Passing standardized tests and excelling in brilliance just aren’t my things.
Weeks after taking the test at the Beavercreek Community Library, I received word that I failed American Mensa’s admission test.
As the nicely worded rejection letter says, my head may be large, but my brain has the consistency of taffy and is the size of a dodo’s egg.
OK, the letter doesn’t say that.
It offers no score, simply stating that I didn’t pass, but I can attempt to break into the “nerdy club” by acing an approved, standardized intelligence test like the GMAT or MAT.
I am an inch disappointed I didn’t get in.
Club Nerd seems fun.
The Mensa people, at least the ones I hung out with recently at Tsao’s Cuisine, near Wright State University, were surprising.
Brainy, yes — like all Mensans, they are in the top 2 percent when it comes to intelligence. But they weren’t the pompous, know- it-all Poindexters you see in popular culture.
None used a fake British accent to speak of astrochemistry. And not one had black electrical tape between his or her glasses.
I was expecting at least one Steve Urkel snort.
As the members of the group I spoke to pointed out, not every member of Dayton Area Mensa considers a pocket protector and slide rule fashion accessories.
Lori Balster, the local group’s 36-year-old recording secretary, said those with super brains aren’t all cut from the same super-smart cloth.
“Some people have an ‘attitude’ about it, but there is not just one Mensa type,” said the Washington Twp. resident and University of Dayton Research Institute research chemist.
Some of the group’s 250 members just want to have fun. Many don’t.
Members get together to play brainy games, but they also discuss everything from TV shows to global warming solutions.
Pat Reising of Dayton, the group’s treasurer, said many join Mensa for a place to fit in. They long to interact with other smart people.
Not that the rest of us are morons, but Mensans get each other’s jokes, she said, noting that those jokes are appropriately called “Mensa jokes.”
Author Joyce Carol Oates and celebrities such as Geena Davis and the Comic Book Guy from “The Simpsons” don’t hide their Mensa memberships. But many people keep their memberships closeted, Reising said.
“How do you talk about it without it sounding like bragging?” the 63-year-old retired medical technologist asked.
As a test failure, I won’t have to worry about that.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2384 or arobinson@DaytonDaily News.com.
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