Maybe if the person loses all sense of reality.

I didn't know it was a bad thing. I mean, we say that God is everywhere, and yet I always think of Him as a recluse. Lol.

There was a Woman that was Recluse, kept to herself but turned out to have lots of books on deception, creating exploding devices and had a wepon with a laser. Not a good type of recluse to become!

When neighborhood children are afraid of you.

When reality is in that persons head. I was a recluse but I am now breaking out of my shell because I had no friends and was going crazy with cabin fever.

There are two reasons to become a recluse: 1) One simply desires to be alone or 2) One is a freak. I do not see where, or why, #1 would become bad and #2 starts out being bad. The simple desire to be alone is just that, a desire to not mix with humanity for a variety of reasons such as being a hermit (contemplation of God or other esoteric questions). Or, like me, one is a born misanthrope. Being a freak is complex: sending bombs through the mail, paranoia, being a pervert, etc. Florence King, my favorite author, said if you meet someone that looks favorably upon solitary confinement, you've met a misanthrope. I have been a misanthrope all my life. My school years, including college, were a freakin' nightmare. I, unlike socialized people, am never rude and I try to never be inconsiderate. (To be either one is to possibly increase the amount of time spent with a person.) I am married, purposefully and with no regrets, but I abhor socialization. My job is almost by definition a solitary job. A good day involves speaking to only one person for about five minutes. More than that one person makes for a bad day. The best days of course involve zero human contact. If anything were to happen to my wife I would disappear inside a month. I would find some low-key, unimportant minimum-wage job that would allow me to live simply and to tell humanity to kiss my rosy red derriere. There are those reading this that may claim I am a freak. Part of my definition of being a freak is maybe being a criminal or a psycho or a pervert. No true misanthrope could be any of those things: A criminal spends time in small spaces surrounded by people, a paranoid has his head filled with people and a child molester, for example, must be around children. (My distaste for people has been stated but I cannot abide children. I didn't like them when I was a kid and I really don't like them now.) For an excellent book on the subject of being alone read PARTY OF ONE: THE LONER'S MANIFESTO by Anneli Rufus. Florence King's funniest line: When asked how can she hate people, she said "Who else is there to hate?" Funniest movie line, from As Good as it Gets: Jack Nicholson's character, Melvin Udall, a writer, is asked how he is able to write women so well: "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability. "

I suppose when they start doing bad things, isolation has more problems. Many of the world's greatest people have been recluse, thinking outside the box is much easier if you are unaware of societies prejudice's. There is a thin line between genius and crazy, savants being a prime example. I vary between reclusiveness when I want to be productive and enjoying socialising, when I become agreeably happy with friends I have known for a long time. I feel there is benefits in both, but too much of either seems to be unnatural to me, but each to their own until it negatively effects others.