Dealing with sarcasm

I love using sarcasm, but I do have a problem identifying it in others.

Its much more noticable on tv, as they exaggerate it greatly. Unfortunately in real life I can only guess. My NT partner is very sarcastic, and I have become more adept at 'guessing' what she means, and she has got better at ;etting me know, but I still spend quite a bit of time pretending to understand while I quietly debate whether she is being funny, or if I am in trouble again form something.

At work I tend to try to be more of the office clown, or entertainer. This is a good way of controlling situations for me, and allowing me to 'laugh off' amyting I do not understand. Other times I just have to put in my headphones and filter all of it out.

If only there was a manual in offices for AS and NT people covering conversation, conflict management and meetings. Life would be a much simpler place!

How do other people deal with sarcasm in a work environment?

  • My family all know I am Mr Literal.

    My manager, who helped start my route to Diagnosis 2 years ago, seems to know how I function, and I find he really helps me to do the best job I can at work by playing to my strengths. He knows that I don't always know when he is joking, and almost always adds a specific face to his sarcasm that I know he means it.

    I think the hardest area is when someone does have a problem, but asks 'Are you ok' but referring to the fact that they are not and there is something wrong. In that situation I am hopeless. I have often ended up lying my way out of it saying I am ok and i'm ok with that person, when i do not know what they are going on about and end up not feeling ok myself. I know its not the idea way to get through it, but the alternative is a long drawn out conversation where I try and understand, and end up explaining aspergers, and then get made to feel emotionally inferior. Its not right, but I prefer to hold my own doing my job well. Also I do not like pity, and cannot detect if its genuine so I would rather avoid it completely

  • I've been recently diagnosed, & it never really occurred to me that I had trouble discerning the difference between sarcasm & malicious intent. 

    A lot of past experiences suddenly made sense to me, times when I had to take a second to tell if someone was joking or being serious about something they said, & them getting pissed off with me because I thought they were being serious. I've also laughed about things, thinking they were jokes, when it turns out the person was being deadly serious. & the inevitable- confronting someone because I think they're being a ***, but it turns out they were just joking/being sarcastic & I'd completely misinterpreted what they said.

    I don't think there's any sure fire way of being able to tell every single time, even with people I know really well sometimes I struggle to tell if they're being serious or being sarcastic. If any sort of bad situation results from anything like this, I suppose all you can do is let them know you're autistic & you tend to take things literally/ have trouble with some social cues.