When U told people about ur AS, what response did U get?

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That's really funny.

Friend number 1 said "Oh... You really need more sunlight dude".

Friend number 2 said "Do you know how much a candy bar costs?" To which i obviously replied "About a 100 dollars"

My mother said "I feel so guilty, you've had to struggle with this for so long."

And lastly my brother said "Cool!"

I never made a secret of AS, most people don't seem to have strong reactions in any particular way.

I love to tell people that I have AS. And I think it is a great conversation starter. But no one gets impressed by it. I have AS and it is just a fact. But everyone wants too know what kind of handicap it brings into my life. So I think that the general opinion of it is that it is some kind of disease but I consider it to be a gift.

I have also told all my friends and family and no one believed me. They all tell me that I have a lot of friends and that I am really normal so I can't have AS.

The only people I don't tell it to is my bosses and my coworkers. But if they asked or the conversation would be about autism I would tell them.

With me, there was always a strong negative reaction from other people.

Maybe this was down to my being female and the attitudes of people I was surrounded by.

Many people either said I didn't "have it" or that I should keep it a secret because "I was normal and it didn't matter".

I have never had a single positive, informed or sensible reaction to my mentioning AS.

I'm sorry, but that's the truth.

I rarely get flack about it. A friend of mine will sometimes joke about my insane focus whenever I start beating him at video games, saying "I swear to god, I'm gonna find the cure!".

Then our other mutual aspie friend heard that once and flipped. He's kind of a lot worse at controlling himself. Personally, I find the joke pretty funny and have all kinds of zingers to hit back with, like "It's about time you got that thing checked" or "There's a cure for being normal?".

My partner: Told you so
My mum: She got very upset and told me I shouldn't let myself be labeled. Not long after she told me it all makes sense and she feels guilty for not picking it up when I was a little kid and being bullied
Most friends: Oh that all makes sense! Don't worry, you're still cool (after they asked "what are arse burgers?")
One friend: No, it is probably just how you are, not Asperger's. Just accept that you are weird for no reason.
Work people: I got asked here if I had Aspergers by one guy, but generally I have not told people unless it comes up in conversation. They have reacted well if I have told them.

So mostly it has been a positive reaction apart from one friend who won't believe it.

My wife doesn't really understand Aspergers and sometimes wonders why I can't just act normally if I know I have the condition, my boss isn't that interested as he only bothered about how it affects my work and won't make allowances for it, my father doesn't want to and won't make an effort to understand it but my mother is very supportive and understanding as she works with severely autistic adults and has a huge amount of knowledge on the subject.

A tip of advice that every 'aspie' should follow:

It's FAR better to be seen as weirdo than to be seen as someone with a medically unproved syndrome with a weird name such as Asperger (it sounds as if it's something extraterrestrial) , they'll look at you more weirdly if you tell your peers or even your closest friends and the bullies wouldn't treat you any better.

Don't ever do that mistake

Sorry but I completely disagree with this, if somebody can't be bothered to understand why people with Aspergers act the way they do then they're not really worth interacting with anyway.

I'll stick to honesty, it hasn't hurt yet.

I don't tell most people, but the people I have told didn't really seem to mind.

If this comment is based on your own experience, well, it could not be further from my own experience. Here is a tip that you might want to follow: avoid generalisation.

I'm sorry, but LePetitPrince's experience seems to match mine.

Nobody ever properly explained to me what AS was, even when I was assessed, so they really didn't really explain it to other people either.

Everybody's attitudes I've met so far seem to be geared to stereotypes.
They do look at you weirdly if you mention it.

In my experience, letting people know is dangerous if they aren't properly informed.

Lots of people have liked and appreciated me without a negative label attached.

To be quite brutally honest, I've never liked the term "with Aspergers Syndrome" because I'm just me really. I don't have anything attached so the word "with" is misleading.

I've also never been physically "proven" to have AS.
There is also no objective medical test which kind of makes me reluctant to tell other people.

In my experience, telling other people denies you opportunities and makes them judge you as a label and not as an individual.

I'd love to say that I have detail orientated style of perception that distracts me from socialising that some people attach the negative label of AS to, but the thing is I can't. It would be social and occupational "suicide".

only so few people know about my aspergers, the less NT's know the better

If you see Aspergers Syndrom as something negative then off cause when you tell other people about it, they will see it as something negative too, but when I tell other people about it, they never judge me based on it, and I have done it a lot. But maybe it is because they can't see anything weird about me. And if someone one day should react negatively to it, then I would know that that person is not my friend.

I see AS as a gift so everyone I tell it to can see that I am happy that I have it.

But from now on I will tell people I am autistic because I am getting tired of explaining what AS is to everyone.