Someone you’ve learned to be a really nice person makes a mean comment. How do you react?

Autists have a hard time with this because it is often not clear to them that these kinds of comments can be meant as a joke. But the solution turns out to be very simple.

The rule is that if someone makes a weird comment, you should make a odd comment back. There are four options:

• Someone’s kidding. By making a odd comment, you acknowledge the joke and you can laugh about it together.
• Someone makes a comment that you misunderstood. By making a weird comment, you make it clear to them that you misunderstood. Now you can laugh together at the speech confusion and he can think of a better way to phrase the comment.
• He is angry about something and this comment was indeed meant to be mean. Making a odd comment shows that you’re willing to take this as a joke. This makes it a lot easier to solve the problem, without it degenerating into a fight.
• He tried to bully you.

Dealing with bullying behavior

Autists are often victims of bullying, but are unable to do anything about it. Kindly asking the bully to stop is never effective. There is really only one way to get rid of bullying and that is to bully back. Although counselors never tell, bullying is simply a form of social skills that autistic people can also learn.

Autists are incapable of lying about it or doing it underhandedly behind someone’s back. But that is not necessary at all. On the contrary. The goal is to get rid of that other person’s bullying behavior as quickly as possible. That works much better if he knows what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. But don’t offer him that information unsolicited. That ruins the effect.

Ms. K., one of the neighbors in my flat, is known for enjoying inciting neighbors to harass other neighbors. For two years she incited my neighbors across the hall to complain about my music.

Our flat has interior corridors that lead to the front doors. Because of the ventilation there is an open space under the front door. So if you are right in front of the door you can indeed hear the sound of my PC. But sound intensity decreases with the square of the distance. Ten meters away, on the neighbors’ couch, it is impossible to hear the sound. So it was clear that these were false accusations and I did not pay any further attention to them. A few months ago, Mrs. K. gave up.

But recently Mrs. K found a new game. She had started inciting someone to “joke”. The joke of this person was that she puts my bike in a different place in the bike shed every time. I have to say that the fun of that wears off quickly. I came across Mrs. P. in the bicycle shed and she behaved guiltily, so I’m pretty sure that she is the guilty party.

Sometimes it helps to “joke” back

I sent an email to the housing association to tell them that I was going to make jokes with Mrs. P. I rang the bell at the flat where I thought Mrs. P lived there, it turned out that she did indeed live there, and I walked away without saying anything.

Then suddenly the problem was solved. That afternoon I had to go somewhere and my bike was in the right place.

I don’t know whether the housing association has taken active steps or whether Mrs. P. on second thought did not want an arguement. But the moment I showed that I was going to tackle the problem myself, it was suddenly solved.

On the other hand, it’s also possible, of course, that those neighbors who complained about the music were doing it in the tone by which neurotypicals can supposedly hear is a joke, but autistics can’t hear. They may have been fretting about my apparent lack of sense of humor for two years. Perhaps to Mrs. P it was very funny that I rang the bell and turned around without saying anything and walked away again.

Time will tell.

The psychotherapist from Forensic Psychiatric Center de Waag who gave me my diagnosis in 2006, told me about the tone from which neurotypicals can hear that a comment is meant as a joke. But in recent years I’ve been wondering if it’s really a tone or maybe an intonation.

Communication theory teaches us that there are many disruptors and that messages, in oral communication, often arrive incorrectly. I could imagine that some of those misunderstood messages could be hurtful. In which case people would need a method to check if they got it right.

Is humor used to check whether you have misunderstood an annoying comment?

Humor could be used for that. But if so, then I would think that this is not an innate quality, but a learned skill. A skill that autists never learn because autists never learn the basic conversation skills and therefore never talk to people.

I sent the Waag an email via their contact form asking if they had more information about this. But that led to a very strange conversation.

After I had not accepted three phone calls from the Waag. I sent them an email telling them that since I’ve only learned basic conversation skills very recently, I don’t have any experience with “traffic control” based on intonation that people use over the phone. For that reason I prefer communication by email.

Whereupon I received two more phone calls from the Waag.

I sent them an e-mail asking if they would like to send an e-mail back.

Then the Waag called again. Then I got an email from a psychologist who demanded that I call her.

I sent another email.

She sent an email back, in which she said that she did not know the answer to my question. But she still wanted me to call her so we could talk about my question.

No one would ever expect someone in a wheelchair to walk up the stairs with them. So why would a mental health worker demand that a former client call her? Even after the client has repeatedly explained why he prefers email.

I must say this made me feel like I was being bullied. In this case, I don’t believe it was a “joke”.

The problem with Ms. K.

Now that it’s clear how humor works, it’s also clear what went wrong with Ms. K. This story did indeed start with a odd comment. But it was a odd comment from me.

My counselor advised me to check if my neighbors were not bothered by my music, by asking them about it. But neurotypicals never do this. So eighty-year-old Mrs. K experienced this as a strange question. To which she responded by making a strange comment herself and complaining about a sound that she could not possibly hear. If I had responded by making another odd comment, we could have laughed about it together and that would have ended the chapter.

But I took it seriously. That’s when Mrs. K felt threatened and she called in the help of her neighbors, who also came with that strange complaint. When I also responded seriously to that, they first called in the help of the landlord and then the police, by again coming up with that strange complaint.

The landlord knows that I am autistic and called in my counselor who had to work overtime. The counselor came up with a number of suggestions, which in retrospect only made the problem worse, after which the municipality was called in and the counselor had to work even more overtime.

The issue was eventually resolved when I tried to bully back by doing something odd to Ms. P, by ringing here bell and walking off without talking to her.