It's so damn frustrating

I used to find it frustrating when I first joined MENSA in the 80s that there is a lot of one-upmanship amongst the community there - everyone trying to prove they were the smartest person in the room sort of thing. It lasted a year and I didn't renew membership.

Do you perhaps consider that mixing with this sort of person may be highlighting your other challenges?

I recall people loved to point out how they had used their intelligence to create an algorythm for trading stocks that was making them loads of money (this was back in the yuppy days) and pointing out how much successful it made them.

I don't know if this is reflected in the people you socialise with.

I found that I became happier when I moved away from this sort of group and started following more of my own interests (restoring old motorbikes, studing fledgling IT tech and getting into the first business computers) and stopped trying to compare myself with others.

Just my experiences - I don't know how much in common this has with you.

When I was young, I considered the choice of joining mensa or mocking them for their naivety.

NO-ONE respects or likes intelligent people. IDK why, but even when I was young, I could see that.

People often say something like "if you want to socialise join a club with shared interests" I always find there is that social heirarcrhy stuff going on or the one upmanship, and it'll be about somethng you care about!

The "meetup" groups seem reasonably free of that sort of thing as much as I have seen. We joined one that did nice "not too challenging" walks at the weekends. I meet people mostly at work, or if I help them in some way. 

It really helps to have a "thing" you can do from time to time when you have nothing else to say (or it seems that way) I've been known to break the ice with humour, some peoeple can sing, some can dance, some can do voices or impressions, soem can manage a conversation with grace adn charm, all these things (If you can do them well enough) are forms of social lubricant that make you interesting enough to talk to.. 

Obviously you never tell any camel joke until you know your audience isn't too prudish...   

When I was young, I considered the choice of joining mensa or mocking them for their naivety.

NO-ONE respects or likes intelligent people. IDK why, but even when I was young, I could see that.

People often say something like "if you want to socialise join a club with shared interests" I always find there is that social heirarcrhy stuff going on or the one upmanship, and it'll be about somethng you care about!

The "meetup" groups seem reasonably free of that sort of thing as much as I have seen. We joined one that did nice "not too challenging" walks at the weekends. I meet people mostly at work, or if I help them in some way. 

It really helps to have a "thing" you can do from time to time when you have nothing else to say (or it seems that way) I've been known to break the ice with humour, some peoeple can sing, some can dance, some can do voices or impressions, soem can manage a conversation with grace adn charm, all these things (If you can do them well enough) are forms of social lubricant that make you interesting enough to talk to.. 

Obviously you never tell any camel joke until you know your audience isn't too prudish...