I fear I will offend my new flatmates

I am starting uni in a couple weeks and I'm living in halls. Because of where I live currently, my friendship circle isn't very... "diverse". Two of my soon-to-be flatmates are black. I'm autistic and enjoy dark humour, I feel I could quite easily piss them off even though the jokes I make don't represent my views. What would be a good course of action? I don't want to be completely dry and uninteresting but I can't let my personality slip in case one of them doesn't like it.

I am starting uni in a couple weeks and I'm living in halls. Because of where I live currently, my friendship circle isn't very... "diverse". Two of my soon-to-be flatmates are black. I'm autistic and enjoy dark humour, I feel I could quite easily piss them off even though the jokes I make don't represent my views. What would be a good course of action? I don't want to be completely dry and uninteresting but I can't let my personality slip in case one of them doesn't like it.

I am starting uni in a couple weeks and I'm living in halls. Because of where I live currently, my friendship circle isn't very... "diverse". Two of my soon-to-be flatmates are black. I'm autistic and enjoy dark humour, I feel I could quite easily piss them off even though the jokes I make don't represent my views. What would be a good course of action? I don't want to be completely dry and uninteresting but I can't let my personality slip in case one of them doesn't like it.

Tell us some jokes and we'll tell you if we'd be offended if we were your housemates.

if your jokes include some sort of racism, i wouldn't call it a 'joke'

Well you've got a few options;

1) Warn them in advance - Probably the best idea although it will come across as a bit strange if you say it out of the blue. Try and weave it into a conversation.

2) Test lighter material and see how well that goes - Keep going until someone finds it funny but says they shouldn't. Now you know how far you can go with your flatmates.

3) - Don't say stupidly edgy **** - Also a good idea. No need to be needlessly offensive whether it's a joke or not. Most people will understand a joke.

The fact you can consider their likely response means you surely have a reasonable degree of empathatetic functioning.

My ex-boyfriend had Aspergers and he was absolutely hilarious (mostly unintentionally, but he worked out after a while what I found funny and was actually pretty good at telling jokes). We used to have a lot of fun with strange English idioms that he felt were ridiculous (like "barking up the wrong tree", he draw a very funny picture of a pack of dogs barking at a tree). I don't know, it's not normal humour but we found other things kind-of funny. He found Curb Your Enthusiasm really funny, so I'm not sure that people who are on the spectrum and people who aren't can't share humour.

I'm sure your flatmates will be fine, don't try to hide your personality from them. They are more likely to appreciate you for who you are (and people on the spectrum have many great and lovable qualities) than if you hide yourself from them

X

Okay, I'll give you an example of a few offensive jokes. Tell me if the jokes you usually tell are more or less offensive. Here goes.

*What's the difference between two dicks and a joke? You can't take a joke.

*What's black and screams? Stevie Wonder answering the iron.

*What's the best part of having sex with a transexual? Reaching around and pretending it went all the way through

(Okay, I admit I'm just shoehorning in offensive jokes now)

I love those but if I were to go with the classic style of joke my favourite would be "What is better than winning the gold at the special Olympics? Not being retarded."

if your jokes include some sort of racism, i wouldn't call it a 'joke'

if your jokes include some sort of racism, i wouldn't call it a 'joke'

That's actually pretty funny. The reason I'm generally not offended by such things is because of the fundamental nature of humour; we laugh when our brain encounters something unexpected and creates a new neural connection, laughing is an automatic physiological response.

The joke sets up an expectation and then does something completely different but which still follows from the original premise; our brain encounters something unexpected, and the laugh follows. Therefore, I think ultimately it doesn't matter what the particular subject matter of the joke is; it's just grist for the mill to allow us to create those novel neural connections.

Of course one has to be sensitive about these things and there is a limit, but overall I don't think we should be overly concerned.

Test the waters with videos of comedians on youtube.

Start with Michael Mcintyre.

Then move on to Jimmy Carr.

If they can take that, progress to Frankie Boyle.

If you're still alive, find Daniel Tosh or Lisa Lampanelli. If they pass that, you can officially joke about anything.