Have you ever known someone in Mensa?

I've known a few people in Mensa.

All were completely unable to function in the real world and took comfort in the fact that they were actually too smart for the rest of us...without ever actually using said intelligence to figure out how to do things like pay the rent on time.

Yeah.

Me.

And I suck.

HTH

My ex/BFF were in Mensa for a while. R1 is mostly correct- many or even most were lost dealing with the world.

Maybe I also qualify. "My ex/BFF and I..."

I have a relative who is or was a member. They never talked about it; I only know because my mom told me. Relative is pretty normal though chose a somewhat non-traditional career path in show business and the arts.

I remember reading a description of a Mensa party where the women swanned around in gowns they thought made them look like Ayn Rand heroines.

Yeah, I had a bf who in Mensa. He didn't advertise it and I think only his close friends knew. He was a bit shy, very smart, very sexy and very good in bed -- surprisingly uninhibited.

My father. It made no difference whatsoever.

I've known a couple. Both dead now. One I always thought was possibly autistic, but at the least was weird as fuck. He was an electrical engineer by trade and used to help with the lighting for a local theatrical endeavor back in the 70s. A mutual friend was with him at the theater one day when the director of the upcoming production casually asked him, "your friend Bill, is he retarded?". The other one was a guy who I had hired in the late 70s to run a warehouse. Smart as a whip, but socially very inhibited. Had zero aspirations to do anything higher than what he was doing even though I tried and tried to get him to let me promote him to something more befitting his intellect. He finally told me one day he just didn't want the pressure. He wanted to do his job, go home and do whatever it was he did in his off hours and be able to completely forget about what went in at work.

Strangely enough they both died of alzheimer's disease in their early 70s.

Well, since you asked…

Me, for a few years in my teens and 20s. Never much saw the point of it. A teacher had paved the way for me to join. I never went to college and have made a decent living through skilled labor, a little writing and teaching.

No. I’m stupid.

Mensa memberships are like IQ test results: The only people who seek and/or flaunt them are people who are deeply insecure about their intellect, and need external validation and quantification of something they merely believe to be true.

In fact, Mensa membership is based on IQ test results. For me joining was a short lived hoot.

Yeah, I've known a couple, and agree with all of the comments above. They all had difficulties with real life, and sought the company of the equally socially impaired.

The older I get, the more I think that all the IQ tests value logic and mathematical abilities too highly. Yes, pure logic and mathematics are invaluable in some fields, and the world needs people who are good at them, but being good at pure logic is not the highest form of human intelligence... it's just the easiest to measure. Being able to achieve goals within a complex situation like real life is actually a far more complex task, and requires multifaceted abilities, including everything that goes into social maneuvering. But how does one test for that?

Yes. She was dumb AF and weird.

Dumb in that she couldn’t figure out to put a pop up tent up (using the directions and isn’t that one of the test questions?)

These are the tents with the polls attached to each other so that only a fucking idiot would have problems.

We were glad when she found some other group to camp with. Completely functionally retarded.

I have found that the higher the intelligence the lower the common sense. It is like one replaces the other. My father had an IQ if 168 but when he was dying at the age of 88 he told us that he thought when it was time you just died. None of this suffering stuff. I have no idea if he had ever known anyone who had been ill as he lived in France the last 45 years of his life. His mother died gardening in the garden. his sister died of a heart attack in the middle of the night. My father had zero common sense which always amazed me.

I hope you've all listened to the Jamie Loftus podcast about when she infiltrated.

Yes, my dad is in Mensa from his SAT scores alone.

However, he’s one of the dumbest people I know. Absolutely no common sense and you have to tell him to everything directly. My mom cannot send him to the grocery store and expect him to figure out what to get in case they don’t have that exact item.

Also, he listens to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

Everyone poops, regardless of whether you are in MENSA or not!

No. But I've known many in menses and they were horrible!

R16 tents with the polls attached? Really, who is the retard now?

Obviously r22 has never set up a dome tent/earth pimple.

Some y’all need to get out more.

Evelyn the retard.

[quote]I have found that the higher the intelligence the lower the common sense.

This is a generalization and a cliche. I don't think it's true. It's not true of my most intelligent friends who graduated magna and summa cum laude from some of the Ivies. They have made very nice lives for themselves, including enduring romantic partnerships, good relations with their families, and career success.

A lot of them are autistic I’m starting to think a sign of being autistic is people hating the person. That gets worse throughout life. The constant social rejection kind of snowballs into hostile behavior. The inability to predict people being offended by you and not understanding why is distracting and upsetting. A lot of autistic people die young. Suicide is quite common

Not exactly fun at parties. The autistic person often wants to share highly technical information and they think they’re helping other people as a form of altruism. This is not recognized as altruism. This is causes more social rejection. People actually think the autistic person is being a know it all and are telling them what to do.

Because of these characteristics, it’s very frustrating because they’re not doing it out of the narcissistic situation or state of mind, and many are very by nature introverted.

That’s why advertising it is usually bad but if the person has a strong case of it it is obvious and definitely a social disability as well as a set of characteristics. It eventually becomes really difficult because the autistic person can become withdrawn. It also sometimes comes with physical characteristics such as having digestive issues or allergies as well. They can excel in academic environments.

I worked with a guy that was non verbal. he could write scientific papers very well. He actually invented several gadgets that are used by eye doctors all over the world. But he was also extremely large person. He looks like a football player. He was very shy. He was very nice. His kid is my colleague and his kid is very cool and friendly. He also has autism but not as much as his dad. His dad was very popular despite his not really being able to talk and only write. When he died a lot of people were upset

Another guy that was in our college was autistic, but he was very unpopular. People mocked him so much and at the very end they did a senior skit mocked him that was very cruel. But unfortunately, this is the way socially people tend to receive autistic people that truly have a disorder.

And I’m not judging the people that are doing the rejection. I understand human nature. Human society has a certain structure to it and it’s, just a simple reality. But the inability to perceive that is a true difficult situation.

A girl was a student in my work and the professors hated her because she was very literal in her communication and would ask many follow up questions. The old timer professors liked her though. She had a type of irritating worried personality .high strung with a way to spread a kind of contagious feeling of being evaluated by her. Before she graduated my friend saw her crying at a party. Apparently the professional students had ambushed her in a shower and took a naked picture. So they are like magnets for bullying and show a lot of distress

[quote]I have a relative who is or was a member. They never talked about it; I only know because my mom told me.

In my experience it's more like being into CrossFit or polyamory; they never shut up about it.

Bill, the guy I spoke about above was with a mutual friend once and the friend said "Bill, I see you've let your hair grow out". Bill replied, "well, there wasn't much I could do to stop it".

I've been a Mensan since the mid-1980s; that, and $1.35, would get me a seat on the subway. I joined a couple of SIGs (Special Interest Groups) throughout the years and found the meetings and participants were much like any other groupings.

Many highly intelligent persons are functioning introverts.

I’ve known a couple of Mensa members. One was a salt-of-the-earth high school math teacher, the other was a conspicuous brainiac who got a PhD in engineering. Both very successful, both able to function in the real world, both of them family men.

r25 r26 is autistic.

I qualified but didn't join.

Same, R32!

Me too

have you ever known someone in Mexico?

Men’s, ahhhhh?

Were they in Mensa Mensa?

I joined it when I was in high school just I could put it on college applications. I never participated in the group.

They begged me to join , but....i couldnt find the address and just went home.

We couldn’t pick a better time to start in life

It ain’t too early and it ain’t too late

Startin’ at NASA spying meteorites

Soon be livin’ in a brand new state

Brand new state

Gonna treat you great

Gonna give you neutrons, atoms and planets

Pasture for the rockets, ‘scopes and fanatics

Towers on tarmac where the rovers zoom

Plenty of air and plenty of room

Plenty of stable isotopes

Plenty of quarks and plenty of hope

Mennnsahoma!

Where the halls are bursting with big brains

And the great minds meet

To speak in Greek

Where the world’s top mysteries are explained

Mennnsahoma!

Every night my robonaut and I

Sit alone and text

And watch comets

While discussing the formula of Pi

We know we belong to Elites

And the elite we belong to is a feat

And when we saaay Å!

A-yip-i-o-ee-ay

We’re only sayin’

We’re doin’ math Mensahoma

Mensahoma Cerveaux!

The cut off for Mensa is an IQ at the 98th percentile or higher. That’s very smart, but not special. 1/50 people. Most high schools are going to have several kids in each grade who would qualify.

So it’s likely that the people who seek out a group for intelligent people that isn’t really that selective are going to be weirder on average that the whole population of people with IQs at the 98th percentile or higher.

It’s like joining a club for tall people when you are 6’3.5”. Sure you’re tall, but it’s no big deal.

I knew a gal once who always complained about being Mensa and all the pain it brought. Then someone figured out she was really saying she had the mensies and it all fell into place.

My father in law is a Mensa member. He is also one of the stupidest people I’ve ever met.

Yes. They were a crack addict and on the streets. True story.

I joined for awhile back in elementary school. I was the youngest person there, and found everyone insufferable. Whatever their interests were, that was the only thing they would talk about. They'd never listen to (let alone care about) what other people were into. A very needy group. I look back and cringe that my poor parents (who certainly would have qualified as well, but had absolutely no interest) had to drop me off and then come pick me up so I could attend. Retroactive guilt is the worst...

What about people who are intelligent enough to qualify for Mensa but don't apply?

My father is brilliant. In some ways he also has remarkable emotional intelligence, but there is some difficult stubbornness to him.

He's very curious and loves meeting people, but I think he misses out on being able to talk with people who match his intellect. When I see him talking math or physics with someone who can truly understand him he has a whole other demeanor.

It reminds me of when my mentally retarded cousin is with someone else who is mentally challenged. They feel comfort in knowing the other person "gets" them without explanation.

The Triple Nine Society only has 1,900 members.

Henry Milligan had it all. What a golden boy and man. Did nature give him a huge cock, as well?