How to tell if DP is joking or not

[Guardian452]

A little bit of background first:

 

For the past seven months, I've been dating this really funny, nice, friendly, and amazing girl. We get on well, our views align on most things, we have similar interests, we're both vegetarians, and we both enjoy spending time together. As well as this, I have Asperger's Syndrome, which means I can be pretty awkward sometimes. While I fear this sometimes scares people away, she loves my awkwardness and once described it as 'endearing'.

 

Now, we're happy together, however the one issue we seem to have is that I can't always tell whether or not she's joking. This is related to my Asperger's since I struggle to read other people, so don't pick up on certain social queues like the tone of someone's voice (I'm fine when it comes to sarcasm most the time, but for some reason it's not the same when it comes to jokes etc). It wasn't too much of an issue until recently when she said that she'll say a joke but I won't know if it's a joke or not, and I won't give anything back. She did say that she loves me and she is happy with me asides from this though.

 

I admittedly don't have much experience with relationships (before this, only one of my relationships if you can call them that has lasted more than four months, and I was single for about 4 and a half years before I started dating my current partner), but I know that I truly love this girl, and am willing to do what it takes to make this work. I really want to work on this, but I'm not sure what to do asides from picking up on when she makes a joke and coming up with an appropriate response. Is there any chance I can pull this off? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

[j.man]

It'd be pretty helpful if you could include some examples.

[Guardian452]

It's normally just jokes where she says something that she probably doesn't mean (well I hope she doesn't), but I think she's being serious. One example is she said I was boring while we were having dinner out, and I thought she was being serious, and upon realising this she said that she was joking and that 'she wouldn't be with me if she thought I was boring'. All I'm thinking is that if she says something like this, I should think rationally about the truth of what she's saying and then come up with a joke in response to that.

[Wiseman2]

Can you be honest with her and tell her that sarcastic or ironic humor is lost on you?

[DancingFool]

In the example that you are giving, it's just not a very nice thing to say to someone even if she was being sarcastic or ironic. There is a very fine line between joking and cloaking an insult as a joke. I have to agree with Wiseman that you should be honest with her and just tell her that you really don't appreciate that kind of "joking". This has nothing to do with having Asperger's. Most people wouldn't appreciate that kind of "joking" from their partner.

[Guardian452]

Can you be honest with her and tell her that sarcastic or ironic humor is lost on you?

 

She's definitely aware that I struggle with telling if someone's joking or not sometimes as well as the other issues I have relating to Asperger's since I told her about all the specific things that I have issues with very early on (obviously if you're with someone, they're going to need to know about this stuff). Although I think if anything, I should say that it would be easier for me to see that you're joking if she makes it a little more obvious, and then it might be easier for me to play off of her with my own jokes as responses.

 

DancingFool, I'm sure she doesn't mean to offend/upset me or anyone with these jokes, she probably just sees it as playfulness (which is how I see it, at least once I understand she's joking).