Sarcasm, jokes, and flirting

Hello Everyone! Today I thought I'd talk about the understanding of sarcasm, jokes, and facial recognition/body language.

A lot of the time it's hard for a person with autisim to recognize social cues if they're subtle. I.E. jokes, sarcasm, and for the girls out there flirting. Things along the line of subtle body language or change in voice pitch.

SARCASM AND JOKES

I was really bad with these when I was younger, still am but to a lesser extent. When people were being sarcastic it took me awhile to figure out that there's not really a change in voice pitch. It made me seem like I took everything literally and that I was gullible. I felt like such a fool but I've learned to cope, it just takes lot's of practice and listening to understand when people are being serious or not. Some people I know are REALLY good at being sarcastic and when I find out they weren't serious I feel hurt that they were trolling me throughout the whole conversation. I've learned to not take it seriously, it's hard at first but through time you learn. One of the things I wish I was good at was jokes, not the ones where it's obvious but the ones with subtle gags, my major in college is digital arts and my professor has this saying for stories "That's the gag!" It took me at least half of the semester to figure out what a "GAG" was. I took the meaning of a gag as "knock knock whose there" when in reality it's something like when a person is about to sit down and someone pulls the chair out and they fall, subtle things like that. My first few assignments revolving around gags didn't turn out so well because I didn't understand the concept of a gag, I felt like an idiot. NOW I get it which is good, we had to show our work to the class and most of the time no one got mine because of this (so embarassing) but you live and learn.

I personally LOVE being autistic but this is one of the few times it's annoying

If your a parent PLEASE exlpain how sarcasm works if they don't understand because that's also what prompted people to make fun of me because I took everything literally (not obvious things but believable things)

When it comes to jokes that might just be a me thing, I tend to get to caught up in detail when telling a story, which is what a joke is, a funny short story. I've just stopped telling jokes and don't do meme's, I let the funny come naturally instead of forcing it.

FLIRTING

Flirting with me is like flirting with a wall, it wont react. This relates to sarcasm because both involve sublte body and facial language. I still haven't gotten over this, I can tell if a guy is flirting if they're being obvious which I don't want, makes a guy come off as over confidant or annoying. So I'm stuck in-between a rock and a hard place. My friends say I'm oblivious, which I can't totally deny but that's not completely my fault I JUST CAN'T TELL. I ask my girl friends how they know if a guy is flirting, some have given me useful advice, I also ask my guy friends mainly my siblings how if they like a girl they let her know. Lot's of my learnig on the art of flirting comes though Q and A.

So all of you mothers or fathers with autistic daughters out there, explain how flirting works (when they are in 7th or 8th grade) if they don't understand.

SIDE NOTE

If anybody want's a topic that they feel needs explaining let me know or request a topic you feel your child is having issues with I'll answer your questions as best as possible. Remember this is MY take on being autistic not a professional opinion this is just personal experiences coming from someone who is autistic. I know that it's hard for someone who is autistic to express how they feel so my goal is to try and give you a perspective on how they might be feeling and how to go about it.

Have a happy thanksgiving! gobble gobble!