Bragging rights

The gregarious instinct, that need to belong, to be recognized as an equal and to be understood, is strong even among those who positively know they are different. This is in fact the origin of most of the teenage tantrums that we are currently enjoying from Trevor: not knowing (yet) who he is, he repeatedly feels misunderstood, with the consequence that, instead of trying once more to explain himself, he often withdraws to his room, where he can seethe in incomprehension and, perhaps, reach out to his friends, who indubitably "get him".

We have discussed before how, when social networks did not exist, people with odd personalities or tastes were often forced to tweak themselves in the direction of the community in order to secure a minimum degree of acceptance, but that left whole section of their nature unattended, so those who had the means (both financially and technically) strove to find ways to fulfill these parts of their interests by alternative ways. One of these avenues was the international association Mensa, founded in 1946 by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware for the mentally gifted who, otherwise, had a hard time finding interesting conversations on peers who could match their argumentative abilities.

Photo: Nathan Rupert

Growing up I felt like I was frequently the smartest kid in the room, often even the smartest person, but luckily both my father and my mother kept the pace really well: I have never asked them about it, plus it is probably difficult to compare intelligence across generations, but one way or another I never lacked stimulating conversations at home. At school the situation was slightly different, with me frequently engaging (and often defeating) teachers in front of the class, what led to complicated power dynamics. Other students would mostly turn to me when they needed help with their school work but I never had many friends. I also preferred handling people one-on-one (I did not know it back then, but now I understand that this made it easier for me to find the right way to speak to them), which led me to have a series of one-friend groups over the years who came and went as our interests approached and drifted apart. Later on this oddity became a slight obstacle to find girlfriends: the pretty ones felt intimidated and inadequate, so they did not care for my company, while the smart ones where often not attractive enough to catch my eye. That is, until I found Karen.

It is remarkable how the intrinsic difficulty of scientific subjects such as math and physics make them perfect measuring sticks for the smarts of a person, but they are not the only ones. Karen has, by her own recognition a difficult time in that realms, but she has an outstanding command in more humanistic matters such as linguistics, international law or history. In fact, it was she who almost twenty years ago suggested that we should both take the Mensa access test, just to see it we qualified or, if not, how far we were. It turned out that we both succeeded, so soon thereafter we both joined the association and started attending the weekly gatherings of the local chapter, which frequently revolved around playing all kinds of board and card games.

The atmosphere in the association was somewhat strange but, thinking about it, not all that surprising: there were many members who were extremely welcoming, and who made good on the association's promise of providing a stimulating environment for the free exchange of ideas, but there were also a few which were confrontational beyond measure, who distilled some kind of resentment that forced me to exercise some caution around them. Unfortunately, we confirmed after some months that intelligent people are no less susceptible to prejudice than the general population, as prominently visible in the recurrent assumption that I was the rightful member while Karen was only around as partner, not as a member herself. In fact, my friend Jerzy, which we met through the association, once asked Karen "how does it feel to be married to a Mensan", to which she replied "Why don't you ask my husband?" and yes, it took him a few seconds to make sense of the answer.

At any rate, life has now moved on and we are still good friends with him but we do not participate in the association anymore. However, he still does and he was telling us a few days ago about this five-day-long gathering that he had attended, where he had had so much fun, so many interesting things to do, that he had barely any time to sleep. This is not surprising at all, since he feels constantly under-stimulated, so it is just normal that, whenever he gets a chance, he jumps onto it with all his might. What I personally found a bit disturbing is how he told the train ride back to his home town, where he had stricken conversation with the girl on the next seat, who was some kind of biologist and was very interested in his experiences over the long weekend.  As a first source of irritation, I find in improper to talk about a "girl" you met on the train in front of your wife (she is just her life partner, because they are not married, but it is all the same), particularly when she is close to 50 years old and, by his own description the fellow passenger had barely reached 30. The second aspect where I found this conversation really shocking is because he had summarized the meeting for the the girl as "board games and conferences about sex". What could drive anyone to, in the first place, talk like that to a total stranger, and the to tell about it to a friend in front of your wife? I believe that the answer is simply bragging.

This might be pure coffeehouse psychology, but in the recent months I have repeatedly had the impression that he has not been satisfied with his work at all: he accomplishes whatever task he is asked to do within half or even one third of the time that anyone else in his team would need, but other than how fast he is, it does not demonstrate anything, it is nothing to be proud about, not really fulfilling. The activities around Mensa, on the contrary, have for him a sheen of glamour that he cannot find anywhere else: not only they do things that nobody else would dare to do, such as playing board games (generally considered childish) or having conferences about sex (considered taboo in most circles), but once they get to do it, they throw themselves at it, and they really have their much deserved great time and interesting conversations. Excited as he was by the bounty of wonderful memories, he could not help himself and started bragging around to anyone who would lend him an ear, oblivious to the fact that she was a complete stranger who experienced more surprise than genuine interest.

The next step is just a perfectly understandable consequence of the previous one: after having a great time with the association and managing to amaze the fellow traveler, further commentary about it was unavoidable. In the end, bragging about your own accomplishment is probably as much reward as the accomplishment itself, and he was in great need for recognition, so he ended up telling me (and his wife and mine along the way). Considering that he has been the target of jealousy in the past, this was probably not the smartest move but admittedly, there are times where one's needs can jump over any safety barrier. Luckily, she let that one slip (I do not know if the video conference "helped" in tuning her anger down), and I am positive that there was no bloodshed. Hopefully, he got at least some amount of pain, because otherwise he might end up repeating the feat in an even more embarrassing situation. Have a nice evening.