Actual autist here: Took me a loooong time to figure out a whole bunch of social concepts when it comes to what neurotypicals basically deem as small talk.
Firstly, you basically just have to accept that for most people, a level of classist, racist, other kinds of stereotypical insults are socially viewed as basically acceptable, even though its usually quite obvious they are, in fact, insults.
Then you have to understand the concept of proportionality in small talk. You have to reply with something that’s very obviously and directly relevant, and of the same magnitude.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
Encapsulating this entire social interaction is the setting: coworkers of mixed nationality likely and an after work dinner likely implies an expectation of basically corporate social etiquette, ie, back handed compliments to establish a social dominance hierarchy, where the name of the game us getting as close to breaching the invisible ‘wow what an asshole’ line without actually stepping over it.
To avoid looking meek, docile, awkward or antisocial, you have to figure out an appropriate small talk style reply, which actually requires a fairly detailed knowledge of the other persons you are conversing with. Their culture, personal history, personal beliefs, etc.
If you don’t do this at least semi-regularly, then you are a pushover who will be given higher workloads with no extra compensation and likely will not advance very far in your career, as you seem to be fine where you are.
So ok, if you know a bit about Israelis, you might attempt to insult back along the lines of dietary preferences.
But, its a faux pas to escalate even within this realm of responses: If you retort that you ‘prefer your potatoes with pork’, well, that’s probably going to be viewed as quite rude, as that’s still a higher magnitude, as it references something that is commonly known to be forbidden to most Israelis.
What might be a proportional response would be ‘Sorry, I’d make them (the potatoes) into latkes for you, but I don’t have any eggs’.
But that may still be deemed as overly offensive, depending on the temperament of the Israeli and the level to which the other coworkers feel the need to be defensive toward perceived anti-semitism.
So, as an autistic person, you have to consciously have all this knowledge and think through it all logically in real time, all while your actual emotion is anger because you don’t give a fuck that the potato comment was supposed to be a joke, because it was in actuality a racist insult that actually references a fucking famine and a dietary stereotype that exists largely due to imperialist exploitation of your ancestors.
In summary, yeah small talk is an absolute nightmare for autistic people who are in an aggressive, hostile social environment, which, at least in my experience, is almost all of them.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
The potato joke is a joke about war crimes even if the person telling it doesn’t realize this. They actually responded in kind.
One thing specifically about Irish vs Israeli is that, if I’m not mistaken, Ireland and Israel are not on remotely good terms and haven’t been for a while. If the Israeli was a natural-born Israeli citizen they may have truly meant to piss Anon off.
I’m autistic and I’ve learned to stop trying to play this game. Instead, I just make assholes like this explain their sideways ass comments in a straightforward fashion for the group. Forcing people to explain bigoted comments and not allowing the subject to change has now made everyone uncomfortable. Not so fucking funny anymore. I usually don’t have to do this more than once or twice within a specific group.
“Well, you know, Irish cuisine has a lot of potatoes in it.”
Joke fucking explained. How do you figure the guy’s going to be on the spot, exactly?
I guess you never heard of the potato famine then, which was a type of genocide visited upon the Irish by the British. Hence the 'sudden’jump from potatoes to bombing hospitals.
That’s the source of potato jokes people crack about the Irish.
“Does it? What’s a good dish to try?”
Corned beef hash? Colcannon? Literal Irish potatoes?
Well played, though I doubt some Israeli making genocide jokes is going to be that familiar with Irish cuisine.
Everybody knows about Irish food, just like everybody’s heard of hummus
… Hummus is a popular staple of cuisine all over the eastern mediterranean and much of the middle east.
The word ‘hummus’ itself is from Arabic.
Hummus is not particularly unique to Israel.
You’ve apparently heard of hummus but you don’t know much about it.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
The potato joke is also a joke about a genocide, though.
Like “How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?”
“None”As someone who lived 5 years in ireland and saw the history its absolutely fucking horrible. If you think about it its kinda ironic. Uk occupies a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. By the way as a neurotypical who has autistic family members and friends, in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event. Also the israel one is political. Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.
Can you explain how the joke references “a genocide”?
Please learn about Irish history.
Is every use of the word “potato” a reference to famine in the 1800’s?
OK, so there’s something called “context”, which in this case is the person being questioned being Irish.
All Europeans eats potatoes so singling out the Irish in this way means you are referencing the famine.the joke was in reference to the irish potato famine which was caused by the uk subsidising the export of food in ireland so potatoes were literally the only thing they were able to eat because the british would force them to hand over everything else
How does the joke reference that?
By using the concepts “potato” and “Irish”
The only reason those concepts are linked is because potato was the emergency food during the period during which England was trying to kill all Irish people
seriously.
insert potato joke
“why is that funny?”
let them try to explain
“oh, I thought it was about he Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole.”
see how awkward it can get.
That’s when they ostracize you for being a killjoy and not appreciating their “humour”
Even worse, the famine was entirely caused by landlords and especially the English. It wasn’t a natural disaster, but a product of monoculture that was forced on the people through no fault of their own.
