Social forum for AS?

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I appreicate the answers everyone supplied. It's much clearer now that the definition of a social forum is different for AS than NT perspectives. For an NT, this forum might not meet the definition of "social". But for an AS, the NT concept of social is really quite asocial and entirely insensitive if not actually hostile. This forum is much more suitable.

BTW, it's not so much that I think this "makes no sense", but rather that apparent contradictions catch my attention. They show opportunities for me to correct my understanding of what is going on. In a sense, I like debugging my perception of reality. Thank you for helping me with this one. Usually people just think I'm a little weird and ignore me.

However, I find it interesting what people did not comment upon (well, one person did, but no follow up). I also asked about what makes you an Aspie. Is it reasonable to define yourself based on a clinical diagnoses of a percieved deficiency by NT's? It appears to me that there are increadibly intelligent, capable people here. Why accept such a negative perception of self? Certainly my spelling sucks, but I don't define myself around having trouble with spelling. If I suddenly started spelling perfectly, I'd still be me. But if you no longer had the AS symptoms, would you still be you? I think I may challenge this in another thread though...

I like how people don't take offence to my questions. It's quite encouraging as I'm writting an article about "Nomic" and it's somewhat personal. But I'd like to share it and hope others can tell me how well they relate to my story, and how their story contrasts to my own.

I hope people feel they have learned something useful from my questions. I've been told by better minds than my own that it's not knowing the right answers that counts; it's knowing the right questions to ask.

I find a big difference here is that people say alot more then other forums.
I think that means people care more.

In response to the hosts question, I do wear aspie like a badge. Mostly because people around me are kind and open minded. Also because of what being an aspie means.
I find being an aspie to be akin to being a genius.
Aspie is a gift for me and this world.

Yes, this is what I'm looking to understand better. Please show me more of your mind. How can you tell if someone is an Aspie? Is it purely by a list of problems they have with NTs, or is there a definition that entirely focuses on the postive aspects of what it really means to be an Aspie?

I agree with much that's been posted already here by others.
As to what makes an individual an aspie...of course, I can only speak for myself. My identity is an amorphous blob of contradictions, including both rigid & shifting aspects. Have always been some version of myself, never had a label for it that lasted long, though. Don't thnk of self as an anything-I'm a woman, I'm an adult, I'm an English-speaker, etc. but lists of demographic subgroups aren't "the be all and end all" of who I am. I'm a person with a variety of subtle & blatant unusual mental features. A couple years ago, I was given this new dx-it's been useful in putting a template to my difficulties, but I remain however I am, regardless of whether it fits according to the latest system.
For example: I've had issues with food, dislike most food appearance, taste, smell, texture, and so on. My behavior & reactions used to be called being obstinant & willful-but it's never been about other people, it's about the yucky food. People treating me poorly (being hard on me) didn't change/improve my relationship with eating. All of a sudden, with advent of AS dx, I discover alternate reason, sensory modulation disorder-something less blame-full. Nothing to be done about it at this late stage, but it's preferable to the previous misinterpretations of my peculiar quirks.
I can't separate out parts of myself & see them as distinct manifestations of my dx'd disorders. Can't imagine self without certain problems-not attached to these obstacles, just can't imagine thinking, feeling, and sensing differently. I don't experience myself as doing an action and then responding to myself by saying "oh that's merely my OCD happening-or is it my AS-or is simply part of my 'personality' ?" I'm all me all the time, which is more or less fun or miserable, depending on my currently perceived reality-updated from minute to minute.
I'm self-conscious (to excess, my counselors say) & often observing myself, but not so good at putting stuff together, making sense of myself, or reading how others are reading me.

Hmmm... *thinking*

All in all, I tend to disagree with "Aspergers" begin a disorder as, logically, I think it's inaccurate. "Disorder" implies only the negative and also implies a complete summation of a person's personality-- but no person's personality is completely deficient.

But most any Aspie/HFAer on this forum could tell you that, yes, while each of us has our own individual difficulties (some worse than others), we have abilities as well. Which makes using Aspergers or HFA as a "disorder" inaccurate.

Instead, I tend to think of myself as having an Aspergers "profile". This in turn acknowledges the things I have difficulty with but also refuses to ignore the things I am able to do because I have Aspergers.

Every person in the world has a "profile" and I think we are definitely no different. It's just that ours tend to be Aspergian in nature.

So I do not think of Aspergers as being something terribly negative and degrading. No, not at all. Aspergers as a profile, for me, has its good points, its neutral points, and its bad. And there is no person on earth that cannot say the same about their own profile, too.

I would also not change who I am. Were I to no longer fit an AS profile, I wouldn't be me. I would be another person with a different profile. I cannot separate Aspergers from myself because my brain is an Aspergers brain. But I am also an individual because "Aspergers" is just a name and no matter how similar I am to any one person on this forum, I will always be me and nobody else can say the same.