Use of Autism as an excuse?

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Hi everyone, I'm Jamie and I am new here. I wanted to share an incident with you in order to hear opinions from other people with Aspergers and get an idea of how should I react in a similar situation.
So, there is this guy that we are friends for more than 3 years, we had met in a conference about model united nations and since then we used to go to similar conferences together or meet at the university mun club. Then we became friends and he is one of the few long-term friends I have that are not on the spectrum. At some point, this year in a trip to London things got beyond the friendship line and we kissed and in addition some days after that he wanted to clear up things between us, he told me he wanted us to be together and stuff (of course such a thing could not be achieved as we live in different parts of the UK).
Today though this happened: He is liking photos of a person that in the past said that "I hide my autism on purpose" (she was my supervisor in a project and basically she fired me for many reasons including the supposed hiding of my autism on purpose). I explained to him that he should not follow such people on social media and what she has done to me. I told him "Imagine what is living with aspergers like, and on the top people blame you that you hide it on purpose". He replied "Yeah but god made it up by making people with Asperger's clever. I think you are the opposite of hiding it". I told him that after such incidents with the aforementioned girl I have started "getting out of the closet" and not having any issue with saying it aloud because I don't find any reason to do it. Then he told me that I am " almost using my autism as an excuse for everything".
Just to clarify, I don't use my autism as an excuse, I just mention it in cases people misunderstand and judge my social interactions or way of talking or my behaviour in general in order for them to understand and not misjudge me.

What is your opinion about this story? How should I respond to him? Should I keep him as a friend?
And above all, what is your opinion about "you hide behind your autism" or "you use your autism as an excuse for everything"?

Yeah, I can relate to that. The general public still has very specific stereotypes about what "being autistic" is, even though it's been a long time, they still don't understand the whole concept of it being a spectrum. If you are high-functioning, people have a hard time believing you actually have autism, and a lot of people (like me) get diagnosed super late and some even never because of it.

As far as what you call "hiding it", I've seen other people using the term "masking" and I think the second one is more accurate. As we grow up, we feel the pressure to act normal as much as anyone else, even more so if you get bullied for being different. For those who are able to observe and imitate what people consider "normal" behavior (not everyone is that lucky), it is something you do for self-preservation and to try to avoid being isolated. If you don't know your diagnosis, you might not even be aware that this isn't who you are and isn't what everyone else has to do.

If anything, it is hiding behind the mask of being normal, not the other way around. Often, it isn't even by choice, it's because the social pressured force us to. Now I suppose it is certainly possible to believe that autism is solely responsible for all misfortunes that one has (I find it's more commonly depression and stress from the outside) and maybe use that as an excuse for things. Nothing in your story indicates you did anything like that or are that type of person. You seem to be very self-aware and just trying to help people understand you better.

Well, I personally wouldn't judge him too harshly initially for misunderstanding since it's still so uncommon to find someone who actually knows about what ASD is (I'll admit I wasn't sure what it was exactly either before getting the diagnosis), even among psychologists. It is completely up to you, whenever you meet someone who is ignorant on the subject, whether you decide to try your best to make them understand (might or might not be successful) or try to just ignore/deal with them. We can hope that in the future, we will live in a world where you don't have to explain the basics to everyone you meet, but that will probably not happen for a long time. I would say that, however, if even after you try to fully explain to him, he consistently refuses to even try to understand and insists that you are making excuses and just pretending, that is very toxic and might be a red flag.

Sorry for the long response, I wish you the best of luck!

Welcome, Jamie.

I think that isloth's answer above is excellent, so I won't repeat all of the same points. The only thing that I would add is this...

Autistic people are often accused of having trouble with empathy; that's not the same as lacking compassion, of course, but we can have more trouble than most people understanding what goes on in other people's minds. What is so often forgotten is that the reverse is also true, maybe even more so, because autistic people are pretty much forced to try to understand neuro-typical thinking, whereas neuro-typical people have little incentive to understand ours (this is sometimes called the "double empathy problem" - Googling will find some good articles about it). So, judgements about us by other people can only be based on what behaviour is visible from the outside, but with little chance that they will understand that the reasons for our behaviours, or the ways that we achieve them, are different, even when they look exactly the same. You should judge your friend not by how accurate his understanding is, but by the effort he makes to listen to you and to at least try to understand.

I find his opinion incredibly harsh and with me, it would be done. People who think like that, see autism as an excuse, they often never change, no matter how much you explain it to them. It is no excuse, you were born with it and it should be respected.

Good luck with this.