this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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It’s fine for everyone to have those traits, but that doesn’t preclude these traits from being made fun of in a friendly setting. A person’s ability to accept good natured humor at their expense and whether good natured ribbing is acceptable are separate discussions. You’d be kind of a cunt to joke about something that someone might actually be insecure about. That’s the only difference. You don’t jab where skin is thin, you congratulate. Measuring yourself against others and improving or accepting yourself is the core of interpersonal relationships.
Imagine for a moment that you lived in a world where the vast majority of people were different from you. They liked to eat something that you find disgusting: we'll say gravel. Their humor relied on advanced knowledge of something that you didn't have knowledge of, like string theory.
Every day that you turn on your television, you see shows making "fun" of people who don't understand string theory and who don't find chewing on gravel to be an ideal meal. Every day when you are at work, people look at your food and ask, "why aren't you eating gravel? Is something wrong with you?" Every time that you try to make friends, they rapidly shoot lines back and forth about string theory that you don't understand, and when they notice how lost you are, they shame you for it. When you try to tell them about something you find interesting, they call you "embarrassingly unscientific" or something, and exclude you.
So you're tired, because it feels like the whole world is against you. And you go home and settle down for the day, and you call up a good friend because you just want to feel seen and understood. And your friend sees your dinner on the camera, and they say "Rockless dinner again? You're so picky! It's not hard to just sprinkle a little limestone on top, you know." They then proceed to tell an elaborate joke about string theory, which they know you won't understand, and then get angry when you don't find it funny and tell you to lighten up.
Wouldn't you feel terrible if this was how your 'friend' treated you? Would you really find their treatment "good-natured?"
Sure, some of your friends may actually be able to tolerate this ribbing. But the vast majority of autistic people are just tired of the constant jokes at their expense. They might not say anything about it, because it's so commonplace that if they pushed back people would say they're "making a scene." Other downtrodden groups also face this and are stereotyped as "angry black women" etc when they put up boundaries about how others should treat them. And so many people learn to just grin and bear it, in the name of keeping the peace and avoiding drawing attention.
I'd also like to address this phrase specifically, emphasis mine:
Autism is called a disability, meaning that there is a difference between the ability levels of autistic and non-autistic people for certain things. Some autistic people lack the ability to parse this kind of humor. It is not their fault. It is not a judgement on their character as a person. It's merely a part of who they are. You don't tell someone that they're lesser as a person because they can't shoot a bullseye, write with their non-dominant hand, do long division in their head, or understand recordings when played backwards. These things are as arbitrary as being able to understand sarcasm, to sit still, or to follow a conversation in a noisy room.
And, frankly, it's not as funny as you think it is, so I don't blame people for not thinking that it is. You seem somewhat defensive of your brand of humor — which I understand, because it can feel like some sort of judgement on your skill level or something — but can you not just... make other jokes?
And sorry to double reply, but I feel like I missed this. (I have a tendency to ramble, I should probably refine my responses before sending. Eh.)
Why would you make fun of them if you don't think these traits are bad?
As another autistic person, I didn’t understand this instinctively so I can actually articulate an answer for you.
The reason you make fun of your friends is to reinforce the shared understanding that you are friends.
I’ll try and come up with an analogy.
There is a king who keeps very tight security around him at all times. Everyone must be disarmed before they enter his chamber, because he doesn’t trust anyone. Except for one man. There is a knight in this king’s court who is allowed to wear his sword into the king’s audience chamber.
Why? Well, because it is an honor to be trusted to this degree. And why does the knight bring the sword in? Because every time the king chooses to allow the knight’s sword into his presence he reinforces his own trust in the knight. He reinforces the pathways in his brain that consist of this trust.
That’s the knight’s reason.
Why does the king allow the knight to bring the sword in? Because every time the knight chooses not to draw that sword and kill the king, he reinforces the part of his brain that is loyal to the king. That is the king’s reason.
The king and the knight both benefit from their relationship; they both want it to be strengthened.
So they allow the creation of a situation that only works if they’re friends, because this disambiguates the relationship in their mind.
I know it’s not the best analogy. But it’s about competing narratives in the brain, and how presenting a scenario whose resolution into one decision or the other reinforces the narrative that matches the decision.
If we are friends, and we’re hanging out, and I say something insulting to you, I’m doing that because the insult gives you an opportunity to reaffirm our friendship by choosing to take it lightly and laugh at it. The word “reaffirm” here encapsulates the logic in the last three paragraphs preceding this one.
The insults are the sword in the audience chamber. They are a threat. By dismissing the threat, one reaffirms the relationship.
It makes more sense in the context of demonstrating to a third party that two people are friends — say if that third party was thinking of playing them against one another — and to apply it to two friends alone you just need to remember a human brain runs thousands of little minds in parallel.
So we’ve got two scenarios to consider.
Scenario one is you don’t know this person. Hence anything might be something they’re insecure about.
Scenario two is you do know this person. Meaning you’re in an ongoing relationship with them. Meaning years. Meaning you’d better be disciplined about only giving them shit once or twice about it. Because in the course of years, you’re going to have hundreds of opportunities.
And guess what happens when you poke someone repeatedly anywhere hundreds of times? They get sore