Mensa --- Yes or No

I live in a rural area with a small town nearby. There’s not a whole bunch going on around here (that’s a kind description.) As a consequence, I spend a lot of my time reading in my room and on internet boards like Straightdope. Reading both the books and the posts for the intellectual satisfaction. As you can guess --there’s some social starvation going on here!

Question - I prequalify for Mensa and ‘was’ ready to join. That was before I surveyed the on-line opinions. It seems that the on-line community thinks that Mensa is either made up of the ‘geek loser crowd’ or is just not worth the time and money.

OK - I know there are plenty here who would qualify for Mensa, some who have been in Mensa and some who still are. First, what are your experiences and second, what is your advice - should “I” give Mensa a try or is Mensa just for the “geek underachiever?”

I heard they throw good parties. :smiley:

You get a cool license plate for your car… HIQ0001. I’ve seen only one.

Mensa member checking in. First of all, where are you Tiger (feel free to e-mail me with your answer if you don’t like the idea of broadcasting it to the 'net in general)? Mensa does vary by area.

Second, it’s like any other organization. Mensa has at least its share of arrogant jerks, but it also has a lot of wonderful people. It’s also an outfit where most people find intelligence sexy (Ooh, baby, let me see your brain!:D). The one’s I hang out with tend to be fans of God-Awful puns, triple, if not quadruple entendres (make sure you’ve got a spotter the first time you attempt one), hugging, chocolate, and good conversation, not necessarily in that order. Come to think of it, they resemble Dopers.

There are various on-line groups where you can get a taste of things. For most of these, you do need to be a member, but you can join, try it for a while, and drop out if you like. By the way, if you join Mensa then drop out, you don’t have to requalify to rejoin. I’ll be happy to go out to one of these sites and get more reasons to join, if you’re interested.

You mentioned you live in a rural area. I’m not sure what your local group will have in the way of scheduled activities, but if you go out to Mensa’s Website, there should be a link to your local group and contact information for a person who can tell you what’s going on. You don’t have to be a member to attend a lot of events, but individual’s attitudes within the organization vary. If you get a jerk, please don’t assume we’re all like that. Most of us are looking to get more neat people to join. Fellow Dopers, this means you!

Finally, these good parties, Urban Ranger was talking about? I suspect that’s coming from me raving about Regional Gatherings (RGs). “RG” is pronounce “orgy”, and that’s not an unreasonable description. They’re also what got me hooked on Mensa, and I didn’t expect to like Mensa when I went to my first one. Wrong again.

My advice is to give Mensa a try, but I’m biased because of the number of wonderful, close, dear, caring friends I’ve met in it. (Not to mention the chocolate, hugs, and men who like intelligent women!).

CJ

Most groups will let you attend at least a few monthly meetings before you join. My advice is to hang out a couple of times, see if you like this particular group. I’ve let my membership lapse because the group here allows smoking in the monthly meetings, and I prefer to breathe. I’ve had a lot of fun in other groups, though.

Most folks in Mensa like to read and talk. They also like food (especially chocolate), puns, and hugs.

I have always held the completely unfounded view that MENSA was something of a circle-jerk, but that may just be sour grapes.

I never liked the name. “Mensa” sounds like some made-up Esperanto word.

A far better name would be something vaguely sinister, like “Dr. Brainio and the Pulsating Cerebellums.” Actually, that would make a good name for a rock band, too.

I would try to join MENSA Canada, but it’s $55. Christ. I can sit around and pretend I’m smart for free.

I believe quite strongly that reciting Monty Python dialogue has never been an acceptable substitute for adult conversation.

You’ll find a lot of that at your MENSA meetings - with a bit of passive-aggressive “Higher IQ than yours! See? I’m smarter!” posturing, for good measure.

I admit that I don’t know much about MENSA and don’t know anyone in it, but I’ve always had a bad taste in my mouth regarding them. I don’t know why.

My question is, what would membership in MENSA allow you to do that you can’t already do? I’m not sure how joinging would give you any more options than you already have for socialization and feeding your intellect.

I wouldn’t join, but that’s just because I’m afraid of getting into an intellectual dick-measuring contest. I mean, yeah, I have an IQ that’s more than high enough to qualify, but it’s not as though I feel like using every point of it all the time.

Of course, this just stems back to my fear of being ridiculed and my sense of social paranoia. Damn traumatic childhood…

No.

I mean yes. Or no. Or -

This question’s too hard. I want my mum. :frowning:

I’m a DENSA member. And most of my posturing friends think it’s likely I’ll win a Darwin Award. Pothumesly, of course. Did I spell that right?

The name MENSA always makes me smile. In Spanish, menza, mostly pronounced like MENSA would be in Spanish, is another way of saying “stupid woman”.

I used to live at a condo complex that had a couple of proud MENSA members on the board of directors. At least they claimed to be MENSA members. Not only were they super arrogant jerks, both were in finance professionally, and it was plain that they could not read a balance sheet. Not that reading a balance sheet is a MENSA requirement. This was my experience with MENSA members. I’ve had one other encounter with a MENSA member that I know of, and the experience was much shorter, but the same super arrogant complete incompetence in field of supposed expertise and abuse of authority.

I was a member when I was younger and I went to a few get-togethers, but lost interest after about six months. I found the meetings/parties a bit repetitive. I came up with the same criticisms that my father had of what everybody anticipates heaven to be. It’s nice for a while, but after that, it’s not that exciting.

Now, I will say, I did fall mildly in love and a nice relationship, met some people I still have as friends, but on the whole it didn’t leave much of a taste in the mouth.

It’s Latin, actually, for ‘table’.
I’ve not a member ( of Mensa) but I have seen a few copies of their magazine. It was very dull and had some rather trivial puzzles at the end ( not a patch on Biotop’s).

Actually, I used to work with a rather pretentious type who claimed he was a member of Mensa. I basically just smiled and nodded until a friend asked me if he really was. At that point, I looked him up in the local directory. While I’m not saying he was never a member, he sure wasn’t at that time.

Among the Mensans I hang out with, a deliberately self-selected sample, “intellectual dick-measuring” (thanks, Angel!) is out. It’s a bit like sex. Those who talk about it most, get it the least (yes, I know what that says about me. :()

By the way, for our Chicago area Dopers, the chocolate and pun loving Mensans Lynn Bodoni and I referred to are having their annual get together at the Sheraton Chicago Northwest this weekend, so please check them out. If you do, please tell them I said “Hi.”

CJ
Who was seduced into Mensa! :smiley:

I almost joined many years ago, and went to a couple of monthly meetings.

I can echo a lot of what is said here about the competitive attitude that some members have, as well as many Mensan’s apparent inability to distinguish between scoring well on a standard test and actually being um…intelligent.

All in all, the plus side was that it offered a lot of them an opportunity to socialize that they may not have had otherwise (those who felt socially ostracized for their seeming ‘geekiness’) and for all others, an excuse to have a party, play fun board games and do logic puzzles.

On the down side, I didn’t see that membership would give me anything I didn’t already have. I never joined and never regretted it, except that the parties were pretty fun.

I decided NO after getting replies in this thread.

Um, never been. Not too interested, because it feels elitist to me, you know? I’m sure there are plenty of wonderful people in Mensa, but there are plenty of wonderful people elsewhere, and I find it distasteful that they can’t be a part simply because they didn’t score in the top 2 percent on a standard test. Many of my good friends would be Mensa members. Plenty of others would not. I love them all, and we throw our own good parties. No thanks, Mensa.