Illustration: Stefanie Augustine
Within the designated sport room on the Nugget On line casino Resort in Sparks, Nevada, which was open 24 hours a day throughout this 12 months’s Mensa Annual Gathering, I sat at a desk with a girl named Kimberly Bakke, a 30-year-old purple-haired pastry chef and instructor from Las Vegas. Bakke is principally Mensa royalty. A 1996 Orange County Register article about her admission to the high-IQ membership revealed that she was conceived at a Mensa conference, and she or he hasn’t missed one since; she turned a member when she was three. “I’ve a giant mind,” she instructed the Register reporter, who famous that her IQ was 143, about 50 factors increased than the typical amongst folks of all ages. Bakke was hanging out with Christopher Whalen, a 35-year-old protection contractor from Omaha, Nebraska, who was admitted to the membership in 2016. They met in a Mensa Gen-Y Fb group shortly after, and have become quick mates, texting one another day by day. The 2022 Annual Gathering (AG, as Mensans name it) was Whalen’s first and marked the primary time the pair met IRL.
The room was fluorescently lit, and featured brown checkered carpeting adorned with massive orange and tan swirls. The scent of cafeteria meals permeated the air with undertones of stale cigarettes. Each single sport ever invented was seemingly obtainable to play, stacked neatly and arranged alphabetically alongside the partitions of the room — fundamentals like Scrabble and Settlers of Catan, branded fare like Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, and dozens, if not tons of, that I’d by no means heard of: Logan Stones, Instructures, Galaxy Trucker, and a easy card sport referred to as Set which Bakke and Whalen taught me the right way to play (and which I’m now hooked on).
About 1,100 Mensans journeyed to the Reno space for this 12 months’s conference, folks young and old, conservative and progressive, wealthy and never so wealthy, cashiers, scientists, group activists, conspiracy theorists, BDSM lovers, and straitlaced monogamists. They got here as a result of they suppose they’re good, they care deeply a couple of sure kind of intelligence, they usually really feel most at residence in a crowd of different high-IQ people.
That is residence for Bakke. It’s a corporation she grew up in, the place she’s made lifelong friendships. “Going to an AG, going to any Mensa occasion, it fills up my cup,” she mentioned. “Like, that is what will get me by way of the remainder of the 12 months … Lots of us right here have some taste of neurodiversity, and it’s simply very nice to be round individuals who get you.”
You may need some preconceived notions about Mensa. Perhaps you suppose it’s stuffed with super-geniuses and/or hopeless nerds and/or elitists who haven’t earned that standing. Maybe you have been postpone by the group after listening to comic Jamie Loftus’s podcast about her 12 months as a Mensa member, through which she delved into the group’s right-wing undercurrent and the web harassment she confronted whereas writing about it.
“There isn’t any overstating what group can do for somebody who, as many members described to me, really feel like misfits of their on a regular basis lives and need to belong someplace,” Loftus mentioned on the podcast, My 12 months in Mensa. “A society with murky objectives whose promoting level is superiority just isn’t a wholesome place to seek out it.”
Mensa does have a nasty origin story. It was co-founded by Roland Berrill in England in 1946, an Australian who was a proponent of phrenology (in addition to astrology, palmistry, and dianetics). The group’s different founder, Lancelot Ware, thought intelligence assessments have been a greater manner of measuring mind energy, and, per the Irish Times, was “influenced by the work of Sir Cyril Burt, who had concluded that intelligence may need a racial foundation.”
The management of the group in the present day doesn’t seem to take care of the identical racist concepts about intelligence as Berrill and Ware. Mensa Worldwide’s web site contends, “Mensa is a round-table society the place ethnicity, coloration, creed, nationwide origin, age, politics, instructional and social background are all utterly irrelevant … Mensa takes no stand on politics, faith or social points.”
Regardless of its historical past and Loftus’s conclusions, I didn’t get the sense that Mensa is an unhealthy place to seek out group. Lots of its members consider themselves as outsiders and really feel like Mensa is a spot the place they are often themselves and join with individuals who perceive and recognize them. It’s a spot the place they’ll discover people who like to play Set or who’ve encyclopedic data of minute Disney trivia. This isn’t to say that there aren’t poisonous subsections of Mensa, as a result of there are, however that’s true of any group that runs tens of 1000’s of members deep. And in an period when the web and the pandemic have scrambled our sense of group and alienation reigns supreme, that’s no small factor.
Tabby Vos, a member of the board of administrators who works at a Silicon Valley software program firm, joined Mensa as a teen. A prodigy who graduated highschool at 13, she was an 18-year-old law-school scholar when she handed the take a look at. “It was exhausting for me rising up at school being 5 years youthful than everyone,” she mentioned. “I knew my place on this planet. I used to be simply youthful than everyone.”
Principally, she joined as a result of she wished to discover a boyfriend. “I used to be too younger for the folks I used to be in faculty and legislation college with, and the blokes I used to be relationship weren’t getting my jokes,” Vos mentioned. (A recurring sentiment amongst Mensa members I interviewed was that the group offered an considerable provide of people that understood their model of humor, one thing they hadn’t come throughout of their on a regular basis lives.) Vos shortly discovered that the majority of her fellow Mensans have been “45 and up,” nevertheless it however was a spot the place she met a few of her greatest mates.
“We began an under-40 group in Detroit as a result of there weren’t very many people. We referred to as it Below the Hill. One of many very first events I went to, this Über-genius had turned a drill right into a dildo, and he referred to as it his ‘drilldo.’ He was not perverted in any respect. He was simply so happy with his engineering acumen,” she instructed me, decreasing her voice earlier than saying “dildo.” “There was nothing bizarre or creepy about it. It was similar to, this man constructed one thing and wished to point out it off — the nerdiest individual you may think about. The guts and the ingenuity, I used to be tickled.” She had lastly discovered her folks.
French psychologist Alfred Binet invented the IQ take a look at in 1904 to establish which youngsters have been struggling at school so they might obtain additional tutoring. As oncologist and author Siddhartha Mukherjee explained in an episode of Radiolab, Binet didn’t need IQ to be the defining measure of anybody’s existence, labeling that observe “brutal pessimism.”
Regardless of Binet’s good intentions, IQ assessments have been framed for many years as an indicator of an individual’s immutable intelligence. They’ve progressively fallen out of vogue, partly as a result of, as a bit from the Dialog put it, the take a look at has been traditionally used to promote “questionable and typically racially-motivated beliefs about what totally different teams of persons are able to” — and since analysis carried out within the final 20 years means that “the ‘cultural specificity’ of intelligence makes IQ assessments biased in the direction of the environments through which they have been developed — specifically white, Western society.”
A 2012 study of over 100,000 folks concluded that somebody’s rating on an IQ take a look at doesn’t precisely predict their cognitive skills. “Once we seemed on the information, the underside line is the entire idea of IQ — or of you having a better IQ than me — is a fantasy,” mentioned Dr. Adrian Owen, the research’s lead researcher. “There isn’t any such factor as a single measure of IQ or a measure of basic intelligence.”
Mensa is old-school on this sense. As a corporation, it seems to subscribe to the notion that one’s intelligence is mounted. You’re solely allowed to take the admissions take a look at — which options a number of alternative questions that take a look at your fundamental math data, sample recognition expertise, and skill to outline eighth grade stage phrases — as soon as; when you fail, that’s it. However excessive bar apart, Mensa’s members gave the impression to be, on common, as dumb as the overall populace. As most individuals perceive, intelligence just isn’t solely about how good you’re on the expertise that the Mensa admissions examination and the IQ take a look at measure, but additionally self-awareness, mental curiosity, empathy and emotional cognizance.
Once I attended an occasion at which Mensa members debated “the professionals and cons on each side of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” I received a style of the right-wing pressure that Loftus chronicled on her podcast. The members, all of whom over 50, spoke the identical language of conspiracy and ignorance. An older fellow sporting an American-flag shirt made the next claims: Putin is secretly funding the Sierra Membership, the US “funded the analysis on the Wuhan institute that created this COVID” and Russia isn’t actively attempting to kill civilians (this one was met with a web damaging response from the remainder of the room).
“I wouldn’t need to sound silly at a Mensa conference,” mentioned Susan Younger, a charismatic and fairly older blonde, sitting within the nook of the room, earlier than telling her friends that Russia is, the truth is, solely bombing bioweapons labs in Ukraine. Sitting subsequent to her beefy non-Mensan husband, she expressed concern in regards to the “corruption of the deep state.” The second she discovered that six organizations personal the entire media, she mentioned, was “groundbreaking” and “life-shattering.” She’s grateful that the web exists so she will be able to do her personal analysis, and she or he really useful her Mensa friends use the search engine DuckDuckGo to evade Google’s “censors.”
Younger, a motivational speaker who payments herself as a “optimistic affect and alter professional,” was greater than glad to speak to me about her Mensa journey. (I, maybe needlessly, assured her that I used to be scripting this piece for an impartial media firm.)
It started in 2008 when her first husband died from alcoholism. “I used to be in such trauma from the whole lot that occurred, my mind wasn’t working. I couldn’t put two ideas collectively and I couldn’t keep on job and focus,” she mentioned. She sought assist from a psychiatrist who had her take a two-hour-long “fancy take a look at,” which is how she discovered that she has an abnormally excessive IQ.
5 years later, Younger was attending a motivational-speaking convention, and her assigned roommate occurred to be a Mensan and really useful she be a part of. She despatched within the outcomes from the take a look at she took on the psychiatrist’s workplace and was admitted. “Once I discovered I used to be certified, I cried for a complete day, as a result of no one ever instructed me I used to be gifted,” Younger mentioned. “It’s hilarious I discovered that I’d be certified for Mensa as a result of, after overcoming horrific adversity and trauma, I received a take a look at.”
This was Younger’s first AG — she made the journey from her residence in northwestern Florida as a result of visiting Lake Tahoe, solely an hour drive away from the Nugget Resort On line casino, was on her “bucket checklist” — and she or he was having a good time. She’d instantly began making new mates and had determined to attend the Russia-Ukraine debate as a result of she “wished to listen to the angle from good individuals who aren’t counting on mainstream press to get their opinions.”
Anybody who reads tabloids is aware of that stars are similar to us! For higher and worse, Mensans are too.
“There’s a George Carlin quote I like: ‘Image how dumb the typical individual is and keep in mind that half of the inhabitants is dumber,’” Whalen, sporting a black V-neck T-shirt, carefully cropped darkish hair, and subtly stretched lobes, instructed me after we completed our sport of Set. “I can’t say that everyone I’ve met in Mensa is clever. However everyone in Mensa not less than values intelligence. So to seek out folks round our age who’re not less than fascinated with studying and being smarter, or not less than being analytical, that’s good to be part of, as a result of I don’t discover it rather a lot among the many basic populace.”
Whalen and I first met on the polyamory special-interest group, or SIG in Mensa parlance. He sat close to the center of the room with the opposite millennials, whereas the older Mensans occupied the perimeters. On his title tag have been blue stickers, code for “I’m obtainable.” By placing 4 there, he hoped to suggest that he was extraordinarily DTF. Once I requested him if his stickers led to any Mensa hookups, he smiled and mentioned, “Hooo yeah.”
“We began with an RPG group, and now I’ve 4 companions and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” mentioned one of many youthful Mensans on the poly-SIG, who wore a crimson velvet cape and masquerade masks, as everyone took turns introducing themselves. “I hope you all may be capable of reply some questions.”
“I believe I would’ve been born poly like I used to be born libertarian,” an aged lady who had cornrows and wore a t-shirt with the phrase NERDY mentioned. “If anyone is aware of about Ayn Rand, she was poly.”
Lise Waring, a Mensan in her early 60s with a candy spherical face and lengthy white hair, mentioned that her gateway into polyamory was Robert Heinlein’s libertarian science-fiction novel, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. When her husband proposed to her 40 years in the past, she mentioned sure on the situation that they might be polyamorous, although she didn’t have the phrase for it again then.
Waring instructed me that intelligence is essential to her in the case of attraction. “If I’ve to elucidate my puns to you, I’m not going to provide the time of day,” she mentioned, in a well-known chorus. She splits her time between New York and Texas. For a few years, up till his dying, the president of her Mensa chapter in Texas was her principal associate exterior of her husband.
Jason Seiler is a 45-year-old safety skilled at Boeing who leads the Disney Nerd SIG. “Mensa is the house I by no means knew I had,” he instructed me. “Think about when you studied German, and also you went over and also you lived in Germany for ten years. And then you definately went into an expat bar the place all of them spoke English, and all of the sudden you go like, ‘Okay, now I can suppose the best way I’ve all the time thought and never must faux or translate my ideas from my native tongue into one thing else to be understood.’ That’s what Mensa is for me.”
And, after all, the high-IQ crowd will get his humor. Seiler gave an instance of a joke he hardly ever tells amongst his civilian mates however that apparently kills with Mensans: “Schrödinger is driving on the freeway and he’s dashing, and a cop stops him and searches his automotive, and says, ‘Do you know you’ve a lifeless cat in your trunk?’ He says, ‘Effectively I do now.’”
I gave him a smile of recognition, to acknowledge that I understood the joke, at which level he requested me why I’m not in Mensa. I provided some bullshit reply about how I don’t like taking assessments. Nonetheless, he predicted I’d be a member inside two years.
The reality was, I couldn’t fairly articulate why I wouldn’t need to be a part of. I definitely had a pleasant time on the conference. (“I’ve by no means seen you do that a lot reporting,” my fiancé mentioned after I knowledgeable him I needed to spend yet one more day there.) The setting jogged my memory that I get pleasure from a variety of the identical nerdy shit Mensans reside for: logic video games, trivia, and different kinds of puzzles. It was enjoyable studying Set and later, competing within the Wordle event.
However I didn’t fairly really feel like I had discovered my folks. I’ve by no means in my life struggled to seek out good mates who get my jokes, and my intelligence (or, per my haters, my lack thereof) isn’t one thing that makes me really feel alienated from my friends. It’s to not say that being brainy isn’t vital to me — I’m glad I’m engaged to somebody who I believe is good and likes to play all of the silly little video games that I do — however excessive IQ just isn’t within the high ten or 20 or 100 qualities I search for in a pal or group. I need to be round a part of a bunch of people who find themselves empathetic and humorous and intellectually curious and have bizarre pursuits. Lots of people I met match that invoice. And I’m comfortable for all of the Mensans who’ve discovered a house of their unique membership and that their IQ has offered them with a approach to perceive themselves and their place on this planet.
But when my time on the Mensa Annual Gathering taught me something, it’s that being “good” and doing nicely on assessments have nearly nothing to do with one another.
