Discussing Mensa and Bullying in Smart Kids

You spoke to or are a member of, or what is this with the Mensa Society? Yeah. You can be honest. My son Ryan-

Yes ... is in Mensa. Ah. Anne had to take him 'cause he was a minor and he had to get special

permission. He was the only kid in there. He came out, right, he went in very confident, and he came out, like, white as a sheet, like he had just walked

through Bastogne. You know? And, and he, and he goes, "Well, that was humbling." They grade the test. They never, they, you, you pass or you don't.

Yeah. They don't tell you anything. They don't give you your number. So Ryan was in Mensa, and, um, over time he came to, he, he reached the conclusion,

and I agree with him, that it's, there's, it's problematic. Um- Yeah ... and, and, and it draws some folks that I

would rather not associate with. But on this particular m- day, I was invited to speak at a thing they call the Gathering of the Geeks. The Gathering of the Geeks. That's right. And I, and I, and I thought I had an opportunity to talk

about how really smart people get stuck in our heads, and feel weird, and try to logic out stuff in situations where we just kinda can't logic stuff out.

Yeah. And we get bullied like crazy, and I talked a lot about bullying, and I talked a lot about how, like, you can be really, really smart, um, and, like,

and feel like, um, nobody gets you, right? That doesn't make it okay for you to go and be a bully to people. Hmm. Um, and, and I think that I called, I think I titled my keynote

address Stop Hitting Yourself. Ooh. When we're smart kids, adults who are threatened by that or feel uncomfortable around that are shitty to us.

Yeah. And they, and they knock us down, and they try to, like, just take away that thing that makes us special. And, like, I, I think that w- as adults in this world,

we have this opportunity and a responsibility to see that in kids, and nurture it, and encourage it, and that's just what, that's what I talked about, and it was, it was

lov-