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Independence and Relationship Issues in Intellectually Gifted Adolescents — Part 3

Deborah Ruf, PhD
9 min readJan 26, 2024

Extremely Gifted Teenagers Often Need Help Making Friendship and Romantic Connections

Many exceptionally and profoundly gifted adolescents and young adults need considerable help and support in finding and maintaining friendship and romantic connections. Many highly intelligent adolescents, while craving friendships, often resist activities and opportunities that would increase their chances of finding true friends and soul mates. Additionally, evidence also exists that adults may attribute more maturity, wisdom, and even practicality on the part of the highly intelligent adolescent concerning dating and romance issues than is the case, thereby leaving the exceptionally gifted teenager emotionally and logistically unsupported by adult guidance.

It is on this final topic that all of the variables come into play. I highly recommend the Free Spirit Books website for help in many of these areas. The SENG (Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted) website is a treasure trove of recommendations and ideas, too.

It is important to realize that being unusually gifted does not alter the path to finding soul mates and lovers as much as one would think. Hormones and natural human tendencies affect exceptionally gifted people the same ways that they…

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Deborah Ruf, PhD
Deborah Ruf, PhD

Written by Deborah Ruf, PhD

High Intelligence Specialist & Writer, Dr. Ruf writes about highly intelligent people from birth to very old age. www.fivelevelsofgifted.com

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