Help with "banter"

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People at my school say that I'm very slow at "banter" (this is a word that I hate). It's quite annoying as they start laughing at me and I just can't come up with any response. An example: I was called a goat last week I responded by saying that I'm not a goat I'm a human. Their response was to laugh at me and then they told me to repeat what I had said. It was at this point I got extremely confused as he said he was laughing at what I had said but then asked me to repeat it as he hadn't heard me. I ended up walking away but I was upset for the rest of the day as I don't know how to reply next time they or someone else says something. Any ideas? thanks.

That's not banter, that's bullying. They don't sound like friends. I'm not sure what response would have made the situation better. Maybe calling him some sort of animal. I find in situations like this that copying the behavior of the other is helpful, but I would probably avoid these people.

Those people sound like a bunch of jerks. I sometimes don't know how to keep a conversation going. I also have trouble hearing what people say. I'm a visual thinker, so I guess this plays into it. A lot of times I just hear a bunch of mumbling instead of what a person is saying and I have to wait a while to figure out what they said.

I have several family members on the spectrum, who did not know they were on the spectrum when we were growing up. One of these family members we now know has AS. When he was younger we all thought that he was a master of dry humor and we spent YEARS laughing at these hilarious things he said and did. We laugh a lot in our family and didn't think anything of it. He turned pink a lot and didn't laugh with us most of the time, but that's the trick to dry humor- you say something really funny and then don't laugh while everyone else laughs. He was pink but whatever, he was a teenager and they have a lot of hormones.

Turns out, now that he's an adult, that he DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HUMOR. So all these years we were bullying him and infuriating him. Several times he's almost hauled up and punched me straight in the face following one of his "jokes" and now I totally get why. He wasn't making a joke and I was laughing at completely serious statements he was trying to make. I feel like a major jerk now. I try my best now to only laugh if HE laughs so I know he really is making a joke on purpose.

So my point number one is that it could be that you're being purposefully bullied, but it could also be that they think you're making jokes on purpose and don't understand that you're angry.

But you totally WILL be bullied if you show that it bothers you. I know another guy (I think he's NT) who doesn't get jokes and he just flat out says "I don't get jokes" if you try to kid around with him, then he ignores you. No one bullies him. You don't have to "banter" if it's artificial to you. Just be like "Yeah, I don't do that" and go back to whatever you're doing.

Thanks everyone but I have a question (I think this is most likely to be answered by an NT). How do they know that I find it annoying is there some specific "tell" I'm demonstrating? I'm not sure.