The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships 25: Humor

In my latest reading of The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, Sean Barron talks about how humor is a good social skill and can attract people to you.

I agree that this is often the case. But I think that humor can be mis-used by people with Asperger's as they attempt to fit in. For example, Temple Grandin has talked about people with Asperger's being fired from jobs for making fun of a person's weight. My hunch is that those people with Asperger's were trying to fit in by being funny, with disastrous results.

I know that Sean doesn't have this sort of thing in mind when he is referring to humor. He explicitly says that we should not use humor to deliberately hurt someone else. But, in my opinion, society pressures people to talk and to be funny in order to be accepted, and that can lead to inappropriate remarks. Moreover, I find that I'm funniest when I'm not pressured with some rule saying "Thou shalt be funny or you won't fit in, and people won't like you, and you won't make friends, have a significant other, or get or keep a job" (and I want to make clear that Sean and Temple don't use those words). Traversing through society's social expectations is like going through a mine-field.