I am quoting this to add extra emphasis, as I think this happens a lot and it’s a really important positive result of people sharing these stories.
If you have a positive relationship with someone, and respect/like them a lot, you could still experience friction with them sometimes. This is a well known thing. Sometimes, that friction can come about as a result of you not understanding what the heck they’re thinking in some specific subset of interactions.
For example, your friend is generally smart and kind and patient, but in very specific situations they seem to struggle a lot and often get more upset. That would be really frustrating to deal with, and might seem unpredictable… why are they so good at dealing with most problems but then they struggle a lot when dealing with a few seemingly random problems? It can be confusing and it might feel like your friend is just being difficult for no reason, or lead you to some other negative interpretation.
But maybe if you see people sharing stories of autistic experiences you might notice some similarities, and maybe the situations your friend struggles in are not as random as you thought. Maybe they follow some predictable patterns based on autistic trait clusters. That could help you (and maybe help your friend, if they are also unaware of this link) to better predict when a situation will be difficult. That could help you to have more patience for your friend in such a situation, or help your friend avoid those situations, or develop new strategies for dealing with them. Or some other positive outcome, I think there are lots of possibilities.
But you would miss out on all of those opportunities if you just shut down the discussion immediately by doubting that autistic traits are real, or by doubting that autistic traits could possibly apply to your friend (or apply to you.)