Originally Posted by noodle

....Plus, sometimes it's nice to say, "look what I can do." I've had conversations with other Mensa members and it's nice to talk with people that use grown-up words. And don't care when I use them or when I say, "Fuck off."

Originally Posted by purplelirpa

This seems to be echoed by quite a few other people, who I feel may be misunderstanding my reasons for wanting to join mensa.

When I was in 7th grade, I had a wonderful opportunity to go to a summer camp sponsored by the gifted education resource institute. Up until that point, I was in advanced classes for some of my schooling, but generally forced to mix with people who made me feel like shit for being smart. I was ostracized and made to feel like something was very wrong with me by the people I interacted with. I didn't realize at the time that people generally don't like realizing someone is functioning on a different level than they are. And really, I don't blame them.

When I got to the camp, I met many people who were there for the same reason I was--we scored in the top 2% of our standardized testing and qualified to study at this camp. It was academic-based, but we all had a lot of fun goofing off and acting silly during our free time. Finally, people who I didn't have to pretend to be stupid in front of just to fit in! We could talk, share ideas, metaphors, dreams, and our new-found sexualities.

Since 7th grade, I've been through a lot of shit that could make it difficult for me to qualify for such a thing again--I have some chronic medical issues, I dropped out of high school, I did my fair share of drugs, I have been jumping from one severely stressful situation to another for the past 8 years. I know that I'm smart enough, I'm not doing this to prove anything to anyone. I just hope that I would perform well enough to be able to make it in, because it's worth something to me.

Now, I'm stuck in corporate hell, making good money with good benefits. I'm having to network with people. They had me join the chamber of commerce (for a $50 yearly fee, I will add), to talk to people about sales and shit that I am not exactly passionate about, but which I am good enough at to make money doing it. The mensa thing is for me. So that I can have a bit of an outlet finally getting to have a resource to find people who I know are as smart as or smarter than I am, who can relate to my "smart-people problems" and who want to get together and do things.

Perhaps I'm being idealistic. And maybe it's just that I haven't gotten to try for anything really hard in my life before. I don't feel that my reasoning is wrong.