I have trouble perceiving other people's emotions, reading body language and facial expressions; it takes more effort to remember faces/names; have other social oddities; but it is hardly incapacitating and you learn how to deal with it. Insomnia (I'm able to sleep only 4h/day and wake up rested) and having hyper focus for my special interests are some perks.

Insomnia is not a perk. Where did you get this idea from? It's not healthy to sleep less than 7 hours on routine basis. It's irrelevant how you feel during the day.

Not everyone needs to sleep more than 8 hours a day: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/07/short-sleepers-gen...

Some people do just fine, sleeping less. The issue is not listening to your body and waking when you don't want to.

I had a friend in elementary school that was diagnosed aspergers. I mean... the kid was a bit strange, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't really going to affect him anymore than other people's oddities affect them. He grew up, mellowed out, and is doing just fine. On the other hand, a lot of 'normal' people ended up as complete losers.

I mean... the oddities that led him to be diagnosed included things like lack of eye contact and bizarre play habits. But, honestly, these are rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things, because the 'normies' were missing pretty fundamental, yet non-diagnosable, personality traits, such as ambition and conscientiousness

I've been forced out of my last two workplace due to being socially inept. I'm pushing 40 and have never had a relationship with a girl or made a friend or been invited to a party.

What society wants and signals to you constantly is for you to kill yourself because you're not worth anything.

It sucks to say the least.

Not OP, but hyperfocus springs immediately to mind.

Hyperfocus is not a specific indication of autism. It is also observed in AD(H)D patients, as complementary mode of attention deficits. If it worked such that you cannot focus on anything, ADHD would be very easy to diagnose.

Thanks, but I was disappointed by this response. Are you able to specify _any_ "specific indication of autism" which is _not_ also observed in people with other conditions? That seems an impossibly strict condition to meet, let alone in the context of spitballing, non-clinically, about ways in which some aspects of traits often associated with autism might in fact be beneficial.

Along with hyperfocus, a tendency toward honesty is another such trait. "But people without autism are sometimes honest, too" would be a comparable response.