History Main / IntelligenceEqualsIsolation

%%* Ren Hiyama of ''Manga/LostBrain''. His sidekick Haruhide Shitara too.
%%* Tamami in ''Manga/{{Mahoraba}}''.

* ComicBook/LexLuthor in ''Birthright'', he was a young Einstein who was so smart that he freaked everyone out. He soon slowly became unhinged and determine to unlock the secrets of Krypton.
* Reed Richards of the ComicBook/FantasticFour has sometimes been shown as so smart that he feels even his loved ones can't really understand him. Fortunately, he overcame it enough to romance his wife and love his son. [[ComicBook/CivilWar2006 This still happens, though]]. This intelligence and isolation also makes him quite ignorant to the point of disobedience of his fellow superhero allies and even placing his son, Franklin Richards, into a coma state. In the UltimateUniverse this is played straight with [[ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour his younger self]].
** Alyssa Moy, an old friend of Reed's, tries to seduce him with this trope as the friends Reed surrounds himself with just aren't on her and Reed's level. Reed doesn't give a damn.

* PlayedForDrama in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/49914115/chapters/126013318 Lunar Lamentations]]'': After Anko [[ForWantOfANail is put in charge of]] Team Ten, she fears that Shikamaru's intelligence means he runs the risk of going down the same path as Orochimaru. So she puts the trio through TrainingFromHell and introduces them to T&I, while Ibiki forces them to ''torture people'', acting as though their compliance with his orders is "evidence" of their "emotional detachment" rather than that the kids feel they have ''no choice'' in the matter. Once Shikaku learns what's been happening, he laments how he got sucked into their paranoia and came to believe that his son was secretly evil all along rather than realizing how he was being hurt.

* In ''{{Film/Election}}'', highly intelligent and ambitious Tracy Flick suspects that she suffers from this reality. [[spoiler: During the ending she confirms this while in College, which shows her studying, unlike the other students who are all getting high and partying. She concludes that her being isolated from others is the price for wanting to achieve greatness.]]

Depending on which neuroscientific theory one subscribes to, the trope name is quite literal: Those with more intelligence have a higher rate of disorders of some kind that can factor heavily in inducing social isolation (such as [[UsefulNotes/AspergerSyndrome autism]]. This is especially true if they attend a school with separate programs (regardless of what specific disorders they're diagnosed with), taking tests separately from other students along with extended time. While beneficial, that also institutionally enforces this trope.

Depending on which neuroscientific theory one subscribes to, the trope name is quite literal: Those with more intelligence have a higher rate of disorders of some kind that can factor heavily in inducing social isolation (such as[[UsefulNotes/AspergerSyndrome autism]]. This is especially true if they attend a school with separate programs (regardless of what specific disorders they're diagnosed with), taking tests separately from other students along with extended time. While beneficial, that also institutionally enforces this trope.

Depending on which neuroscientific theory one subscribes to, the trope name is quite literal: Those with more intelligence have a higher rate of disorders of some kind that can factor heavily in inducing social isolation. This is especially true if they attend a school with separate programs for people with those disorders, such as [[UsefulNotes/AspergerSyndrome students within the autism spectrum]] (regardless of what specific disorders they show), taking tests separately from other students along with extended time. While beneficial, that practically makes this an institutionally enforced situation!

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In the episode "Our Idiot Brian," after [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Brian becomes an idiot]] due to a brain tumour, Stewie tricks him into getting it removed. After the operation, Brian passive-aggressively calls him out on it because his lack of intelligence enabled him to make more friends and sleep around.
-->'''Brian:''' I mean, I was having fun, making friends, getting laid all the time, sleeping like a rock, but you made the call. You unilaterally decided I was better off a [[TheAlcoholic bitter, alcoholic failure]] [[OnlyFriend who can only hang out with a baby]].\\
'''Stewie:''' (offended) Hey! We have fun!
* In the "Mars University" episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Gunther, the [[UpliftedAnimal intelligent monkey]], felt pressure due to the high intellect his experimental hat gave him. In the end though, the hat was damaged to make him moderately intelligent.

* In ''WesternAnimation/InsideJob'', Reagan suffered this as a child, which is part of why she's so messed up in the present day. It gets worse when it is revealed in the season 1 finale that [[spoiler:she did have a friend, but her father erased her memories of him to remove any possible distractions from her studies.]]

* ''WebOriginal/{{Serina}}'': Some species on the planet during the Ultimocene are near-sapient, meaning that they have intelligence comparable to a young child but never advance beyond that and often have a rudimentary language and culture but are still mostly instinct driven and only focused on day-to-day survival. This leads to problems with some members of these species.
** The seastrikers are near-sapient marine predators similar to orcas but on occasion there are individuals born with a genetic fluke that grants them full sapience. They are known as seers due to their ability to think beyond the immediate here-and-now. The seers are not shunned by the normal seastrikers as their intelligence is greatly beneficial to them (to the point where they frequently become leaders [[AChildShallLeadThem at a young age]]) they live very isolated lives since they are unable to relate to their more simple-minded kin and their children don't inherent their intellects due to it being a recessive trait. This loneliness is so great that when two seers from different clans meet, they are compelled to interact and [[PairTheSmartOnes become a mated pair]] despite their clans hating one another.

** One species where this isn't a problem would be the mammoth-like woolly wumpo. They can be considered fully sapient thanks to their high intelligence and abstract thinking but suffer from a [[BizarreAlienPsychology species wide]] case of CreativeSterility. Rare members of this species are born with a form of neurodivergence called wideminds that make them less fearful and more innovative. Wideminds don't feel isolated from their own kind like the seers or Brighteyes thanks to their species naturally high [[HonorableElephant emotional intelligence]], in fact wideminds are celebrated among the wumpos due to their innovation greatly improving the lives of their herds and the species as a whole.

%%* Lisbeth Salander in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (Movie version of "Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy")

* Lisbeth Salander in "Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy". She is brilliant-has a photographic memory, extremely skilled at computer hacking, reads math books and solves mathematical equations for fun, and yet has close to no friends. Her brilliance is recognized by a few of the characters who get to know her (Blomkvist, Mirium Wu, Armansky) but for the most part she is so asocial and unresponsive that she was declared incompetent by psychologists.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* High School issues and bullying aside, studies do show that people with significantly different IQ scores do have trouble relating. 15 IQ points difference is a small impediment but 30 IQ points typically makes it difficult (which is the minimum difference between someone perfectly average and someone classified as gifted in the public school system.) Though of course, personality plays a major factor. Bookish and intelligent kids tend to be more reserved and quiet, while the average child is more outgoing, [[JustifiedTrope and thus becomes popular.]]
* Another study showed that more intelligent people often had a greater predilection towards clinical depression. While misery loves company, company certainly doesn't like misery.
* Even in day to day work life a difference in intelligence can make what could be a great friendship or great friendships not easy to have.
* In an extreme example, serial killers tend to fall on the extreme ends of the IQ spectrum. Either quite low (high 70s to low 90s) or quite high (130+ seems to be the cutoff). This could indeed be another instance of 'unable to relate'.
* The great mathematician Berhard Riemann was painfully shy, with few friends outside of his tightly knit family. This has given us the ironic situation that we know far less about the inner life of one of the greatest intuitive mathematicians of all time than about his contemporary the incredibly austere proto-formalist Weierstrass.
* The same goes for Henry Cavendish, who went so far as to avoid speaking with people completely, and his servants gave him food through a dumbwaiter. It's likely he had some personality disorder, but we don't know what it was.
* Paul Dirac, the man who formulated the equation that predicted the existence of antimatter, was so introverted that one of his best friends spent years not knowing what Dirac's initials stood for. Dirac also only accepted the Nobel Prize when it was pointed out that he would be subject to more attention for refusing it than he would for accepting it.
* Cults take advantage of this trope, employing 'love-bombing' -- the tactic of showering a potential recruit with affection and attention in the hopes they'll stick around. Many people assume cult members are idiots who are easily taken in, but in fact cult members frequently have higher [=IQ=]s. Then when they realize they're in a dangerous cult, they have difficulty leaving because of the love and attention they'd been showered with up to that point.
* The internet has made it extremely easy for people who want to discuss topics they're specifically interested in, including more "intelligent" topics, to find like-minded individuals. There quite a few people who, on the surface, seem like loners who are completely uninterested in any sort of socialization, but are actually very active in online discussions.
* Just as it is easy to hide "crazy" (as in the dangerous type of crazy) online, one can also hide social awkwardness as well. Those who appear glib and witty in print can have trouble with in-person, real time conversation where how you say something (body language) is as important as what you say. Also, if said person were to speak in the same way they write, it would result in stilted dialogue.
[[/folder]]

* In the 1955 science fiction story [[https://www.you-books.com/book/L-S-Decamp/Judgment-Day "Judgment Day"]] by Creator/LSpragueDeCamp, a scientific genius has discovered an atomic principle that could potentially [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroy the planet]]. Most of the story is a flashback to his unhappy life of being unpopular and bullied and lonely. He decides to publish his discovery, expecting it to lead to humanity destroying itself. His description, as narrator, of his detachment from people and deeply buried violent rage is kind of unsettling. A modern reader might be tempted to wonder if he had [[DiagnosedByTheAudience undiagnosed mental health issues.]]

-->-- '''Dr. Spencer Reid''', ''Series/CriminalMinds'', "Elephant's Memory"

Depending on which neuroscientific theory one subscribes to, the trope name is quite literal: Those with more intelligence have a higher rate of [[AmbiguousDisorder disorders of some kind]] that can factor heavily in inducing social isolation. This is especially true if they attend a school with separate programs for people with those disorders, such as [[UsefulNotes/AspergerSyndrome students within the autism spectrum]] (regardless of what specific disorders they show), taking tests separately from other students along with extended time. While beneficial, that practically makes this an institutionally-enforced situation!

* In the 1955 science fiction story [[https://www.you-books.com/book/L-S-Decamp/Judgment-Day "Judgment Day"]] by Creator/LSpragueDeCamp, a scientific genius has discovered an atomic principle that could potentially [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroy the planet]]. Most of the story is a flashback to his unhappy life of being unpopular and bullied and lonely. He decides to publish his discovery, expecting it to lead to humanity destroying itself. His description, as narrator, of his detachment from people and deeply-buried violent rage is kind of unsettling. A modern reader might be tempted to wonder if he had [[AmbiguousDisorder undiagnosed mental health issues.]]

* Reed Richards of the ComicBook/FantasticFour has sometimes been shown as so smart that he feels even his loved ones can't really understand him. Fortunately, he overcame it enough to romance his wife and love his son. [[ComicBook/CivilWar This still happens, though]]. This intelligence and isolation also makes him quite ignorant to the point of disobedience of his fellow superhero allies and even placing his son, Franklin Richards, into a coma state. In the UltimateUniverse this is played straight with [[ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour his younger self]].

* [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/over-educated-problems Over Educated Problems]] is a series of image macros that makes fun of people having trouble to relate to others because of the difficulty letting go of their "education" (most notably, "proper" grammar, syntax and pronounciation). It's more intellectual snobbery than intelligence, but it sort of fits.

* This is the one of the aspects of Yuki Nagato from ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya''. When we're first introduced to her, she's sitting in a room by herself reading a book.

* Yukino Yukinoshita from ''LightNovel/MyTeenRomanticComedySnafu'', besides her beauty, is extremely smart and has many talents. The poor girl has been bullied and harassed because of this by envious kids, and now she's a cold and shielded loner, but still with a heart of gold.

* It's not ''intelligence per se'', but it works out the same way for the {{Bunny Ears Lawyer}}s in ''LightNovel/ThePetGirlOfSakurasou''. Mashiro, Misaki and Ryuunosuke are all extremely talented and eccentric in some way, but that mostly brings them troubles since they have few to no friends, their peers either label them as freaks or resent their talent, and their teachers consider them problem children.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': Jimmy. He actually purposely made himself stupid in the episode, "Normal Boy" to end his misery, but the machines accidently set his intelligence so low he became a complete moron.
** Jimmy is a [[{{Zigzagged}} mixed bag]]. Sometimes intelligence isolates him, often he sets the (horrible) events of the plot in motion causing him to be isolated, sometimes the characters realize they need his intellect and/or like him more than they let on, and sometimes he's just an InsufferableGenius.

* "Not reading books is proof of a lack of loneliness" -Osamu Dazai.

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* Averted by Miyabi "Professor" Oomichi of ''Manga/GAGeijutsukaArtDesignClass'' . As her nickname means, she is much more knowledgeable in art theory than an arts-stream high school student and is also highly talented, but she has her share of friends. She herself also [[DefiedTrope defies]] this trope in the chapter about typography accreditation. She is likely to get a higher level of typography qualification (Class C or even B, compared to her classmates' D), but decides to just get a Class D instead ''because'' she still wants to be with her friends.

* In the 1955 science fiction story [[http://www.maxima-library.org/mob/b/76955?format=read "Judgment Day"]] by Creator/LSpragueDeCamp, a scientific genius has discovered an atomic principle that could potentially [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroy the planet]]. Most of the story is a flashback to his unhappy life of being unpopular and bullied and lonely. He decides to publish his discovery, expecting it to lead to humanity destroying itself. His description, as narrator, of his detachment from people and deeply-buried violent rage is kind of unsettling. A modern reader might be tempted to wonder if he had [[AmbiguousDisorder undiagnosed mental health issues.]]

* In the 1955 science fiction story "Judgment Day" by Creator/LSpragueDeCamp, a scientific genius has discovered an atomic principle that could potentially [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroy the planet]]. Most of the story is a flashback to his unhappy life of being unpopular and bullied and lonely. He decides to publish his discovery, expecting it to lead to humanity destroying itself. His description, as narrator, of his detachment from people and deeply-buried violent rage is kind of unsettling. A modern reader might be tempted to wonder if he had [[AmbiguousDisorder undiagnosed mental health issues.]]

* Ami Mizuno from ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' was the smartest girl in all of Japan, but until Usagi recruited her as
Sailor Mercury, she didn't have any friends at school. All the kids thought she was [[InsufferableGenius an arrogant know-it-all]], but she was [[ShyBlueHairedGirl just shy and reserved]]. See what her fellow students say about her in the [[Anime/SailorMoon R movie]]:

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* Ellie in ''Film/TheHalfOfIt'' is introverted, has perfect grades, plays the guitar and keyboard, and is the only Asian American girl in her small town high school. She only really interacts with her classmates to make money via her essay writing cheating scheme.
* Deconstructed in ''Film/Little2019''. Jordan was an outcase in middle school because of her love of science. Since the kids didn't like her for being nerdy, Jordan suffered from low self-esteem and developed an inferiority complex.

* ''Series/{{House}}''. And not just the title character either. UpToEleven with the PatientOfTheWeek in "Ignorance is Bliss".

** As per canon, [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter Mycroft]] takes this UpToEleven; when the Holmses were young boys, the two thought that Sherlock was a genuine idiot, not just less clever than Mycroft, but truly slow. Sherlock lives in a world SurroundedByIdiots, therefore Mycroft lives in a world surrounded by ''[[UpToEleven goldfish]]''.