In her experience, the smarter the guys are (or maybe more properly, the more intrinsically they identify as "smart") the more extreme their fear of her tends to be. That has been her experience with 90% of the small number of other MG+ peers, anyway. I strongly suspect that part of her decision to NOT apply to super-elite colleges is tied up in that. But not all of it-- she also genuinely has concerns about family dynamics and living apart, and an aversion to that hyper-competitive intensity.

I have to say that this (somewhat) reflects my own experiences, too-- and those of my smart female friends. Most of us didn't find people who weren't threatened by our mental horsepower until college or, more likely, graduate school.

Some of it seems to have been a maturity issue-- but the damage done by this social buffeting can be pretty intense when it overlaps the search for personal identity that happens during adolescence.

It also makes such people vulnerable socially to pretty much anyone that seems to accept their true selves.


Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.