here you go fellas
diagnose yourselves
www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html
Greenstiles while not wishing to enter into any sort of debate with you , you describe working/volunteering is social care and successfully being able to engage with service users. I feel that if you had aspergers you would be completely unable to read or understand or react to the myriad of subtle nuances involved in a social interaction of this type. While it is, i understand from working for 6 years in a secondary school for ASD and Aspergers kids, possible, to learn to mask the social difficulty resultant from aspergers in everyday and familiar situations, I feel it would be impossible or at least very difficult to do so in the interactions you described. in doing so you would need to cognitively leave the situation for prolonged periods, while processing what has been said for instance and interpreting that along with context, with body language, with tone of voice, with facial expression, then yourself having to decide upon a response and how that response should be delivered, your own tone , body language etc. This is what non aspergers do automatically and unconciously.
That being said i have little time for small talk , at social gatherings i find social chit chat pointless also, it seems so false and surface, you say this, i say that, we both laugh, i say this you do that. Its like this well rehearsed and meaningless dance we do. E.g so what do you do, oh i do this, really that must be interesting blah blah fecking blah.
My wife is a very social creature, I can hear her at a party reciting the same anecdotes from recent events virtually word for word, she has told to me earlier that day. Once i have said something to someone, e.g i have told my wife about something that happened, it has been used up if you like, i cant repeat it as its no longer a new or unique thing to say.