Possible Aspergers?

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To begin, I am not looking for a diagnosis on this forum. I understand that can only be done by a professional. The reason for my post is, I've always been very offbeat and have never understood why. I came across MBTI one day and am an INTJ. This helped me understand myself to a point, but I still don't completely get why I am the way I am. Someone mentioned to me that I appeared slightly autistic like at times. I'm positive that I am not autistic. I don't have any delay in language/speech. I'm in college and it would cost me quite a bit to see someone to get diagnosed (i.e. I'm not going to bother if I there's no need), so I was doing some research and came across this site. I've listed some of my symptoms based upon what I have read about autistic spectrum disorders. I'm not totally and completely acquainted with the symptoms, so if some of the listed ones don't have anything to do with it, sorry. That's why I am asking here.

I have a tendency to take humor literally. I'll walk away from a conversation and five minutes later suddenly realize something said was a joke or even worse I won't realize it until years later.

I don't like small talk. I like theoretical, creative, abstract type conversations. I don't like completely concrete, factual conversations. I like to take the facts and twist them, defy them, and manipulate them.

I have a terrible time articulating my ideas, thoughts, theories, etc. I find the system in my head is highly original and specific to me, which makes it difficult for me to convey ideas.

I'm completely 100% honest. I don't sugar coat things or beat around the bush.

I'm extremely sensitive to the way things smell.

Constant sleep changes.

I'm an incredibly picky eater and have odd eating habits. I sometimes will eat the same food over and over again until I'm tired of it and then will find another food and do the same. I always eat cheeseburgers in a circular fashion and when eating hot dogs I always take two bites where most would take one from one end of the hot dog, flip it over, take two bites on the other end, flip it back over and continue.

I'm sensitive to textures. When I was a child, I remember going to a home decor store and spending the entire time feeling all kinds of fabrics. I usually don't have a problem with the clothes I'm wearing because I live in my head and am so busy doing things in there that I don't take notice to my clothes, but if I come out of my head my clothes will suddenly start irritating me and I'll be highly picky about textures and especially the fit.

I don't truly understand social rules. I can bat off social rules and tell you why people use them, but I don't understand why people have created these rules. For example, social norms require that you say good bye to acquaintances before leaving. I can tell you this and tell you it is done because it's polite, but I don't completely understand why.

I'm a klutz. I hit my elbows on doorways, hit my toes on furniture, trip up the stairs, and shut my fingers in doors. I've been riding horses for the past 18 years though and am amazingly coordinated when doing it.

I stim, though I suppose everyone does. I twirl, snap, hand flap, make flicking motions with my hands, tap foot/toes, sing songs (w/o vocals), and hum. I hum a lot when I go grocery shopping which leads me into...

Over stimulation. I've learned that I take in a lot more than what normal people take in. I find most people take in their general surroundings whereas my mind tries to take in every single detail which starts putting me on overload. For example, if the grocery store were completely free of customers, I wouldn't have a single problem. I should mention that I have a high level of curiosity and am always trying to learn new things, so I go through the grocery store with my shopping list and on the back I'll write down questions I come up with while I'm in the store. This doesn't cause me to go on overload. It's the people that do. People are all over and are completely unpredictable. I live in my head and going to the grocery store requires me to stay out of my head and in reality so that I don't run into people. Having to stay in reality where there are so many things are going on cause me to go on overload. That's when I start humming. Humming sort of puts a glass box around me where I can focus less on unnecessary things that are being processed like the lights or the smell. That way I have less to process.

I can sense people's emotions. I can walk into a room and get a general vibe and I can then stand around a group of people and sense what they are feeling. I find this to be slightly annoying because I can sense people's emotions left and right but I don't know what the hell to do with them.

Deadlines are extremely important to me and I like everything to be in on time, but never seem to be able to make deadlines because the guidelines aren't black or white. I hate having to try to guess what shade of gray someone is looking for.

I'll wear the same outfit day in and day out. I have a tendency to forget to wash my clothes and my teeth for that matter. I never use soap in the shower, but I always shampoo and condition my hair.

I don't like people to touch me unless invited to.

I don't connect with people. I find the more time I spend with people, the more I lose myself. I play on a completely different playing field. I'm a highly introspective, psychoanalytical person. I'm always coming up with new theories and ideas that I would love to share with people, but people typically don't understand. Most people function on a highly basic/superficial level. To me there is so much more and most people don't have and don't see things in the same depth as I do. It makes it very difficult for me because I have to try to take information from a highly in depth level to a highly superficial level for people to understand, which doesn't work. I am constantly trying to improve myself and I find people only inhibit my ability to improve myself. I wish I could find people who allow me to flourish within myself and within themselves without them inhibiting me.

My mind doesn't always process what is heard. I often mistake things that are said. One time someone was standing directly in front of me talking. I could hear their voice and see their lips moving, but I had absolutely no idea what they were saying.

Things inconsistent with AS (I'm guessing):
I do not like to keep the same schedule. I like to change things up so that I can experience things in a different way.

I have very good hand writing which stems from being a perfectionist.

I love metaphors, analogies, symbols, and things of the sort.

I like ambiguity in certain situations. I like to be highly creative, abstract, and innovative. Having things completely black and white doesn't leave a lot of room for this. I loathe rules (and don't follow them) and concrete things when I'm creating an idea or theory. I do like things to be black and white when testing because I am incredibly good at looking at things from multiple different perspectives and putting them into many different contexts.

I'm a stickler for proper grammar and spelling.

I am not naive and I do not have a monotone voice.

I have no problem making eye contact.

I can read facial expressions.

I'm not obsessive about anything specific other than self improvement and learning. I adore learning and spend most of my time reading about anything I don't know. It's that simple. I'm interested in anything that I don't know. I have a constant need understand myself and improve my being. I have always had a very deep interest in horses ever since I was a kid.

Does any of this sound like I possibly need to seek a professional diagnosis? I should make a note that I can socialize just like everyone, though I have created a very well developed mask to do this. Without the mask, I couldn't care less about social norms and toss them to the wind. I simply don't understand why on earth people feel the need to keep up with such silly guidelines. As I said before, I've always felt like I can never meet brain waves with other people. They just don't make sense. TIA

The overload in a supermarket is a bit of a concern. The same thing happens to me.
You could go in for a diagnosis. You have enough symptoms. You sound like you could have mild Asperger's. It sounds like you have developed enough coping strategies to deal with certain things.
A lot of people here like metaphors too. There are a lot of misconceptions about AS, and that's one of them.
I'm not very black and white thinking. I can see things from different perspectives, like you can too. I'd also like to think that I'm creative.
People with AS are also individuals so we while we have similar symptoms, we can also have differences.

In my opinion, you are the Perfect Prototype of an Asperger Syndrome Individual.

Few people have ever heard of Asperger's Syndrome, and few know exactly what autism is, except through a few stereotypes. The reality, is that you are the real Aspie.
Most people are only suspected of being on the Spectrum due to being extreme in some areas such as language, coordination, eye contact, etc. But that is really the effect of either being at the extreme end of the spectrum, or the combination of Autism and other conditions (Many low functioning autistics have epilepsy for example). The combination makes the symptoms of both more profound, and makes people more in tune, that something is wrong.

But in essence, I think you are the true Aspie, which is a bunch of social, and neurological odd traits, that don't really fit together, but fits out of place with most normal people. These traits are not necessarily detrimental or a product of low intelligence. They are just odd. I think that if we could get the message that your description of yourself is the real Asperger's Syndrome, then a lot of the controversy and confusion will disappear.

Don't hide your condition. Explore it.

You probably have AS, but not a very severe case. Or at least some autistic genes

My 44 year old auntie has showed a few AS symptoms which stand out, and I want to know if she has got mild Aspergers, because apparently it runs in her side of the family. Here's a things about her behaviour here - and it's made all of us start to wonder if she really has AS.

-She cannot make friends properly, and all the friends she has had in the past have turned against her for no reason, or just don't want to know her any more.
-She gets very angry easily, and rips things up in a temper then starts becoming suicidle after her ''outburst''.
-She always gets herself involved in the first man what comes along, then he turns out to be horrible to her (we all reckon it's because they realise how socially difficult she is).
-She tends to cling onto her sisters
-She can be selfish
-She collects a certain type of ornament because she has become obsessed with them
-She likes everything in order on her shelves
-She mucks about when she's bored, which annoys others around her
-She's very depressive and anxious
-She gets picked on or ignored by people at work, but nobody else does
-Apparently she used to rock backwards and forwards a lot right up until she was well into her 20s
-Apparently she was put into a special class when she was little which was specially for children who weren't mixing at all (and a lot of them who were in that class have now been diagnosed with AS or Dyspraxia)

So lately we've been wondering if she has AS, because she's got 2 sisters and a brother, and all of them are NTs - and she behaves very different from them. Does anyone here think she could be on the spectrum? I'd like to hear some opinions.