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Humour and Interpretation

Sporadic Sparkly

I am aware that communication issues tend to be a common problem for autists. Having been a member of this online community since 2022, I have witnessed plenty of misunderstandings and spats.

Earlier, I read a post on the forums that had caused me some amusement. My interpretation was that it wasn't intended to be a serious post. I felt compelled to respond, but part-way through typing my response, I started to have doubts.

Whilst typing my response, I realised that in addition to the post being in the Health & Wellbeing section, the member had used several tags that suggested their post was actually intended to be taken seriously.

I was faced with the dilemma of whether to post my response, or to completely abort. I chose to continue, but now I'm thinking that maybe it would have been better to abort.

For me, I consider humour and laughter to be essential to health and wellbeing. However, I'm also aware that there's a time and a place.

I'm curious to know if other members have found themselves in similar situations?

On one hand, I feel like this is the one place where I should be able to ditch the mask and be myself. On the other hand, I'm well aware of the need to be careful, as the last thing I want is to say something in jest that causes offence and/or distress to another member.

Parents

  • It's difficult, you  want to laugh with someone, not at them and some people don't have much of a sense of humour at the best of times.

    Not being face to face can make it harder, but then many of us have problems reading body language and tones of voice.

    I don't do emojis, I dislike them, I can't really see them and don't understand the meanings of many, it took me ages to be comfortable with using things like, lol in texts. If I posted something and were met with a row of emoji's as a reply, I would feel dismissed, that I wan't be taken seriously and that the person replyiing was making a lazy reply because they couldn't be bothered to write anything properly and wanted the attention of being seen to reply without the risk of disagreement or misunderstanding.

Reply

  • It's difficult, you  want to laugh with someone, not at them and some people don't have much of a sense of humour at the best of times.

    Not being face to face can make it harder, but then many of us have problems reading body language and tones of voice.

    I don't do emojis, I dislike them, I can't really see them and don't understand the meanings of many, it took me ages to be comfortable with using things like, lol in texts. If I posted something and were met with a row of emoji's as a reply, I would feel dismissed, that I wan't be taken seriously and that the person replyiing was making a lazy reply because they couldn't be bothered to write anything properly and wanted the attention of being seen to reply without the risk of disagreement or misunderstanding.

Children
  • in reply to TheCatWoman
    TheCatWoman said:
    you  want to laugh with someone, not at them

    Thank you! That is what I had been trying to convey in my original post, but had been unable to articulate at the time.

    On the topic of emojis, I don't dislike them, but I find that they too can sometimes be open to misinterpretation. As for the SMS mobile phone text abbreviations (i.e. Lol) that now seem to get used everywhere, I sometimes have to search online to understand what the newer ones mean. When text messaging became a thing, I remember an aunt of mine thought "Lol" meant "Lots of Love".

    I am inclined to think it may be a generation thing, but if there's a whole row of emojis and not much in the way in the way of a written/typed response, I too tend to consider it lazy.

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    I dont like thumbs up icon although I use as a quick response. It complicates things emoticons for me depending on my mood. (Over thinking with Autism ADHD)