@TeacherGriff
Yes, I think that is common. As another autistic high-achiever, my theory is that with #austistic people, their language skills are poor in the non-language area, but often fine in the language area. Animals communicate with each other, but only humans do so using spoken and especially written language. But the major part of social interaction is non-verbal - such as body posture, intonation, facial expression, emotion etc, which autistic people are poor(er) at.
So autistic people manage best in purely written language situations, okay at purely spoken, and poorly when actually having to directly interact with other people.
Autistic people can improve these outcomes, by playing to their strengths and minimising their weaknesses - and the technology around today helps with this - using emails instead of phone call, using phone calls instead of face-to-face, and using formal social settings in place of free-form settings, for instance.

@TeacherGriff
Do you explain you have Asperger's?
Increasingly, I do. And because there is so much general knowledge in the population about this (every second tv show has an #autistic character for instance), this often helps a lot.
I know other people are reluctant to tell others they are autistic, which puzzles me. It's often assumed by other people (or they just label you as "odd"). Autistic people often think they are passing as typical people, but with our crap nonverbal skills, we usually aren't.
After all, blind or deaf people explain or indicate their disabilities, when it's useful to do so. We should too.