I love the show, but oddly enough I knew nothing about any character's reputation for Asperger's when I got into the show. I came to it late, maybe around 2011, and I didn't know anything at all about Sheldon or the popular association between him and autism. I just channel flipped one day and found myself laughing at Leonard on that research ship in the storm, I think it was.
It was only years later I even ran across talk of Sheldon being an aspie.
I don't relate to Sheldon at all, because even if he is secretly intended by the writers to have ASD, he's the type of Aspie I'm not; we wouldn't get along at all and I can't relate to much of anything about him, except for the place on the couch and the routine loving.