Telling people about AS and their denial

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I have very recently been diagnosed with AS and am beginning to wonder what it would be like to tell a couple of people. I have read on WP that there is alot of denial that occurs when you tell people (and this has also been what Ive experienced too). What is that about? Do they think that it will make me feel better by saying "no, I don't think that's you"?

I think that's part of it. And I think part of it is that they conceive of you as a certain "not autistic" way. And a lack of acceptance.

I'm to the point where I'm really wary of talking to NTs or non-autistic people in general because it becomes far too much work just to get past the stock responses.

I think it is hard for people to accept. Mainly, I believe, because they have formed an opinion of you over time and maybe the fact that you have AS suggests, to them, that they have been wrong with a lot of their judgments and opinions. Nobody likes to be wrong.
Also it is their lack of understanding "Oh, this person has got a "get out of jail free card".. I would do the same but am am too strong for the weak option... poor, poor me (me me me me)" etc. It is quite annoying; that.

"but you don't run about screaming.."

I think they just aren't well versed in what the spectrum entails. They're often thinking low functioning and don't realize that there's a high functioning end. I think it is simply lack of understanding. If they were to truly study it I think they'd be more open to the idea. With AS it can just not be apparent to other people as it can express itself subtly, especially if you don't stim much around others and can pass as NT for short periods of time. They might just think you're introverted or something.

I think it does have alot to do with ignorance about the autism spectrum. I recently tried to tell my sister in law I thought I had Asperger's, and she immediately dismissed it the moment I used the word autism. She saw me as a "smart guy", so there was no way I could be autistic.

The problem has and always will be a lack of understanding on the part of NTs. Denial, however, is not always what happens. I've told 2 people outside of family. When I told my roommate who's known me for 14 years he said it don't surprise him as he's worked with special needs kids in the past and was familiar with AS. The thing is, he still can't understand it when my Aspie traits rear their head. I call this feigned acceptance. The other person I've told is a female cooworker I've gone out with a few times. Her response was more the she'd never have guessed and that I seem fine.

I have had this discussion with NTs who are aware of "high functioning" autistic people, who can even name a few, and they still deny that I could possibly be autistic because of the way I write, or that I am able to express compassion, or express that I apparently understand that other people are separate from me and have separate thoughts.

It may be a lack of understanding, but there's an active resistance, too. Sometimes I am compared to autistic people who appear to be better able to function than I am and something about them is arbitrarily selected to show their autism in an obvious light, and because I do not do or have that same thing, then clearly I must not be autistic.

I get that a lot. They always say stuff like your too well spoken to be ret*d or your not autistic your just shy. Another thing they say is you don't act like rainman. I curse that film and all those who acted or directed it.