I think you may be ascribing too much concreteness to the diagnosis of ASD/Asperger's. Because you're smart, you might want to aquaint yourself a bit more with the philosophy of scientific truth. A psychiatric diagnosis is an intellectual construct that exists in the minds of practitioners who find it useful to refer to. It may correspond to an actual condition of the patient so diagnosed. That's a big maybe, from a scientific point of view. Calling the diagnosis neurological, rather than psychiatric, doesn't make it any less a "theoretical model."

To illustrate my point, I like to bring up the diagnosis of "neurasthenia." That was a popular diagnisis in the 70s, when I was a nursing student. It doesn't really exist anymore as a diagnosis. So back when all those patients were hospitalized for "having" neurasthenia, what was it, exactly, that they had? Ans: Probably a variety of things.

The most any diagnostician can say, with assurance, is that you seem to exhibit characteristics that are associated with a pattern that diagnosticians like to call Asperger's/autism. An argument can be made that you qualify for that diagnosis. More than likely, you will always be able to find clinicians who can make an argument that you don't.

You've heard the expression that "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." I think it's worth looking at the why behind your desire to rule in, or out, a specific label. Generally, the usefulness of a theoretical model is its ability to predict. Does calling an individual autistic allow us to accurately infer things about that individual, just based on their being in that category . . . that can't just as easily be explained in other ways? That's actually kind of a high bar to get over. Ex: Lots of people are socially awkward without necessarily qualifying for a diagnosis of ASD.

We can expand the "spectrum" concept to include just about any and every body. That dilutes it to meaninglessness, assuming it had a lot of meaning in the first place. I, myself, am somewhat suspicious of this trend toward the broadening of diagnostic categories. At the same time, however, I concur with the idea that a lot of psychological phenomena should be viewed as spectrum conditions. What I most object to is taking what is really a "trait" and elevating it to what basically defines the individual. Ex: Lots of people are narcissistic, without necessarily "having" narcissistic personality disorder. But where do you draw the line? That, my friends, is eminently arguable. How one argues can be unscientifically influenced by one's agenda.

I don't think I've had two psychiatrists (out of many) give me the same diagnosis. Furthermore, I think I can extract one diagnosis, rather than another, out of a doctor by how I present myself. It is very much in the nature of psychiatry, I believe, that "artifacts" are created. That's when the characteristics of what is being observed are, to some extent, generated by the process of how the observation is being made. The most honest psychiatrist I've ever met said that it takes years of knowing a patient to evolve a firm sense of what is true psychologically about that individual. In the meantime, he said, pdocs make "guesses." To say that their "conclusions" are more than mere guesses is, according to his view, silly. So your concern about the lengthy time needed to ascertain things is well founded.