Exactly. Most adults found me exasperating or downright frightening ... starting when I could talk. I had acquaintances, but no friends, until I went to a magnet school, at 16. I have friends now. They are scattered all over the world, because people who're into things like quantum mechanics, xenolinguistics, and S-risks are few and far between. I like the fact that the Internet allows me to have a goodly handful of friends, though; that's really nice. I certainly couldn't do that locally.

Putting children together with others like themselves is a great idea, regardless of what difference sets them off from the average. It is also essential that smart kids have smart adults to learn from, especially if they're sports instead of nerdspawn. They need adults who had similar experiences growing up and can say, "Don't worry about the asynchronous development, that's common, your slow thing will probably grow in eventually. Most people's do. You just can't grow in everything at once." They need adults who can help them compensate for whatever hasn't grown in yet, without punishing them for not being good at everything already.

Almost no gifted children enjoy these advantages, and that underlies a lot of the problems.