May I have a touch of Aspergers?

I understand what sarcasm is (duh) and have even have been known to use it effectively myself. But lately I’ve been noticing that I’ve been getting myself into slightly awkward situations because I don’t always realized that someone is joking or being sarcastic until it’s too late and I’ve already embarrassed myself. Usually it happens with my boyfriend when he says something and I get annoyed with him only to have him tell me he was kidding and didn’t mean it all.

Today it really made things awkward with my boss. I got upset with him over something I didn’t realize he was just being sarcastic about and was really embarrassed when he realized that I didn’t recognize the joking tone of his voice… Just great! I also notice people have to say “I was a joke, Julie.” or “I was just kidding” more often to me than others I think.

My father is very much the same way except much worse. He has autism spectrum tendencies plus aggression. I get by much better than he does and have never had a diagnosis but sometimes I worry that I inherited some of what he has. At the same time I’m a successful college student, have a great internship in NYC and lots of friends so it must be very mild if I have it at all…

Anyone else here ever have difficulty recognizing sarcasm? Do you have Autism/Aspergers? How do you cope with it?