“It’s just a joke”

[Richelle-H]

I empathize with your consternation. My whole life I have been very bad at reading NTs. While I have adapted and can deal with the fallout pretty much when some one is teasing me, I still cannot tell, most of the time, when I am being teased.

It is a thing, I gather, with some Aspies. I still react inappropriately at times but now, if I had been in the situation you described, I would have probably responded thus:

"No actually, I am an advanced scout for an invading alien race, and I have infected you with spores that will soon have you crawling on your bellies like reptiles".

I would add a sinister laugh to the end and evil grin for punctuation. I have learned to respond in kind whenever I am the target of a gibe that I recognize as such.

With all that, I do understand your reaction, but this is going to happen a lot throughout your life and navigating this kind of stuff is never easy. Sometimes I can't help feel a bit wounded, but I know now that it is just friendly banter, usually, and have learned to separate the attacks from the gibes.

It is not easy and there are many misunderstandings along the way. That can be changed to some extent but it will never disappear completely. It is just part of life for many of us on the spectrum.

Try not to stress too much and know that you are not alone.

 

[Owliet]

And those people talking about it and telling you to stay away, that's just silly, they were wrong.

Yeah, I was quite taken aback by that because they had called me a friend. It’s probably wrong that I don’t think the same but still....it was very *hold cross up to keep away evil* before seeing my reaction and changing it. It sort of reinforced it all.

I think you should focus a little on resting and eating and such, you`re still not completely done with it. Don't wear yourself out.

Yeah, well we know that it’s been a tough time in this job anyway, so it was not very helpful for that either. I had another nap before so that’s helped.

With all that, I do understand your reaction, but this is going to happen a lot throughout your life and navigating this kind of stuff is never easy. Sometimes I can't help feel a bit wounded, but I know now that it is just friendly banter, usually, and have learned to separate the attacks from the gibes.

It is not easy and there are many misunderstandings along the way. That can be changed to some extent but it will never disappear completely. It is just part of life for many of us on the spectrum.

Try not to stress too much and know that you are not alone.

I understand. I may not get it but I do try to laugh at these jokes or say that it was a bit hurtful at the time but they’re clearly jokes that aren’t really meant to hurt in the way that I take it. In this case, it’s probably meant to be funny but not in this context. They were annoyed that one of the earlier student case had some blame attached from other students....Not for the first time I’ve wished there’s an NT manual out there....

 

[GafferGragz]

jokes from the kids because they’re right

They are the best, all instinct

 

[Homulilly]

NT will dodge responsabilities in the form of jokes, excuses, changing the subjet of the conversation...

I agree. Maybe not as severe as dodging responsibilities, but definitely a way of glossing things over that need to be addressed. Maybe NTs have a tendency of doing so, I sometimes find myself guilty of this too. Usually if the issue isn’t really big, NTs just move on.

To Owliet, I might be wrong, but my instincts are telling me what happened was not meant to be very kind. Generally speaking, NTs know whether a joke is hurtful or not before we say it out loud. “It’s just a joke” usually comes into play when the joke was meant to be kind but came out sounding mean, followed by an apology. I’ve had this happen before, but it’s not common.

it must be my plan because everyone is dropping.

In your case tho, this wording does not sound like it was meant to be kind. You mention you hear “it’s just a joke” a lot. Does this often involve your colleagues? What’s the content of their joke? I need more context to be sure. But what happened with the Covid joke, I’m speculating that they were saying something mean that wasn’t meant for you to hear. It’s actually kind of common to happen to NTs, but NTs generally don’t like this either.

Your mom said not to waste energy thinking about it. What was her exact wording? One way of interpreting it is to not waste energy on stupid jerks, which is how some NTs cope with this type of thing. A really dark speculation here-your colleagues know you struggle with social interactions so they just use “it’s just a joke” to get away with saying mean things.

Honestly tho, if someone says a mean joke and I’m in the mood to argue, I would say “well, its not funny” straight to their face. If I don’t want to waste time, then it’s your mom’s approach, plus putting those people on my mental list of people I’m not getting close to.

 

[Forest Cat]

Honestly tho, if someone says a mean joke and I’m in the mood to argue, I would say “well, its not funny” straight to their face.

One trick I have used many times, is to simply smile and say "is that the best you can do?". Or "is that the best you can come up with?". It disarms people, they don't know how to reply. And when they try, they often make themselves sound stupid.

 

[Owliet]

Honestly, with it going around the school it’s ridiculous to blame me when there’s a ton of kids who have had it and other teachers who have come down with it even before me. The problem is that someone has gone either when asymptomatic or when still infectious. But we won’t know anymore because they’ve stopped doing the pool testing....it’s also incredibly ironic that the three people involved in that conversation before making the “joke“ are those who have had covid before. One even went in when sick....


I do think that someone else said something about how unfair the “joke” was, because nothing further has come up. Granted I’ve had no apology either but I’m not actively seeking one out or have mentioned anything further about it. Unfortunately, it’s yet another reminder that there are these types of people around and I have to just work out the best strategy to deal with it especially now that I’m feeling much better each day, and I just kill them with kindness. They crossed a line, you don’t joke about health.

You mention you hear “it’s just a joke” a lot. Does this often involve your colleagues? What’s the content of their joke? I need more context to be sure. But what happened with the Covid joke, I’m speculating that they were saying something mean that wasn’t meant for you to hear. It’s actually kind of common to happen to NTs, but NTs generally don’t like this either.

I don’t know what the conversation was about before I came in. There were three of them anyway, one of them thought it would be funny to say that I was patient zero and that encouraged another to add to the joke with the “it’s my plan” and then because I didn’t respond to it I got the “it’s a joke!” It’s possible that they were being mean. Which says more about them, then anything. I could have challenged them today but if I did, what would that make me look like? I’m not giving them further fuel. And I don’t have the energy to do that either.

A really dark speculation here-your colleagues know you struggle with social interactions so they just use “it’s just a joke” to get away with saying mean things.

They have no idea about my diagnosis and to them I just prefer to work more than necessary.

In short: My idea is that they need to adjust their humor senses.

 

[Homulilly]

I don’t know what the conversation was about before I came in. There were three of them anyway, one of them thought it would be funny to say that I was patient zero and that encouraged another to add to the joke with the “it’s my plan” and then because I didn’t respond to it I got the “it’s a joke!”

Yikes, I’m understanding this as they saw you coming in and explicitly said it for you to hear? Bad humor sense indeed.

 

[Gerontius]

I don’t know what the conversation was about before I came in. There were three of them anyway, one of them thought it would be funny to say that I was patient zero and that encouraged another to add to the joke with the “it’s my plan” and then because I didn’t respond to it I got the “it’s a joke!” It’s possible that they were being mean. Which says more about them, then anything. I could have challenged them today but if I did, what would that make me look like? I’m not giving them further fuel. And I don’t have the energy to do that either.

This is 1) immature on their parts; 2) quite mature on yours.