A friend who is generally the smartest person in the room wherever she goes went to a Mensa meeting once. However, she was there as the girlfriend of a member; she hadn’t passed their test. As a result, the members just talked right over her, which was very much their loss.
ciphergoth’s friend’s experience is not typical of my experiences in Australian Mensa, where anyone who attended a Mensa meeting was welcome and treated as an equal, although some members did mention that they had encountered some snobbishness at some overseas meetings.
In Australia when I was a member there were about 400 eligible non-members for every member, so most members recognized that a non-member might well have a higher IQ than many members. Also, a fair proportion recognized that whilst what is imperfectly measured by IQ tests is a useful trait and a differentiating factor, it is NOT the measure of a person’s worth or even of their conversational potential.
A friend who is generally the smartest person in the room wherever she goes went to a Mensa meeting once. However, she was there as the girlfriend of a member; she hadn’t passed their test. As a result, the members just talked right over her, which was very much their loss.
ciphergoth’s friend’s experience is not typical of my experiences in Australian Mensa, where anyone who attended a Mensa meeting was welcome and treated as an equal, although some members did mention that they had encountered some snobbishness at some overseas meetings.
In Australia when I was a member there were about 400 eligible non-members for every member, so most members recognized that a non-member might well have a higher IQ than many members. Also, a fair proportion recognized that whilst what is imperfectly measured by IQ tests is a useful trait and a differentiating factor, it is NOT the measure of a person’s worth or even of their conversational potential.
Good to hear—thanks!