Published on 12, July, 2020
So as a male with aspergers, I went to a work meal for once to try to "fit in" with people, it didn't work out that well in my opinion anyway... But yeah so we had our meals then the desert was the last one, then one of the colleagues (she is female a lot older than me) asked if she could have my cherries (I don't like cherries anyway so I said yes and offered them) While I was giving them to her my manager said "that's it, give her your cherries" then the other girls next to me laughed really badly and so did my manager after he saw them laugh and the other lady who I offered the cherries to but she did give my line manager a evil stare at first before she laughed, after that the others laughed at the other jokes as well what was said without me or my line manager getting involved. But is that a friendly joke what my line manager did or not? Is it rude? Targeted at me. I really hate these situations and that is why I didn't go to any of these meals the past few years because I knew it would make me feel like this annoyed, anxious depressed etc, or is it my social difficulties and I misunderstood the social stuff etc? I don't even know/get why it was funny. (My line manager is quite nice though well apart from the light teasing which I do not like so I'm never sure if he's being nice to me or not which is really frustrating as well)
Thank you all for explaining to me what it means, My mind is now calmer/at ease I think that's what it's called, I'm just less confused of the whole thing now! I'm really glad there are forums like this which exist so I kind of have someone to talk to/ask about stuff on here. Having aspergers sucks to be honest but then without it though I feel like I'll be missing a lot of my personality so there are positive and negatives in a way I suppose. I want to actually ask my line manager or get the right support because I don't even know how many people in the workplace are aware that I have aspergers. That would be a good thing for them to know so that they understand how much it effects me and why I find it difficult.
I knew I shouldn't of gone to that meal today, I don't know if I'll be ever going again anymore though because I still just feel quite upset that feeling that you know you're "different" but can't help it at all. My philosophy was always I was thinking to myself a few months before the meal deciding if I should go or not is "if you don't fit in, don't try to" I just felt nothing but quite hurt/upset from going to the meal today, it just annoys me that I just didn't understand a single thing during the whole 2 hour meal today and what was going on. I felt like an alien (like it does for probably most people with our condition, not in a rude way)
So yeah... overall I'll probably not go to any of the other gatherings ever again now, I'm just going to be on my own, work while they're having fun, then go home. :(
I tried today to just "mix" but it's just so difficult, every single social joke/situation, I just get confused even more what they mean and think they're offending me when they're not. Totally not their fault I guess, if only they understand but I suppose they think differently just like us. This is why I'm always "neutral"...
Whilst I have been typing these responses to you, part of my mind has been mulling over how and when I learnt about this sort of thing, in an attempt to help you further. I can certainly understand you're feeling discouraged, but @Robert123 probably has a point when he suggests some studying to prepare yourself for this type of humour.
On occasion, Google Image Search is great for all sorts of things, (such as identifying a tropical snail, but that's another story).
Be aware that this suggested search is probably NSFW:
In this case, if you type "saucy seaside postcards" into Google Image Search, you should get quite a lot of very visual examples of this (dated and often very sexist) type of humour. The visual images should be enough of a hint for you to spot the double meanings, and generalise from there.
On the upside, the forms of this sort of social "entertainment" are quite structured, and can therefore be picked up with time, given such examples.
Quite whether you risk taking part in this sort of banter in a work setting is another thing entirely. If you wouldn't dream of saying something in the office, you probably shouldn't be saying it at a work social event after hours. In this respect, the manager probably ought to have known better, but if alcohol was present it can undeniably impair judgement on the spur of the moment.