To some people, like myself, it has only in later years become apparent that RMS is autistic. In the late 90s, early 2000s is when I became aware of Stallman and his work on GNU and FSF. All that was pretty much always in form of writing and articles. Only semi-direct interaction was when a friend of mine invited him to talk at the local LUG, which he refused, if it wasn't change to GNU/Linux User Group, he was told "NO" and that was it. He always came across as difficult, but only in later years have many of us become aware that he might actually have a diagnoses of some form, until then he was just labeled at "difficult".