Pair the Smart Ones

"Pierce: Hey, I was thinkin', we might die here. Anything y'all want to get off your chest?

The Boss: Come on, Pierce; don't go talking like that.

Oleg: No, he's right. Were Kinzie here, I would pour out my heart.

The Boss: WHAT?!

Oleg: It is rare that I find an intellectual equal."

- Saints Row the Third

If a show features two highly intelligent characters of similar age and compatible sexual orientation, chances are they'll end up together. Works particularly well if they're Teen Geniuses. An in-universe invocation of the Geeky Turn On.

It's common for such relationships to start cleanly and quickly, avoiding Will They or Won't They altogether, and proceed somewhat more smoothly than whatever other characters may be in a relationship, thus often turning them into a Beta Couple. Apparently, love doesn't make you dumb if you're a genius.

If the writers don't do it, the shippers will.

Anime and Manga

 * Digimon Savers: Nanami tries to invoke this and tempt Touma into a Face Heel Turn, but he doesn't bite.
 * Averted in Bakuman｡; Takagi is made to choose between two girls who had been vying for his attention. He rejects Iwase (who had a one-sided academic rivalry with him and is one of the top students at their school) due to the fact she wouldn't let him continue to write manga, and instead picks Miyoshi (who doesn't get very good grades) because she promises to support him, even if it meant he'd have less time to spend with her.
 * There is, however, a point in which Miyoshi thinks this is happening, when she discovers a copy of Iwase's book with a letter from Iwase to Takagi (which he didn't know about). She then thinks of how Iwase is smarter and more talented in other regards than she is, and becomes very depressed until things are cleared up.
 * in Black Lagoon.
 * Shikamaru and Temari are commonly shipped in Naruto; Shikamaru has an IQ of 200, making him the smartest of the Rookie Nine and one of the smartest characters in the series, and Temari is noted in-story and in the databooks to be very intelligent.

Film

 * In Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, Pairing the Smart Ones is actually the driving force behind the epiphany on how to lure two massive sea monsters into going where the humans want them to.

Literature

 * In the Star Wars Expanded Universe novel Death Star, we learn that part of the reason why Grand Moff Tarkin loves Admiral Daala is that he's always wanted someone smart and ruthless and efficient enough to keep apace with him. Whether or not this is actually shown in the books.
 * In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, the Earth is so overpopulated that in order to have children at all, one has to be extraordinarily talented (high intelligence, good teeth, superior eyesight, cancer resistance, etc). A very few Einstein-level geniuses get Unlimited Breeding Licenses that basically allow them to have all the kids they want.
 * Played with in Artemis Fowl, but considering the main character was cool, collected, smart and strangely Badass, and his potential love interest was... not...
 * In A Wrinkle in Time (and its sequels) Mr. and Mrs. Murray are both extremely intelligent scientists in different fields. Local gossips suggested this meant Charles Wallace was retarded before he started talking.

Live Action TV
"Billy: Listen! Zoe! I have advanced degrees in Applied Physics, Quantum Physics Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, as well as Discrete and Applied Mathematics.
 * Averted with Samantha Carter and Rodney McKay from Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. The two are Earth's smartest persons, The Smart Guy of their respective show and McKay is attracted to her, but nothing beyond that. In fact, Carter is as annoyed by McKay as most people are, while McKay gets into a relationship with Dr. Keller later.
 * Though Carter does visit one Alternate Universe where she learns that she had married (and divorced) McKay.
 * Angel: Aversion on the usual formula with Wesley and Fred as it was less than smooth and took multiple seasons.
 * Dollhouse: Topher and Bennett, with their Dating Catwoman and Slap Slap Kiss.
 * Subverted in Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: it would seem things are going that way for Cookie/Evelyn, but they end up with different people.
 * Grissom and Sara in CSI, although it takes six seasons of Will They or Won't They before they actually get together.
 * Cooper Pillot and Patty Scoggins in The Naked Brothers Band. Though they still call each other by their last names, they stand as a bastion of stability amidst the show's romantic chaos.
 * Boy Meets World: Minkus thought this would happen during his one-season stint. However, Topanga was destined for Cory, instead.
 * Lampshaded and Subverted in the first post-movie episode of the Knight Rider 2008 series.

Zoe: And I speak 9 languages! We should make a baby.

Billy: Really?

Zoe: No."


 * In Doctor Who, Rattigan explains his master plan for a new world to the other Teen Geniuses he'd collected, and mentions that he's written up a breeding program. They are appropriately appalled.
 * Bones:
 * Played straight with  considering one is smart enough to   and the other  . Still, with the number of geniuses on that show, it was fairly inevitable that this trope would have to happen at least once over the course of the show.
 * Subverted on an early episode. Bones' old professor comes back and they slide into their previous relationship... which ends remarkably poorly. In general, Bones is a fairly good at averting this trope, considering the number of geniuses in the lab. Between Brennan, Jack, Zach, and Cam, not to mention all the interns, there have been surprisingly few hookups between geniuses.
 * NCIS: Abby and McGee exhibit some elements of this. The facts that they aren't quite an official couple, that in general Abby is fairly affectionate towards all her colleagues, and that Duckie is arguably at least as smart as either of them does water the trope down a bit.
 * Noahs Arc: College professor Chance paired with clever, strategic businessman Eddie.
 * Firefly has the genius doctor Simon and the genius mechanic Kaylee. Though they won't... until The Movie, that is (the epilogue of the movie, no less).
 * Smallville: A very humorous (but oddly cute) version appears in "Fortune", wherein two very different kinds of genius wind up alone together and very drunk. The result? . Both are suitably embarrassed afterwards; whether the relationship continued was undisclosed.
 * Babylon 5 has John Sheridan and Delenn, both of whom are incredible strategic minds with immense curiosity about and respect for other races. All through the series the two's feelings for each other are never shown to waver, in fact only growing deeper and stronger with time. There's never much doubt that They Will - it's just a matter of a) how long it will take and b) whether or not they'll ever get a chance to, considering those pesky wars they're always fighting. They Do indeed, and.
 * Almost every couple in Eureka naturally as the whole town is populated by geniuses.
 * Luther features a darker take on this, as Nietzsche Wannabe and Self Made Orphan Alice Morgan is attracted to the titular detective because he is one of the few people in the world smart enough to deal with her.

Theater

 * in Twelfth Night.

Video Games

 * The third Sly Cooper game ended up pairing former Voice With an Internet Connection Bentley with the similarly-talented Gadgeteer Genius Penelope. (Never mind that one's a turtle and the other's a mouse...)
 * Metal Gear Solid pairs Gadget salesman and Operator Otacon with geneticist and anti-villian Naomi Hunter. )
 * Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World hints at the possible pairing of teacher Raine Sage and intelligent businessman Regal Bryant from the previous game. Subverted when it turns out the "love letter" from one to the other turns out to be.
 * Saints Row the Third went this route for Oleg and Kinzie, much to the Boss's shock.
 * Three of the paths in Katawa Shoujo have the Bookworm male lead, Hisao Nakai, being paired up with very booksmart girls:
 * Lilly Satou: She wants to be a Cool Teacher and is Class Representative for her class, meaning she has the highest scores there.
 * Hanako Ikezawa: She seems able to keep up with the class despite her bad attendance record, although Mutou suggests she isn't a "star student," and she and Hisao find a shared interest in their mutual love of reading.
 * Shizune Hakamichi: One of the criteria for being named a Class Representative in a Japanese highschool is to have the highest test scores from the year before, and there's the fact that she and Misha are usually the first people in 3-3 to finish Mutou's assignments.

Web Comics

 * Aradia and Sollux were this before (if that concept makes any sense in it) the events of Homestuck. Well, sort of.
 * Helen and Dave of Narbonic (though Dave isn't as much of a genius as Helen... ).
 * Girl Genius
 * The Agatha-Tarvek pairing; Tarvek is smart and Sparky.
 * Subverted with Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and Agatha Heterodyne. They looked like they were going this way, and then things got -- complicated. It would have been so much simpler if Agatha hadn't been a Heterodyne. Not that Gil isn't smitten, and Agatha isn't interested, but circumstances have interfered.
 * That said, they're the Alpha Couple of the story, despite not being a couple. This is frequently lampshaded by everyone (including her castle) commenting on how well they would fit together, much to their annoyance.
 * Freefall: Florence and Winston are easily the smartest characters, and they've shown strong attraction for each other since their first meeting, culminating so far in several kisses.
 * For a while in Sluggy Freelance, Mad Scientist Riff was dating occasional-mad-tinkerer Sasha. It wasn't a huge part of her character, but she was able to build her own Dimensional Flux Agitator.

Web Original
"And you lived nerdily ever after, I get the picture."
 * In Demon Thesis, this is the backstory of how Alain and Clady wound up together. Clady's friend Val sums up the flashback detailing how the lovers first met with this line:

Western Animation

 * Happens near the end of Megamind between Roxanne and . The male part of the couple at one point explicitly says "I need your help because you're the smartest person I know."
 * Xanatos of Gargoyles gives this as the reason why he wants to marry Fox.
 * Kim Possible: Kim and her genius brothers are the result of a union between a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon.