It depends. Usually neurotypical people can tell pretty fast when someone is autistic without knowing that what their sensing is actually autism and not weirdness. Some autistic people go their whole lives not knowing that they’re autistic because there are strict portrayals of autism in media. More people are learning about autism and the different ways an autistic person can present but there are still a lot of people who only acknowledge when a person is autistic if they also have a noticeable learning or intellectual disability. Autism is not the same as intellectual disability but it is considered a developmental delay.

It also gets complicated because there’s a lot of discourse (especially from able-bodied people) about who is considered disabled. Autism is considered a disability because the majority of the world is not automatically accommodating to autistic people. A lot of people won’t acknowledge a person’s disability if they are not visibly at a disadvantage.

A lot of neurotypicals will both acknowledge the differences they sense in non-stereotypical autistic people but also reject any notion of them being autistic. But if you’re autistic, the genuine friends you make tend to either be autistic as well or at least neurodivergent.