Are there things you just 'don't get' in life? (as in understand the rules of)

My reaction is exactly opposite. I enjoy saying a joke even more if they don't get it and start blinking furiously.

It's my version of 'eye for an eye', and the only among them morally acceptable.

Your first paragraph... If I ask someone how they are, I'd rather not be fobbed off with an "I'm fine" answer either. When I'm asked how I am, my response is often to ask, "Do you want the short answer or the truthful answer?"

As for your second paragraph about humour, I can often feel deflated when it is clear that my sense of humour is not shared by someone I am conversing with. 

Your poor dad. But you’ve reminded me of a similar(ish) thing when I was at school. The girl from next door for the first few years of my life before we moved was one of the only regular playmates  I had growing up. I’d like to think that we were friends - it seemed that way. After we moved I was In touch less but as we’d been through school together there was still a connection. I even asked if I could be in her class in the secondary school we’d be going to, naively thinking that she wouldn’t find her own (mostly female) clique quite naturally and understandaby and drift away for the most part. Anyway, about a year in to that school, she got suddenly quite sick and was absent for a day or two. The phone rang in ours and my dad was talking with her father briefly. The call ends and he says ‘He says [name] has Lupis, it’s pretty serious, and she’s in hospital until they can get her immune system under control.’ I thought, oh that’s terrible, was worried about her, but appreciated him letting us know. Several days later, someone in school goes ‘apparently you’ve known for days why she’s not been in, thanks very much for not telling us - don’t you think we’d have maybe wanted to send cards, visit, wish her  well, just aware for thoughts  and prayers?’ I was stunned that I’d done something wrong without realising. I was supposed to have passed the information on, it was implicit in the relayed phone call that night. And I simply hadn’t processed that. Partly assuming that I’d be the last to know anyway, but partly just because of lack of intuitive understanding in the absence of specific instruction: pass this on! I felt horrific about it, and feeling the annoyance from others made me feel sick for days. I visited her i hospital shortly after, again out of a sense of ‘I should do that too I guess’than anything else. And I don’t mean I didn’t want to see my part time friend, just that I didn’t know that was the proper ‘should’ innately understood y others. I’ve been very  wary about things like that since, falling over myself to double check lines of communication. All very excruciating to look back on.i wasn’t trying to hoard information to feel special,I just didn’t get it, and try as did to explain, I just couldn’t. 

I also don't get why people who are unwell with something contagious visit family/friends, and I completely agree with your comment about people and mobile phones. Edited to add: No offense intended to you Glitter, as I'm referring to the kind of mobile phone users who don't even bother to glance up.

Lol.  I am one of the mums who does that.  Usually only only on the way to or from school, when I'm aware that they know the way and won't wander too far.  I'm also constantly listening for their footsteps and glancing up so I know where they are and am aware of the surroundings.  And i know that i can trust my kids to be sensible and stop when I say so.

There are some things I just 'don't get' too, so you're not alone.

I feel the following is a poor example, as it's more to do with a complete lack of thought and consideration on my part.

Many years ago my dad phoned me one evening to tell me that he had been involved in a car accident. My dad was rarely one to make a fuss (unless he had a cold), so when I asked him if was OK and he told me that he was, I took his word for it. My mother had been staying with my grandmother at the time, and it never occurred to me to consider that maybe I should pop around to check that he really was OK, and if he needed anything.

I remember that my mother (who is possibly also autistic) felt incredibly angry with me for not visiting my dad because in her words it should have been "common sense", especially as he had told me that his company car was a write-off. To be honest, it's a miracle that my dad didn't sustain any life-threatening injuries... Some idiot in a transit van had been speeding along a country lane and shot across a junction, straight into the driver's side of my dad's car. This resulted in the car skidding some distance and into a concrete lamp post. 

Self-service checkouts. I have no idea why, but they seem to have all been designed by people to whom logic is a foreign concept. They ask gnomic or ambiguous questions and offer options that seem irrelevant to what I want to do; I never know which option to press. I'm a former scientist who operated complex computer-controlled machines like mass spectrometers, but self-service tills defeat me every time.

Debbie,

I get highly pissed off when people say they are "fine" when they evidently are not.  I guess it's better than being pissed on. :-). I only ask people how they are when I actually want to know.  I get that it's an extension of "Hello" but to me it means I am genuinely interested in how they are keeping.  I feel like when someone says "fine" they're putting a wall between me and them and effectively saying "nothing to do with you."  I sometimes joke to another person and say "do you want the real answer or the polite answer?"  It's pretty funny seeing some peoples faces when you say that.

I was in M&S the other day and there was a shop assistant dressing the legs of a mannequin that was upside down.  I thought it looked hilarious so I said to the shop assistant "that looks dodgy."  She replied "no ones ever said that to me before."  I thought in my head, "wow you evidently don't share the same humour as me."  

I hate the whole "weather talk."   Unless the weather is particularly intense or beautiful then I don't remark on it.  I see much of conversation really pointless.  I used to hate when in work colleagues would say "good morning, how are you?"  I'd often think in my head "why ask when you so obviously don't care and I am not interested in you either."  I don't speak with people I don't like but have all the time in the world for people I do.  Why bother when it's so fake?  Okay.  Now I am getting angry so think it's best to stop as there is a huge can of worms about to spill out..........

I think autistic people probably understand the written rules of life more than the 'unwritten'.

At least that is the case with me.

If rules are 'unwritten' (or I haven't read them) then as far as I'm concerned, they don't exist.

I don't get why people still go out, visit family for instance when they know they've got a cold or flu bug which they freely and knowingly spread to everyone else.

When I'm ill I stay away from people until I'm feeling better and I'm past contagious stages.

I also don't get why people walk looking at their phones. I've even seen mums walking with their children whilst looking at their phone screen - it's so dangerous.

There's a lot of things I don't get but I'll leave it here :) 

I had to take my mum to the hospital regularly.

She was to be weighed but refused to put both legs on the scales.

She told the nurse that she had been weighing herself with one leg on the scales for years.

Also, she was asked what she didn't like in sandwiches and, after a very long think, she said 'caraway' seeds which was, I think, the only thing that she actually didn't like to eat, irrespective of whether they belong in a sandwich.

Seemingly, small talk is something that evades me.Especially in places such as barbers/hair dressers/shops etc. But I must admit, I’m quite okay with that.

Mariusz said:

Beware of all fanatics

I so agree.

I don't get the need, for us Culchies, to have onions with our burgers.

follow everyone up and take communion. 

If it happened 500 years ago, and they knew, every other elderly lady would drop dead on spot in shock, and the other half would start inciting the mob to stone you to death, or burn at stake LOL

In childhood, on many occasions I had a feeling that if they find out I'm different, I'd end up in a similar way. I had to go to church every Sunday, until I was an adult, my mom insisted, she is a religious fanatic, and she would probably be in a group inciting the mob, if it was against someone else than me, that's how much believe in a religion is really worth, rules don't apply to my, but my religion tells me I've got to force them on others, more or less. Beware of all fanatics

My version of the issue is ''I get how things work, unless people get in a way and mess things up''.