on. Anyway, don't return the sarcasm unless that's your last resort. That's what "normal" people seem to do. If you realise the people in question joke about you all the time, I reckon you should challenge them.

So, this is the last resort: if they keep insisting they are just having a harmless laugh after you had the friendly talks and all, throw what you think about them at their very faces as well and say "it's a joke" too. Be rude, blunt in a way that they will really beg for you to stop. Get to know something about them that would put them to shame and tell it in their faces. Surprise them, expose them cruelly but with wit. Be prepared for the counter attack though. Gather some dirty secrets and unwanted details about them, have it all in your sleeve. Them in the right moment disgrace them, humiliate them, make them feel sorry.

If that's not the suggestion you wanted to read, just smile at these people always. Smile and keep pretending it's nothing. It works.

Cheers!

I rarely know if people are being serious or not. Over the years, I've just learn't to pretend I get it and just smile and pretend. This quite often saves me from the embarrassment of looking stupid. I find a lot depends on the exaggeration of the facial clues that people give but some people are more subtle and therefore a lot harder to read. I always think that people will think that I'm stupid if I start asking what they mean so smiling and pretending I'm in on the joke usually gets me off the hook even if they're not joking coz I can usually turn it round and get myself out of it if I have to.