Surprise: Today I learned...

[Suzette]

For those of you who do not know me, I figured out this summer I am on the spectrum. I am 54 years old. Whether I knew I was on the spectrum or not is rather immaterial. The salient point is I am 54.

I am trying to build a sense of irony here. At 54 I should know myself pretty well. After all, as an angst ridden gen Xer I am very familiar with "soul searching", Cosmo quizes (Cosmopolitan magazine), and the ever popular Meyers Brig quiz. I think the boom generation sort of encoded "self help" into gen X DNA.

And, given that I have been so attentive to my mind, I was pretty confident in my self assessment of my humor. I think I get jokes pretty well, except a few types of jokes that are contextually based, I do just fine.

This morning I was watching a video and the host was commenting on a cow standing near by. The cow was just being a cow, standing calmly and watching the host do his thing. The host then comments "I think she is afraid of me".

Since I used to work at a dairy and am familiar with bovine behavior, I knew the cow was not afraid. I settled into a 1 minute rant about cow behavior and then...

Suddenly I saw it!

I completely missed the host's sarcasim!

Whoah! How often has stuff gone right over my head? How much have I missed?!

 

[Luca]

For those of you who do not know me, I figured out this summer I am on the spectrum. I am 54 years old. Whether I knew I was on the spectrum or not is rather immaterial. The salient point is I am 54.

I am trying to build a sense of irony here. At 54 I should know myself pretty well. After all, as an angst ridden gen Xer I am very familiar with "soul searching", Cosmo quizes (Cosmopolitan magazine), and the ever popular Meyers Brig quiz. I think the boom generation sort of encoded "self help" into gen X DNA.

And, given that I have been so attentive to my mind, I was pretty confident in my self assessment of my humor. I think I get jokes pretty well, except a few types of jokes that are contextually based, I do just fine.

This morning I was watching a video and the host was commenting on a cow standing near by. The cow was just being a cow, standing calmly and watching the host do his thing. The host then comments "I think she is afraid of me".

Since I used to work at a dairy and am familiar with bovine behavior, I knew the cow was not afraid. I settled into a 1 minute rant about cow behavior and then...

Suddenly I saw it!

I completely missed the host's sarcasim!

Whoah! How often has stuff gone right over my head? How much have I missed?!

You and me both, Suzette
Sarcasm goes over my head a lot. And sometimes I think people are being nice when they’re being facetious
And the first time I saw how that word was spelled, my mind immediately went to “feces.”

 

[FlowerFlo]

I think growing up wiht a good amount sarcasim in maby forms, has helped me.I do miss it sometimes, but not often

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Well, I think my sense of humor was honed by the television I watched growing up. The Ernie Kovacs' show with Percy Dovetonsils and the Nairobi Trio. Then there was the Rocky and Bullwinkle show as well as all the beatnick puns in Beanie and Cecil.

 

[Alexej]

Hi and welcome to the world of late diagnosis.

In this world you realise that everything you thought you knew is wrong and you are not part of the the mainstream. You are different, and most other folk think differently from you, act differently from you, understand things differently from you. So you get used to the world of double take - this is what I see and think in this situation, but most other people will see and interpret it differently.

(from a 65 yo diagnosed 2 yrs ago)

 

[Ken]

It was 2019 when I started to realize so many misperceptions I had about myself. So many things I always thought I was good at or understood perfectly. In the last two years I have experienced many revelations about myself. Just as your experience with sarcasim I find so many things I totally don't get and am not even aware enough to realize I missed anything. It was 67 years of confusion for me. Life is complex. Many times it takes a long, long, long time to figure things out. I think there are a lot of things about myself I may never figure out, but at least I feel I'm making more progress since discovering and beginning my study of autism two + years ago.

 

[Fino]

As I read the cow story, my first thought was that he's an idiot.

 

[Suzette]

As I read the cow story, my first thought was that he's an idiot.

It is good to be understood.