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MENSA always struck me as an arrogant elitist society of people bragging to each other about how smart they are. There's a cruder term to describe what I think about MENSA, but it is not appropriate to use here on FR. I'm pretty sure that my IQ far exceeds that needed to join MENSA. However, I'm not an arrogant elitist who needs to brag in order to feel good about myself.

A friend of mine is in Mensa and holds meetings in his house. I'm not a member, but I'm sometimes there hanging out.

Mensa appears to have a number of members who are not as successful in life as their IQs would indicate they should be, due to personality issues.

Think about it. Most really smart people are in professions where they interact all day with lots of equally-smart people. They don't need to join Mensa.

PapaBear, you’ve pegged it exactly! The average Mensan is socially inept to a point that it hinders professional success.

Smart people without such handicaps tend to work in law or medicine or finance or IT or creative fields at such a level that they don’t need Mensa to find and spend time with other smart people.

Also, a good chunk of them are, shall we say, ‘chunky’, and there tends to be something of a ‘swingers’ undercurrent or subset to many Mensa chapters.