How literally do we actually take things?

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Tyri0n
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15 Jan 2013, 12:09 pm

The other day, someone made a joke at work of me having to sing happy birthday by myself when I came in late to someone's office birthday party. I said, well, it looks like my co-worker Y is coming in even later, so she should be the lead singer. The employee then said "I'm just joking, you don't really have to sing." Me: "I know..."

Of course I got the joke. I thought I was just going along with it. What I said wasn't that funny, but neither was the original joke.

This happens to me a lot where people don't think I get a joke even when I do. One thing I used to do is object to the premises of bad jokes, though I knew they were jokes. I've learned not to do that any more, but people still treat me as if I take everything literally even when they don't know me at all. Could my deadpan autistic face and lack of visible responsiveness be responsible?

So how much do you really take things literally and how much is this reputation a matter of people imposing their misunderstanding of you on you? I don't think my understanding is that far off an NT's when it comes to humor and sarcasm.



invisiblesilent
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15 Jan 2013, 12:15 pm

Tyri0n wrote:
Could my deadpan autistic face and lack of visible responsiveness be responsible?.


People do the exact same thing to me and I think the answer is precisely this. People sometimes also mistake my sarcasm and irony for - I assume - the same reason i.e. deadpan autistic expression.



ianorlin
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15 Jan 2013, 12:18 pm

I am the same way with making jokes of taking stuff literally and find it funny. Like when my mom said my windows are clear I said I am glad they are not opaque.



GGPViper
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15 Jan 2013, 12:18 pm

I usually take things with my hands.



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15 Jan 2013, 12:22 pm

Yeah, this happens quite a bit to me. I find myself quoting Meatwad a lot in these situations. "I get it. It ain't making me laugh, but I get it."



hanyo
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15 Jan 2013, 12:24 pm

Tyri0n wrote:
The other day, someone made a joke at work of me having to sing happy birthday by myself when I came in late to someone's office birthday party. I said, well, it looks like my co-worker Y is coming in even later, so she should be the lead singer. The employee then said "I'm just joking, you don't really have to sing." Me: "I know..."


I would take that literally and it would make me distressed because I won't sing. If I knew about it in advance I might not even show up.



naturalplastic
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15 Jan 2013, 12:56 pm

Tyri0n wrote:
The other day, someone made a joke at work of me having to sing happy birthday by myself when I came in late to someone's office birthday party. I said, well, it looks like my co-worker Y is coming in even later, so she should be the lead singer. The employee then said "I'm just joking, you don't really have to sing." Me: "I know..."

Of course I got the joke. I thought I was just going along with it. What I said wasn't that funny, but neither was the original joke.

This happens to me a lot where people don't think I get a joke even when I do. One thing I used to do is object to the premises of bad jokes, though I knew they were jokes. I've learned not to do that any more, but people still treat me as if I take everything literally even when they don't know me at all. Could my deadpan autistic face and lack of visible responsiveness be responsible?

So how much do you really take things literally and how much is this reputation a matter of people imposing their misunderstanding of you on you? I don't think my understanding is that far off an NT's when it comes to humor and sarcasm.


I'm with you - it seems obvious to me that you 'got' the joke, and were playing along - and going with it- and even giving his lame joke more mileage than it even deserved. But apparently you already have a reputation for taking things literally in the office from earlier social interactions- and its too late to shake it. Not much that you can do about it.



chlov
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15 Jan 2013, 1:20 pm

Tyri0n wrote:
This happens to me a lot where people don't think I get a joke even when I do.

This happens to me, but not with jokes. It usually happens with idioms. It's true that I can't understand some idioms, but there are some others I can understand, and I don't know why people think I can't understand those ones, too.
I can't understand jokes most of the times, and I am terrible at understanding sarcasm, but I do am sarcastic sometimes. Maybe I'm not most of the times, but sometimes I can be. For example today while coming out from school:
friend: wow, is so cold in our classroom.
me: sure, they put the only radiator in the room behind the blackboard.
friend: in fact, that's weird.
me: well, because, you know, the blackboard, that's mostly made of wood and is not a living being, is more important and must get more warm than students, that are made of flesh and are living beings.
That obviously was sarcasm.



LookingLost
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15 Jan 2013, 1:39 pm

^ Oh...I thought you were going to make a comment about black absorbing heat...

I seem to have the opposite problem- people think I am being sarcastic, when infact I am being serious. :roll:



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15 Jan 2013, 1:42 pm

Hmm, I see. I actually, typically, don't have much trouble with sarcasm or even facial expressions (I don't think, anyway) but I have immense trouble telling if someone is kidding. Like a previous poster, I would have taken that seriously and been pretty worried about having to sing the song alone, ha. Unfortunately, my Dad liked to joke around a lot with me as a kid and I never, ever picked up on it. He'd be taking me to get a haircut and joke that I'd better be ready for a crew cut (getting a certain haircut was part of my obsessive routine, though he didn't know that) so I'd absolutely flip out the entire time despite him having said that before every previous haircut. Or sometimes with a few friends I hang out with when they're in town, they'll say "lets do [insert something rash and extroverted]" and apparently, I'll misread the tone of their voices and think I'm about to be thrown into a very uncomfortable social situation with them. It's frustrating but I can see how people constantly misconstruing your lack of emotion when replying to a joke with a lack of understanding, is as well.


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chlov
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15 Jan 2013, 1:48 pm

LookingLost wrote:
^ Oh...I thought you were going to make a comment about black absorbing heat...

Even my friend thought so, until I completed the sentence

LookingLost wrote:
I seem to have the opposite problem- people think I am being sarcastic, when infact I am being serious. :roll:

This happens to me at times. People say "wow, that sounds sarcastic" when in fact I'm not and I'm being serious. People say it's because my voice hasn't got much inflection.



seaturtleisland
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15 Jan 2013, 2:44 pm

I would've been confused in that situation as well.


Normally the process for me goes like this:

1. I hear something said
2. The literal meaning is the first one I think of
3. I quickly think whether or not the literal meaning makes sense
4A. If the literal meaning makes sense and is not absurd I assume it was meant literally
4B. If the literal meaning is absurd I know that it wasn't meant literally
5B. I decipher the non-literal meaning based on the context and using abstract reasoning

I don't have that written down it's a thought process I went through automatically for a while as an adaptation before I even decided to track it.


The literal meaning wouldn't sound too absurd to me in that situation. It would be ambiguous. Since I've spent more of my life as a subordinate child with adults who would make very similar rules I would be used to something like the happy birthday rule being used literally. Many adults have said very similar things and meant them literally so this one wouldn't sound absurd.

If it doesn't sound absurd my thought process goes to 4A. I accept the literal meaning and I act on it.

If someone said to me "you're on fire" I'd know right away it was an idiom. If someone made a hyperbolic statement I'd know it wasn't literal. It's the ambiguous things that get me.


I can relate to the OP though. Even if I don't take it literally the literal meaning still enters my mind at some point and I occasionally want to joke about the absurdity. Someone says to me "you're on fire". I say "and you're just standing there while I burn" "you're such a sociopath".

Of course these jokes only come because I've already recognized the absurdity of the literal meaning and by the time I have time to speak I've already deciphered the non-literal meaning.


How can you make fun of a statement's literal meaning in a humourous way without first understanding that it's not literal? If you thought it was literal you would probably be all serious about it and it would be even less funny.



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15 Jan 2013, 3:29 pm

Things like that happen all the time to me.

I hate hearing the words it's only joke.


On Saturday somebody knocked at my door, I went and opened it to find a woman selling something and the first thing she said was OH DON'T BE SCARED I WON'T HURT YOU and started laughing, So i closed the door and got angry and then my mum and sister were like don't be so rude she was only joking and then i kept going over it in my head.



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15 Jan 2013, 4:08 pm

invisiblesilent wrote:
Tyri0n wrote:
Could my deadpan autistic face and lack of visible responsiveness be responsible?.


People do the exact same thing to me and I think the answer is precisely this. People sometimes also mistake my sarcasm and irony for - I assume - the same reason i.e. deadpan autistic expression.


This has happened a couple times to me too, I've made a joke or some other humorous comment and the NTs around me will think I'm being serious because of the deadpan way in which I say it. Maybe smiling while saying it would help.


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15 Jan 2013, 4:31 pm

I have this too. Just this morning there was a situation where my co-worker made a joke, and I kind of went along with it, but forgot about the whole smiling/facial experession/voice inflection thing (apparently), and it made her go "I was only joking".

I normally say 'I know' in these kinds of situations, but sometimes I can't be bothered with it.


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Tyri0n
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15 Jan 2013, 7:08 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Tyri0n wrote:
The other day, someone made a joke at work of me having to sing happy birthday by myself when I came in late to someone's office birthday party. I said, well, it looks like my co-worker Y is coming in even later, so she should be the lead singer. The employee then said "I'm just joking, you don't really have to sing." Me: "I know..."

Of course I got the joke. I thought I was just going along with it. What I said wasn't that funny, but neither was the original joke.

This happens to me a lot where people don't think I get a joke even when I do. One thing I used to do is object to the premises of bad jokes, though I knew they were jokes. I've learned not to do that any more, but people still treat me as if I take everything literally even when they don't know me at all. Could my deadpan autistic face and lack of visible responsiveness be responsible?

So how much do you really take things literally and how much is this reputation a matter of people imposing their misunderstanding of you on you? I don't think my understanding is that far off an NT's when it comes to humor and sarcasm.


I'm with you - it seems obvious to me that you 'got' the joke, and were playing along - and going with it- and even giving his lame joke more mileage than it even deserved. But apparently you already have a reputation for taking things literally in the office from earlier social interactions- and its too late to shake it. Not much that you can do about it.


I'm new enough there and have had little enough interaction with that particular person (never before) that this is unlikely. It also happens with people I've first met. So this can't be it.