It seems that most people can at least tell that there’s something “off” about me. I don’t know if most guess autism or not, I don’t say anything about it unless they do, but I’m fairly “textbook,” so it’s likely. When it does come up, I have never had my diagnosis questioned and have gotten the “you must be mild” response exactly once in my entire life (granted, quite likely partially due to the fact that I don’t mention it if there isn’t a clear and immediate need to). Masking has never been an option for me, the best I can do is avoid drawing any sort of attention to myself (negative, positive, and neutral, I don’t know how to narrow it). I’m usually treated as “different,” or just invisible.
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"