Hi, Mom2,
I have sometimes had the same kind of experience (seeming to rub people the wrong way for reasons I don't understand) but since moving to the South it's happened less--after I learned to be much more indirect about things, which is the way people seem to interact down here. I often use the technique you mentioned of saying that maybe *I* am confused (even when I am sure I am not) because it seems much less likely to cause offense. However, I had kind of put this down to a South (indirect) vs. North (more direct) kind of thing. I also make an effort to adjust my vocabulary to the situation and over the years have definitely cut out the 'big words' unless I'm talking to somebody who also uses them because I noticed that people sometimes reacted to them.
What I have had more trouble with over the course of my career is inadvertently getting on the wrong side of some people I work with, particularly other women. Fortunately this has only happened a couple of times, but it has been pretty dramatic. I still haven't figured this out entirely, but will say that although I think I dress 'normally' I do not care much about shoes and other things that women seem to spend a lot of time thinking and talking about. So I guess that puts me on the spectrum somewhere. I don't worry about it too much, though, because I am lucky to have a wonderful DH and a great job with a great boss and have what I consider a pretty nice life.
"This American Life" did a story on something like this (figuring out that you or someone in your life has Aspergers), and had a link to an "Aspie Quiz", here
http://rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.phpThe American Life link is here
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/458/play-the-part It's great that you 'get' your DS; he's very lucky to have a parent that does.
