Trouble telling difference between joking and seriousness?

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I have trouble telling when people are joking or serious, like if they are smiling if it's sincere or they are being sarcastic. And when people pretend to be sad I can't tell that they are pretending and it's embarrassing when they are like "hey man I was just kidding" and I thought they were serious.
Anyone else have this problem?

I'll often say something really outrageous thinking it is obvious that nobody could take it seriously. Yet a surprising number of people do take it seriously.

What is more disturbing is when some people say something really outrageous and I think they are joking, but it turns out that they were quite serious about it.

Yeah, since I was little. So much so that I have learned to warn people of my tendency to take what is said literally. It doesn't matter how long I've known the person or what tone they use. It feels bad or embarrassing sometimes how many times people have to explain "that was a joke" or "I wasn't serious". Have to watch out for the people who will use it to manipulate you.

It is also difficult/frustrating when the misunderstanding makes it seem like I need to explain some concept or idea to them, and then they brush me off and act like I was being condescending or talking down for giving an explanation.

Feel like such a social anthropologist when I'm mentally like "ah, that was a joke" ...like I should take notes to understand.

Terribly, but I have learned along the way repeated situations where serious or jokes. This don't help if the situation can't obviously be either a joke or seriousness

If it wasn't funny or humourous at all to me I tend to take everything seriously.
One time at my previous job the boss invited the whole department to his house for his daughter's birthday.
I asked one of my coworkers if he was going and he said "My hamster is about to give birth so I might not go."
I believed him but he came to the party. I still don't know if he was joking or not.