Because you're not certain if I have AS, at this point, as I fall from the AS stereotypes in certain key ways.

To be honest it's hard to be certain about anyone online, sometimes even diagnosed people. I would be pleased if you did receive such a pack because it would mean you'd actually gone and started the process

How about, instead of "certain," the best you might ask from others online is "highly speculative" of AS or another such condition?

And that to have folks who lean toward the more concrete end of this speculation (you "probably" have some form of AS, etc.) it could be a good thing, because I can gain insight into myself and use that insight to help in a professional assessment?

I would think you would need insight about how AS affects you if you're going to get assessed.  Wouldn't it be better to have the kind of knowledge/insight you might gain from AFF or other source, than not?

I think so, anyway.

Don't expect anything from anyone online. Even a specialist can't diagnose AS based on how you present online as an adult.

Yes, but even specialists and psychologists trained to look for Developmental Disorders in real life, have missed Asperger's with people who clearly have it.  Or at least it is so, if I may judge from some of the writings on this forum.

They can be as trained as they like with Aspie KIDS but I'm talking about adults here.

Plus, do you really think that if it is so difficult to diagnose an adult even when they get to observe the adult and question them intensely, it would somehow be easier to diagnose them online?

I'm in the process of being referred to an Asperger's specialist to get diagnosed one way or the other.

I'm actually hoping that I do get the diagnosis, because Asperger's means I just am the way I am.  
Up until now I have just been referred to as 'self-obsessed, socially inept, overly pedantic, embarrassing etc.' (even my family have described me like this). Being told this over and over does inspire quite a lot of self-loathing, especially when people blame me for being this way and get angry with me for not being able to change.

The label Asperger's won't change anything, it will just explain a lot and it will mean I can learn to accept my eccentricities as an integral part of me, as opposed to something which needs to be fixed (doctors have been trying to fix me for most of my life and after a while you begin to believe them).

The agree with that.

You are who you are no matter what label anyone sticks on you

PS: It may however help others accept you as such if you do have a diagnosis, though

The exact date is to be confirmed but my AS assessment will be in late July/ early August. I don't think they would be seeing me if they didn't think I have AS. Its along time to wait but I think its worth it. I think I am lucky to have been referred. I think I just met the right Doctor at the right time. I hope others are as lucky.

Even experts disagree.  I'm either Aspergers or PDD-NOS, depending on who signed which paper.  The insurance code is the same for me, though.

Is why I'm here is to swim with the Aspies and Auties.  I don't know if I'm either or neither.  Yes, I well understand the smoke and mirrors of online, but I'm fed up with so called experts' speculation of all sorts of things for me.  Funny thing is, they all agree that I'm perfectly normal other than that I do not act and/or (more to the point) do not choose to act perfectly normal but that I am too "smart" to be autistic.

(My logic that smart is relative when you are 30 before you can strike a match, flies right over their heads).

Amongst those I've always known, I was the ugly duckling and I'm tired of other ducks quacking at me.  If I'm not a swan, then the swans will eventually run me off--and I would want to be run off.

I know who I am.  I'm looking for my people.

In my case it seems people tend to think I'm too sharp, observant, and "capable" to have something genuinely different about me.  I think more to the point is that I am capable sounding, because I appear to speak in a formal, sophisticated manner, with my usually heavy analysis of things.  I wonder if decent verbal IQ is misleading everyone, in my case.

They think that since I act normal, I must then be normal.  But there is a huge disparity in the way I act and the great "normal" things I have to show for it (social network, girlfriend, any kind of practical ability.. all of which are conspicuously absent...)

I have a similar thing, I still don't know how to fold a shirt properly, at 25 years of age.  If I could do it the right way, I would be doing it the right way.  But the fact remains that even if I try to remember how to do it, it still tends to be inconsistent or wrong.

But you are the way you are no matter what label anyone sticks on you!