Banter

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'Banter' I.e. subtle abuse of each other in friendship/relationships seems to be an important part of socialising. In dating its used to generate some chemistry or tension. Its the subtlety part I struggle with. Ive lost quite a few friends due to my inability to identify banter until its too late. I tend to take this subtle abuse personally and respond in a less than subtle way. I think banter is probably one of the lowest forms of human interaction and it seems to come from an insecure place within the person.

I think banter is one of the things that make interaction with people unnecessarily difficult. I really don't like it. I don't know how to use or respond to it. It makes interaction unbearable.

Yes exactly. Unnecessary is the right word. It burns, and people laugh as it burns.

I don't understand why people would abuse each other if they are friends, however subtly. I seems an oxymoron: friendly abuse.

I only just figured out the whole social game and realised that it is the sole reason Im lacking in meaningful relationships and struggling with communication at this current time. As far as banter is concerned I dont bother with it... it annoys me so much, trying to find a moment to... lets face it insult someone is just rank. Maybe its just me but people who are aware and especially autistics shouldnt pretend, do we not live to give an example of the opposite to the norm.

I find in my personal experience, if you're unresponsive to it, people will end up realising that you don't like it, and will either stop or tone it down.

I don't like the 'friendly insulting' either, but I typically either don't respond to it at all, or I appear a bit hurt, so co-workers and other people come to respect that, and most actually tend to be a bit more careful around me in that respect.

But I think what's key here, is that you don't let it upset you, but kind of let it slide off your back like water off a duck.

In my current workplace, I simply don't participate in banter, being all professional all the time. Of course, I'm considered to be a bore for it, but I can live with that!

Me, either. I don't participate in banter at work. Especially now that I know that AS is making me incapable of handling banter, I don't even try. It's unnecessary and useless. But unfortunately, the majority of my (male) colleagues and bosses mainly use banter to keep their comradeship (I am a male, too). So, they are very wary and uncomfortable when they have to speak to me, "the difficult person". So I think the flip side of banter is that it actually isolates some people like me, who can't handle it.

Perhaps not due to banter, but I have also experienced being isolated in an male-dominated workplace. I should really say 'macho-dominated' workplace. There was a complete mismatch between interests and attitudes, because I didn't like sports or clubbing, didn't listen to hip hop that much, and preferred to read and take walks in my spare time. So most of them couldn't relate to me and vice versa, and that was a very unpleasant experience. They also found me quite effeminate, which I'll agree on, but which shouldn't be a reason to shun or ridicule a person.

I too find it all isolating. Banter seems to be something NT's pick up when they are kids.

This is one thing that you might not expect an autistic person to be good at that I can manage - to some degree. I can usually participate in "banter" with my NT friends and, once I have identified that she is interested in me, I can also do it in the context of flirting with a woman. Sometimes I'm not good at identifying the line between "banter" and "insulting" and I upset somebody but that happens less as I get older. I essentially have a mental checklist of appropriate "banter" responses for particular situations and so I generally stick to those (roughly) couple hundred guaranteed acceptable insults or teases.

I don't like banter. It's often too personal and it makes me feel defensive. If I get drawn into teasing type of banter, because of feeling defensive I can go a bit too far and not realise that I've upset the other person. Best avoided.

I can recognise banter and I don't take it personally. What I have trouble with is how to do banter to other people. I'm so scared I might sound serious and they might take it personally, even people as close as my own family. I don't tend to banter much at all, so I suppose people get used to me that way and when I do decide to banter, I find myself having to explain that it was a joke afterwards.

Often I see on Facebook girls calling each other ''b***h'', and they just automatically know it's a joke. But even if I put ''b***h'' so perhaps one of my close cousins or friends, even with loads of friendly emoticons and kisses and things like ''lol'', I bet I'll still end up offending them.

God, I hate being Aspie, can't do anything right!