Can You Take A Joke ?

Last year someone in my family told me that I couldnt be Autistic / have Aspergers, because I could understand jokes.

Just because a characteristic is said to be something, it doesnt make it so, we are not lumps of steel that are rigid and unchangeable. We are flesh and bone, we have brain cells that can learn and remember.

My sense of humor may be different to yours, but I do have one, I can take a joke, I can even understand a number of jokes. Sure I may not get all the jokes or it may take me a few minutes to run through and analyse what was said before I get it.

Dont assume that because you know someone with autism/aspergers or you know about it from what you have read, that you know me.

Yes there may be a set of characteristics that describe us but it doesnt mean we are all the same.

Would you like me to say that because you are NT (neuro-typical) you must be loud and obnoxious... Those are traits of some NT people ... but you are not all the same, so I treat you as an individual and learn what characteristics you have instead of judging you on characteristics that others have. So please do the same for me.

On the same line of thought, Autistic / Asperger people are meant to also not understand sarcasm, again this is not completely true, as with jokes, I sometimes can tell when someone is being sarcastic... not very often but on the odd occassion it does happen.

I'm currently learning sarcasm and I practise, but it doesnt come easy, sometimes I have to say to David "I was being sarcastic, could you tell?" He normally says yes, so I must be getting the hang of it.

Of course we may have been together so long that we get each other when others wouldnt, in which case I may not be doing as well in sarcasm as I believe.

:)

The above is something I saw and found funny, maybe because I can actually trip over a level floor .....