Compensation or Red Herring?

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I hope this isn't a stupid question.

I always had this secret hope that if I learned enough about the right topic, it would "fix" everything. I had no idea I might be an
Aspie. Maybe I became a bit of an intellectual snob. On the other hand, if you can't socialise, reading is a natural choice. I used to like it because I could slow the author down to a speed I could manage, socially. Doesn't that sound funny. I'm now wondering if reading and writing *are* the language of asperger's? Maybe they were invented by someone who also couldn't cope........

My question: does being "gifted" compensate for less ability to cope socially, so that others will value and respect you for something, or does it mislead people so that they expect far more socially than you can actually deliver yet?

Are you better off making a "good first impression" and then risking disappointing, or coming off as fairly mediocre and letting the acquaintance warm up slowly?

I hope you will do the poll, and also write something of your experience. This is all so new to me, it's like I took the other pill.

People like me for me, regardless of my skills. But my skills give me more confidence about myself.
I don't really pay attention how I talk to people and how they perceive me. I just say what I can and be glad I said anything at all.

They're a bit of both for me.
On the one hand, I'm intelligent and talented, and it does help a lot, because I compensate cognitively for a lot of my difficulties, and I'm good enough at my primary special interest to be studying it at a postgraduate level.
On the other hand, being able to do things with a lot of thought is no subsitute for being able to do them intuitively. Also, people who see the things that I'm good at think that my skills should be even, so they get surprised and almost offended when my disability comes out.
It works the other way too; people who see my social (lack of) ability or executive (dys) functioning think that that's all there is, and they are surprised when I'm good at something.
Very few people hold a balanced view even when they see both sides of things.

Reading and writing are a big part of AS for me. I absolutely love literature as an art. I also like the subtleties in the text - metaphors, similes, allegories, themes and motifs. When I was a kid I loved going to church and listening to bible stories. Many of them contained mythos that fascinated me.

My skillset happens to be in music, so I have met a lot of new people and had many good conversations as a result. However I'd still get by otherwise