There’s a dating site for people that like people in uniform, horse-lovers (no not like that and the “country-minded” among us. Hell, there’s even one for anyone with a highly specific hankering for sea captains. In the midst of this madness, Mensa has finally stepped into the breach. Because if it’s okay to discriminate in favour of beauty, muddy boots and salty sea stories, it’s certainly okay to discriminate for IQ.
The US branch of the club for world’s smartest people (it only accepts those whose IQ is in the population’s top two percent) has
partnered with Match.com to create a special branch of the dating site for special people. (In spite of this superior intellect, it’s worth noting that Mensa still decided to opt for the “hot woman with secretary-style open blouse and spectacles” cliche, to signify a woman who is both intelligent, and appealing as a life partner.)
On its site, the elite club states: “American Mensa isn’t just about encouraging adults to think; connections over ideas and interests have always been a part of our culture, and now Mensa Match helps Mensans connect on a more emotional level.” It encourages people to use it to find friendship or love with fellow Mensans, or even “other people” outside the group with similar interests.
Anyone that wants to join this most elite of dating ranks will get a Mensa badge after showing their IQ results are above 130. The rest of the lemons out there can, however, signify that they are interested in meeting up with a Mensa member by posting the badge to their profile, opening themselves up to a whole host of new rejections related to their inadequacy as human beings.
There are more than 110,000 Mensa members globally, and 56,000 in the US, so the pool is not as vast as available horse-lovers.
However, there are plenty of people out there who prefer not to boast about their intellect by paying an annual fee to an elitist club, and they can still join this group (after paying the introductory offer of a $1 Mensa test to prove their worth).
According to Match.com, 80 percent of singles rate intelligence as an important factor when looking for a partner. Genius levels of intelligence, however, are another matter and probably not all that important to the full 80 percent that ticked this particular survey box, and might even intimidate people right out of the game. So those 166,000 members might still find themselves languishing for a date if hoping to hunt outside the Mensa pool.
Presumably in an attempt to stem that intimidation, John McGill, Mensa’s national director of marketing, told Mashable (we’re assuming with a straight face) that it’s not about elitism. Quite simply, he explains, “[Mensans] process things much quicker than most other people do”. “It’s certainly not an elitist thing, they just see things very, very differently and they interact differently. … What’s great about it is when there’s an opportunity for people to get to meet each other and they just might process things the same way, it makes it really perfect.”
Because opposites never attract, apparently.
