Deep background

So, how does one get to a sixth decade without ever suspecting that something like aspergers even exists?

Not so hard really, in the twentieth century. The last decade was nearly over before aspergers even became a respectable diagnosis. Even then, it was assumed to be rare and interest in it was confined mainly to parents trying to work out why their little darling wasn't performing as expected.

When I was young I spent a lot of time in hospitals. Tonsils at the age of two, mastoidectomies a few times during the next half decade, lost hearing, various other minor distractions. That lot, coupled with my dad changing locations every few years and me changing schools even more often, meant that noone ever paid a lot of attention to my existence as a social being. I scored well in exams and that was all that counted. 11+ at ten, GCE O levels at 15, and then Australian university entrance at 16. That was it for education, of course. Once the enforced structure of school was taken away I was gone.

A year or two into the wandering minstrel thing, I tried university again. Still hadn't mastered basic skills like talking to people, though, so it didn't go much better. My fundamental take on life was still that everyone else got by with the same equipment I had so there wasn't anything to complain about. Sad.

Meanwhile, I'd soaked up a lot of what was in print or freely available on the nature of life, the universe and everything. It seemed that, since everyone else got by with the same equipment I had, there must be important things I didn't know yet.

It all went together rather well. Eventually, the government very kindly paid for me to learn programming and I had it all.