When he realized he could prove Newton’s first law of physics using a model train, Sheldon Cooper (played by 9-year-old Iain Armitage) says he felt like “Neil Armstrong on the moon — alone and happy.” The title character on the new show “Young Sheldon” is the childhood version of the character on “The Big Bang Theory.” But for now he is a socially awkward genius who dons mittens when asked to hold hands with his less intelligent but more religious family while praying before dinner.

Sheldon’s lack of inclination — and lack of ability — to get along with other people is hardly unique among boys, especially among the male characters appearing in fall’s biggest new shows.

Take Alex Riley, the protagonist of CBS’ “Me, Myself & I.” A 14-year-old boy who has moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, Alex is trying to avoid making a fool of himself at his new school. A smart kid who invents things, he is awkwardly charming but not really looking to be popular. Oh, and like many of his peers, he can’t really figure out how to talk to a girl.

Though Alex eventually marries and has a child (the show follows him at 40 and then at 65), he is still missing key social skills as an adult. During a conversation with his ex-wife about whether their daughter can live with him, she asks him not to talk about important matters in basketball metaphors. But, like a 14-year-old boy, he finds this impossible.

The most extreme case is Shaun Murphy, the autistic surgeon on the new ABC show “The Good Doctor.” Murphy has savant syndrome, which gives him a unique ability to see medical problems differently. But he also doesn’t know how to interact with people. He seems unaware that stealing a knife from airport security — even if it is to perform life-saving emergency surgery — is not going to slide with the police.

These TV characters represent an extreme, but it’s one that’s resonating with the American public: Boys are increasingly feeling left out and left behind. In a world that is increasingly dependent on communication skills and collaborative work — skills that girls seem to master more easily — boys are becoming adrift.

The gender gap favoring girls is threatening to become a chasm.

For their TV counterparts, things eventually turn out well in business and in love. Extreme smarts, it seems, can make up for a lot of social problems. For average boys in America, it is increasingly hard to navigate today’s educational and professional worlds. Schools, as many have noted, seem like hostile environments to them. From zero-tolerance policies that discipline boys who turn their thumbs and forefingers into guns to reading lists that are devoid of adventure to playgrounds that are built to minimize risk to the dramatic reduction in recess time, there seems to be fewer outlets for boys’ energies or imaginations. Which may be why they are diagnosed with ADHD at twice the rate of girls.

Christina Hoff Sommers, author of “The War Against Boys,” predicted that “the gender gap favoring girls is threatening to become a chasm.” That appears to be coming true. In a recent piece in the Atlantic, Amanda Ripley writes, “Wherever girls have access to school, they seem to eventually do better than boys. In 2015, teenage girls outperformed boys on a sophisticated reading test in 69 countries — every place in which the test was administered. In America, girls are more likely to take Advanced Placement tests, to graduate from high school and to go to college, and women continue their education over a year longer than men.”

Boys graduate from high school at lower rates. They make up only 43 percent of college graduates. And they are outnumbered by women in graduate school — 135 women for every 100 men. The results are obvious in our workforce, where there are at least 7 million prime-age men who have simply dropped out.

Colleges and universities in particular seem to place more value on social skills — participation in extracurricular activities, leadership in school groups — as well as on “executive function,” the ability to manage and organize many tasks, rather than just being very good in one area of study. When David Brooks coined the term “Organization Kid” while watching kids in elite colleges, he was describing a skill set that is much more common in girls.

It is true that men still outnumber and often outearn women in more lucrative professions, particularly in the STEM fields. But boys are having difficulty finding their way in fields that prize communication and relationship building. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the jobs with the most growth potential include home health aides, nurses, customer service representatives and general managers.

Unfortunately, rather than work on these important skills, many parents and teachers give these boys more time with technology — because they excel at it and seem comfortable with it. According to a recent Pew Study, for instance, 84 percent of boys play video games while only 59 percent of girls do. This may only be exacerbating the problem.

In their book “Imagination and Play in the Electronic Age,” research psychologists Dorothy and Jerome Singer argue that “the narrow scope of imagination fostered by violent video games may put habitual players at risk . . . for limiting their imaginative repertoire and scholastic interests.”

For the millions of men who have dropped out of the workforce — many of whom are playing video games in much of their spare time — the outlook is not good. Our education system is failing them, most professions have little to offer and their hobbies are only making things worse. The geniuses (and the boys who play them on TV) will be fine. But what about everyone else?