is the autism spectrum the best place for aspergers?

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I agree with Verdani - for me, there are too many non-social symptoms I have, for me to consider autism a purely social thing. If one only met social criteria, one would not receive an autism diagnosis.

if it was just social stuff, wouldn't they be diagnosed with something like social anxiety?

No, because the social impairments specific to autistic spectrum diagnoses are distinct from the impairments specific to social anxiety. I don't have very much social anxiety, although I occasionally have anxiety about social situations. I have a lot of social issues I wasn't even aware of that are distinct to autism, whereas someone with social anxiety will be aware of their social anxiety because that's the point of anxiety.

Also: You can have both.

I'm not an "expert," so I cannot comment definitively, but there does seem to be an overlap of some symptoms, which is perhaps why it was considered part of the autism spectrum. With that said, there are some crucial differences, which has caused controversy online (especially on YT). Whether or not it is on the autism spectrum doesn't change the fact that it is a valid condition and not an excuse for less-than-desirable social skills, like some tend to assume.

NO... There is no such thing as "normal," and even if there was, why would you want to be a mindless sheep who just does whatever everybody else does? Be yourself.

My understanding is that the things that are excluded for an AS diagnosis are not required for an autism diagnosis. Also, some of the exclusions (no delay in self-help or adaptive skills) are actually things that many diagnosed with AS actually have (I had problems with those). I know a lot of people focus on the speech delay, but you don't need a speech delay to be diagnosed with autism.

In the rationale for the DSM-5 changes, one of the studies referenced says that most people diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome actually meet the criteria for autism and should not have been diagnosed with AS in the first place. A lot of this is due to the criteria for AS being directly cribbed from the criteria for autism.

I find the whole thing somewhat ambiguous (and often frustratingly so) because people talk about these two things as if they are separate distinct things, but all I can see is that people who are diagnosed with autism, AS, or PDD-NOS (and some who have been diagnosed with two or even all three at various points) all describe things that are familiar to me. I also see that many of Kanner's patients from his case studies would fit in seamlessly with the patients Hans Asperger's case studies.

I'm not trying to argue or have a go at you here, and I am sorry if it comes across that way.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure running into s**t, dropping things all the time, and having things fly out of my hand and into a wall, my hand slipping and accidentally hitting someone, rubbing up against people when trying to maneuver around them and not knowing quite which way I should go to best avoid awkward situations that might possibly be read as me trying to flirt or hit on them. I'm sure ALL of that is caused by the fact that I just can't socialize as well as I'd like to... Yup.......

Social stuff is certainly the most easily noticed part of it, but there is SO MUCH MORE. I have absolutely terrible spatial awareness. I'm ridiculously bad at predicting what people will do... Although I CAN pick up on patterns pretty well, so even though I can't read people for s**t, every now and then I have this weird ability to predict almost EXACTLY what someone will do or say based on certain present conditions.

I sorta have social anxiety, but I feel like that's more caused by environmental factors than it is innate to me. I used to not care who or how many people were around. I was extremely enthusiastic to go around asking questions and showing older people how much knowledge I had packed in that tiny brain of mine as a child... But then I started to quickly learn that nobody gives a damn, nobody wants to hear my s**t whether it's right or not. Then people started misunderstanding me to a ridiculous extent. Because everyone misunderstands me and nobody really wants to hear anything i have to say anyway, I now am extremely anxious/shy about socializing. Once you get me going, you can't shut me up, but it takes a while for me to open up in the first place.

it's not so much that I care what people think about me or how I appear to others in public, but rather I care about what they do to make my life more difficult afterwards as a result of observing what they think is odd behavior.

Part of it is claustrophobia too, I guess, because I'm much more uneasy about being around huge groups of people. Then again, that might have to do with audio processing issues/too much noise and impossible to hold a conversation with all that damn noise, so I feel totally lost in a big room full of people who might as well all speak Swahili. I don't know, but my issues go WAY beyond social s**t.