Day: April 23, 2017

“Humour and Aspies’ unique senses of it.”

Published on by Ken1 Comment

Diablogue #10 

For 30 years, Ken was the Klondike Kid at Klondike Days in Edmonton. He and Christina made the 19th century Western era the playful theme of their wedding. Humour, in all its guises, remains key to their relationship.

 Helpful Hint: If applied appropriately, humour is a great resource. Humour is a bonding agent that helps make and strengthen connections.

 

So, let’s diablogue:

Christina: Before we get into humour, let’s answer the question Mr. Asperger wrote as a ‘comment’ April 23: “How does the actual writing of your blog work? Is it one person recording the conversations? After all, it flows like a conversation that is verbal, but, I can’t imagine you both sitting down at the same time and recording one after the other.”

Ken: Perhaps you could explain.

Christina: Right. Well, I should say that we started out not knowing quite how to do this.

Ken: Yes. We were trying to achieve the “flow”, as Mr. Asperger says, of two people sitting having a conversation and the readers listening in. However, our challenge was to adapt that audio-format effect to print.

Christina: So we played around with a few options. I thought it would work to have two laptops, sit in a coffee shop, create a Google doc, and write at the same time through the internet into the same collaborative document.

Ken: That was our first attempt.

Christina: Yes, and the photo with the first blog showed us doing that.

Ken: However, due to my slow keyboarding speed, I could not get down what I was saying or thinking fast enough. I became frustrated, and we quickly realized we would have to modify our method.

Christina: Right. So then we actually tried to audio record our conversation, which Mr. Asperger thought we might be doing. We passed the iPhone back and forth as we talked. The idea was for me type out the transcript later.

Ken: That did not work because of ambient noise and volume control problems. It was very unnatural and interrupted the flow.

Christina: Yeah. So finally we fell upon the method we’re using now. We talk, and I type. It’s no problem because I type really fast. I’ve spent my life typing—first as a journalist, then in university.

Ken: I am hoping that this will be a temporary situation because I am now in a job that requires a great deal of typing. Therefore, by practise, my speed should increase.

Christina: (skeptical) I’ll believe that when I see it!

Ken: (laughs)

Christina: I hope that answers Mr. Asperger and anyone else’s curiosity on how we are doing this. If we change it up again, we’ll let you all know. Okay. Let’s get to today’s topic: humour.

Ken: Early in my life I discovered humour as a social survival tool.

Christina: Survival?

Ken: Yes. I always had the sense that I was different. As a child I didn’t know what, why, or how. And sometimes others would react to what I said or did in negative ways. Occasionally others would laugh at me.

Christina: You had to find a way to stop it.

Ken: Yes. The way I found was with humour. At first, it was unintentional, incidental, or accidental. I would say something and people would laugh. I observed that they were laughing at what I said. This shifted their laughter off of me directly and onto what I saying. I could control what I was saying.

Christina: Humour became a tool that you still use today.

Ken: Correct. Humour is one of my positive traits. Most people value it. It connects me with others and helps some people develop a positive option of me. It works, even when I am not working at it.

Christina: Ummm… but you know, it doesn’t always work for me. That knee-jerk aspect of it. Sometimes what comes out isn’t very funny–to me, anyway!

Ken: You are not alone. That being said, would you rather a grouch?

Christina: Nope. But do you realize we’ve barely said anything funny in this whole post on humour? That’s seriously sad!

Ken: That is because I have found that humour is a serious business.

Christina: Is that supposed to be funny? I can’t tell.

Ken: Viewer’s discretion.

Christina:  Arghh! One last thing. Humour is different I’m sure for every Aspie. Right?

Ken: True. If you have heard one funny Aspie, you have heard one funny Aspie.

Christina: We’ve only touched the surface of this topic. We’re going to have to come back to it another time.

Ken: We shall.

Christina: Lots of people have asked us if or how your formal autism diagnosis has helped us deal with its realities. I think that should be our next blog topic. Ok?

Ken: Yes.

Next Post: Diablogue #11 – “How has the Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis helped?”