Episode 3: Hotel Meetings, Mead Guys and MAGA Hats

don't understand the logic behind it. So, if you're returning the incredible, powerful cliffhanger, I left you on last episode, in which I attended a party that was being thrown by a secret Facebook group I r L and ended up in this bizarre, low key physical altercation with a stranger day one of the MENSA Convention. I add resolutely did get drunken, cry, very messy, And we're just gonna blaze on into episode three. Welcome you, smart bastards. We're

gonna go forward to July. This is day two of my time at the MENSA annual gathering otherwise known and I feel like I haven't hit on this hard enough. It's called Men's Rising. Who knows. So I walked two blocks from my airbnb to get to the nearest Ice coffee and like sausage and cheese sandwich, and I completely swept through my clothes getting there. I was aware that Arizona was hot, but eight am needing to change your

clothes hot It's a bit much. So I get my breakfast and then I lay in my Airbnb for a full hour until I have to haul us back to the Sheraton Grand Downtown and go to my first Mussie event of the day, which is a talk called because Science Is Funny The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon and you. And honestly, it is well worth the walk to the Sheraton. Their room is absolutely packed. There's over one mentions just cracking up and reciting a deeply sexist scene from The

Big Bang Theory from memory? Did you like to hear another reason why men are better than women? And the speaker, who's a fan of the show, obviously spends most of the time just rehashing the one time he was in the live audience of a Big Bang Theory episode, and they do take a sort of interesting look at how they used actual science in the show. I cannot say it enough. Men sins are not funny people. Oh you hear women say? Is always have a salad? Where's my

lip gloss? I decided to skip out on some of the things I was going to see, which include something called dealing with Problem Members and atheist meeting, And instead I meet my only friend at the conference, to who I've known for less than twenty four hours, and we go to a presentation being made about Jonestown by someone who was there, and believe it or not, it is

the calmest I've felt since I got there. And it is interesting that the mentions I encounter during the day portion of this conference are far closer to what I envisioned them to be when I first started writing about MENSA.

The one thing I always underestimated was the wide range of class backgrounds that members are from, so as to say, the MENSA founding elitist Australian assholes who have discussed in past episodes Roland Barrel would not be pleased of the range of class representation in the organization because he famously said that MENSA should be quote an aristocracy of the

intellect unquote. He was a dick. But what I also underestimated about MENSA was the wide array of prejudices that people inside of this group would have, regardless of class. For the most part, daytime mentions I'll call them are older people that enjoy the talks of debates as well as talking with other mentions in the hospitality room or

the cafeteria. There are moments when I am sitting in hospital pality, usually alone, that this makes a lot of sense to me, because even in a community that I have found to be very exclusionary and troubling, still looks and functions like a community, and it seems like plenty of people who are there engaged with it in a

relatively healthy way. There's a lot of people here who only see each other once a year at the annual gathering, and there's no shortage of people who haven't seen each other in years giving each other hugs and taking pictures over the shitty cafeteria food that we've all been forced to eat. So I'm just writing out my thoughts about

this at lunch, not feeling particularly watched for once. However, this moment of introspection and of realizing that there's more to this group than I gave credit for going in is later posted about in the American Mensa Firehouse the Secret Group, and the commenters are mentioning how they saw Jamie sitting alone at the lunch table how sad and pathetic must that be to see me alone like that at mens arising so you know, multitudes but also not And then I have to go back to my room

to prepare for the MENSA Gala dinner. It happens every year. People get dressed to the nines. I wear what I wore yesterday. Sorry, And you pay seventy five dollars to have a piece of cheesecake and a piece of meat with your fellow medicines and listen to Adam Savage bust various myths for two hours. Of course, I have to

invest in a ticket to this event. I want to know what the gala is like, and what I can for sure say it has is the two things that make me more anxious than anything in the world, which is face to face confrontation and not knowing who to sit with at an event. I'm able to push past one of them pretty quickly and I find a table with some older people at the far end of the ballroom. I am feeling very insecure that I did not bring

a gown. People are dressed very nicely at this event, and once I get there, I Facebook message to to let them know that I found us a spot. I start eating my salad very quickly. The food in the cafeteria is bad, and before I can take it by of food, another man appears beside me, to my right, and he says I'm Michael, Mensa's head of marketing, and he extends a firm clammy marketer's handshake to me and says,

would you like to come sit at our table? I tell Michael, I can only do it if there's room for my friend, because two is the closest thing I have to a friend in the entire world here, and Michael says, sorry, there's no room and he goes back to the table. Then two finally shows up and he asks me who I was just talking to. And while I was very polite for the Mensa marketing team to invite me to their table, you know, so it's a

little transparent. A very drunk mention who's come to our sort of misfits table, leans in very close to tell me where I should visit in Scotland and about the various graphic novels he's been working on. He starts out very condescending to me and then learns that I am a TV writer and magically becomes less so, which I've found is something that very cool, respectful people do. And if someone else is walking home through to our table, the drunk guy recognizes him and says, there he is,

and who is he pointing to? But Joey, the man I met at a party last night who has led the charge on online harassment. And I know I've been told that he was an important person on the board of American Ments Up, but even I underestimated exactly how important his position was. According to the program, he's one of the many sub chairs of the American Mensa Committee,

and he is dressed the part. Drunk guy and Joey exchanged pleasantries, and Joey places a firm hand on my shoulder and he says, everything going well, And I'm very uncomfortable, And I say, yep, because as far as I know, Joey still thinks I don't know who he is, because he has blocked me so long ago that he can just sort of treat me however he wants and I

won't be the wiser. And he says great, pats me on the back, greets too as well, although he's repeatedly harassed him online as well, And then he returns to his officials only table at the front of the gala. So Adam Savage is about to take the state bust some myths as this year's big talk giver when Two nudges me and points a few tables over and he tells me that Katie is sitting there. But I can't

see Katie. All I can see is a make America Great Again hat floating somewhere in the crowd, attached to a petite woman's head, And Two says, you know who she is already, and this time he's right. Katie is one of the only people in Firehouse who I am very familiar with. I was still blocked by her on Facebook, but I knew her reputation as one of the most outspoken Trump supporters in the group who was occasionally kicked off Facebook altogether for posting offensive things that broke the

community guidelines. She held the Firehouse community in extremely high regard, and after my most recent piece on the group, she had commented on an Instagram post of mine saying the following, let it be known that this comedian is a slimy odd and this is just the first line. Here are some select passages from that comment, which is from February, and it genuinely has too long to repeat in its entirety.

So these are just some highlights. I'm not a fan of people throwing others under the bus to further they're already unfruitful and destined to fail career. You're the first person ever that are unmoderated group has had to mass block because you're shady and trying to ruin people's lives. You're probably one of the geekiest, most unattractive people in our organization, and attention seeking kunt who wants to fame everyone acts stop fucking with my friends. Oh, and see

you in Phoenix. So that's the person we're talking about. And she's a few tables away in her MAGA hat too. In spite of getting into similar arguments with her, has already voluntarily taken a few pictures with her and says that she's been very nice to him and that I should consider giving her a chance. And I don't understand the need for pictures, but I tell him I'm happy

to talk with her if she wants to. Adam Savage gives a lovely talk about the myths that he's busted, and it truly does kind of feel like medicine to hear someone talk about something other than how my a g is going. So after he speaks, the gala ends, which means it's once again party time, and in the gen Y Suite that night, I have formally scrapped my get black out drunk with the men since in order to better relate with them portion of my annual gathering plan,

because look, I'm not Hunter Thompson. I am a tired lady, and I'm nervous, and i am alone, and I can't leave Phoenix for another thirty hours, so I'm not drinking tonight, which is a challenge because it's toga night and the only thing worse than being me at this party is being me without a toga made out of stolen sheets

from the sheraton. Completely sober, black lights are illuminating me tastefully well researched knots of many a mense in toga you can't say they don't do their homework, and the alcohol is flowing as heavy as the night before, But I don't have sheets from the sheraton because I'm not staying there, so I sort of just pray to remain invisible for a few minutes while I get my bearings.

This time, I'm back with my friend who I wept to for an hour the night before, Tall guy, and there's a woman my age with a solo cup full of Coke zero and we have a very pleasant conversation for all of five minutes before what I already know is going to happen happens. Someone from Firehouse approaches me and asks me a weird question, Jamie, and I'm going

to call this guy Sam. He is a pianist who immigrated to the US, and he had deemed me a selfie he took of us from the previous night while I was waiting for my uber outside the hotel and crying. But he came up and he was like, you're Jamie, right, Can I get a picture with you? And so I wiped the tears from my eyes and honestly looked kind

of cute in the picture. Anyways, Sam has been nice to me, but again he has that proud hoser badge, and it's enough to sort of keep me at bay a little bit for the moment it but he says, good to see you again, how is your a g Sam has opted out of the elaborate toga as well, and he sort of just has like a white hand towel draped over his neck to catch the black light, and he offers me a hand towel too, And he spends the next several minutes trying to convince me to

go back up to the Firehouse suite tonight, and I hope understandably I express a little bit of nervousness at going back upstairs to the fifth floor. But he doesn't seem to understand why I feel this way, and he asks me a number of times why you're not going to get hurt. You're not, And I thank him, and I politely turned him down again, and so he backs

off and recedes into the sea of genius togas. So throughout this party, by my count, seven people with Firehouse ribbons approached me throughout the fifteen minutes or so that I'm standing at the party. Two of them say we just wanted to meet you and shake your hand face to face. Another group of three tell me that what happened at the party the previous night was not cool.

A hoser who's visiting from Sweden asks to take a selfie with me, which is a fairly common thing that hosers asked for when encountering popular targets of the board in real life. And I still can't really figure out if this is an act of straight up trolling or more of a white flag of like, look, we're just kidding.

In any case, I awkwardly decline. And this procession of people who have refused to acknowledge me in the digital space and look at me like an aquarium specimen in real life is very bizarre, But I have to keep in mind that I'm more or less doing the same

thing to them. A lot of the Firehouse people and I spend time kind of circling each other and reach no conclusions on first glance because nothing seems wrong with the other person on site at least, and neither want to be the first to tell the other that they think the other is completely full of shit. So I've

come here to understand mentions better. But outside of a few cautious conversations and a swipe to take my phone, I'm really no closer to reaching any transformative conclusion on the contradictory practices of Firehouse and the people inside of it. Sam Way, It's about ten minutes before emerging again. This time with a different woman from Firehouse, and he says, very earnestly, please, there's a private party upstairs for Firehouse, not the one from last night. Invite only. I'll bring

you up. It's okay. And as the saying goes, if a mentone asks you to enter an unguarded hotel room full of people with dubious intentions, three times you go. But before we go to the invite only American Mensa Firehouse secret party, we've got to kick it back to October in California. And the reason I know that if a menton asks you to do something thrice, you must do it, it's because I have fallen for this exact

thing before. So, like five million billion news cycles ago, when I was first reporting on Firehouse, to top elected members of American MENSA reached doubt to offer what sounded like a good faith discussion about their safety practices and context for the group that I had become the latest

target of. And in the original email reaching out, the MENSA employee mentioned no less than three times that I had joined the organization as a joke, but he did assure me that they were concerned about how I was being treated regardless, So here's kind of a pull quote from this first email. We take very seriously the safety and security of our members, and now that you've joined for laughs or no, that includes your safety. Thanks. But

this isn't for nothing. As we've discussed in past episodes when we talk in October of last year, this concern for safety is a big discussion at MENSA events because considering the various allegations made surrounding the Indianapolis Annual Gathering and the increasing skepticism about how carefully safety in an in person capacity was treated by the organization, they were on the offensive and MENSA officials were more sensitive to this issue than usual, and it's warranted a public response.

A MENSA representative who I've met before, gave an interview to Inverse in August of eighteen, and full disclosure, I worked for Inverse in twenty sixteen and seventeen, but don't know the writer who did this interview personally. But the MENSA representative did this interview in August, right after the Indianapolis Annual Gathering concluded, and here's what she had to say. In this time, the hashtag me too, and being more aware that respect for boundaries is important it's imperative that

these types of problems be reported immediately. So in October, when we're exchanging these emails and a few hours away from doing mushrooms for the first time, and I speak to both members from like the cramped attic of someone else's house, and at this time, the allegations about the Indianapolis annual gathering are not ones I'm yet aware of.

But these two employees are very honest about what's going on in the organization, and they explain that the issues surrounding the ethics of Firehouse had been a subject of internal discussion a number of times over the years. And now three months into me writing about MENSA, a few other female mentions had reached out to me discussing the circumstances of their eventual departure from MENSA because of discomfort

or harassment that they had experienced in Firehouse specifically. And so my main question for these reps in October was why the organization would officially sponsor an unmoderated group that at its core appeared to pose a threat to safety. And I'm given the official history of the Firehouse schism in MENSA because it's been a hot topic issue for a number of years. So let's kick up some fairytale

music and start talking. Once upon a time, about five years ago, there was one official American Mensa Facebook group where mentions from all walks of life were free to right whatever they pleased, because at this time, the assumption was by the Mensa Committee that discussions would remain relatively civil, and as the politics of America became more polarized, so did the dynamics of this group, and members who were only in the group for intellectual stimulation were concerned for

the many underage mensines who qualified for and occasionally participated in the forum. So the secret Facebook groups of American Mensa went full Korea and split into one group would be moderated and one group would not be. The moderated group is called American Mensa Hospitality, and the unmoderated group

is American Mensa Firehouse. An American Mensa Firehouse immediately because the source of great contention in Mensa on the whole, as well as immediately becoming the most active online community in the organization by far. The moderated group is reserved mostly for group updates and light political discussion. Five years later, I'm told on the phone in October, Firehouse is still a source of controversy, but the group was still around

because of its core community dynamics. The end nice story, right, So that's the narrative I'm given, and I say on the phone, I guess I just don't understand why the official mens A group would be okay with people threatening other members and not doing anything about it, because at this time, I was still convinced that a cogent enough argument and enough damning accounts about mass blockings and timidations and threats would be enough for any reasonable organization to

get rid of or at least better protect their own members. And it's here that I am surprised, because the argument made to keep Firehouse active, endorsed, and unmoderated has remained consistent from top mentions throughout my time there, and many of the administrators in question are actually active Firehouse members themselves.

One of the employees on the phone, who I'm going to call Amanda, explains that even though the tone of Firehouse tends to be antagonistic, the community developed there takes care of their own and you're not going to believe this are very different in real life than they are online. And in October, this is the first time I'm hearing this, And on this call, Amanda shares an anecdote that is repeated to me a number of times in the coming months,

and it goes like this. It concerns one of the only consistently engaged left wing Firehouse members becoming ill, and many of the right wing members who argue with him online every day actually pitching in some of their own money to alleviate his medical expenses on a go fund Me.

And Amanda tells me this same anecdote in person several months later, and Katie Maga hat Girl shares a similar story with me about the group at the annual gathering in And this is one of the aspects of the community that I find very fascinating, because that does speak to their point. If you can argue with someone about the need for gun control all day, every day, insulting each other viciously, but then still donate to the other's medical expenses go fund me, what does that say about

a community. It is a very bizarre dynamic that occasionally

these strange but positive things come out of. It's a it's a strange anecdote and a strange tendency in a group, and especially the first time I heard it kind of gave me some some chilly, little grizzly food for thought, But for the moment in October, the two mentions on the phone assure me that discussions about Firehouse are ongoing in the organization and that I will receive an update on the status of the group once further discussions are had.

And at the time of this discussion, I've written two columns about Mensa taking the test as a joke, gotten a lot of backlash, and it seems like this call might be the end of it all and could possibly end with something useful, which to me would be some protections for members who have felt ostracized by the community previously and the perfect excuse for me to wash my hands of the whole situation and kind of just move on.

And a few months later, I receive this follow up email from Amanda which says the Communications community is honestly still struggling with the Firehouse view, as it is popular with so many members and a reason that they stay a member. It is difficult to change, but it is unpopular and a stigma to some other members, and the

reason they wish to leave. Amanda tops off the email by saying the MENSA Committee hasn't come to a conclusion regarding the group yet, but she invites me to the Double Tree and San Pedro for the Southern California Regional Gathering to discuss the matter in person if I want to, and as my policy is to do whatever I meant and asks me in an attempt to get to know them, I accept this invitation, Amanda says in the email inviting me, why you see what some of us are like in

real life? Gatherings can be a lot of fun, So transition sound effect. It's February and I'm at the Double Tree in San Pedro and I meet Amanda, and we're not as I had assumed, having lunch at the hotel or even really meeting in public at all. Amanda gives me a big hug when we meet, and she leads me instead to her hotel room, where two other women are waiting at a table to speak with me over

water bottles and prepackaged cookies. It's very clear that this meeting has been planned, but they're also busy as an event, so all three women have a lot of work to do at the gathering this weekend. So what results feels like half open discussion, half mafio so confrontation. So while the point of the meeting appears to be understanding where I'm coming from, it's made clear to me fairly early on that these powerful medicines have no intention of making

any alteration. Two American Mental Firehouse. One of the women I'm sitting with is the same person who will later help run the gen Y suite at the annual gathering. She's in her thirties and she's rocking her very cute baby and a carrier. And the other person there is another long time member who I'm going to call Maggie, and she is a tall, older woman with a day job in I T And she wastes very little time in telling me that she is one of the most

active members in Firehouse of all time. So we begin by sort of rehashing how we got here and what my current standing is in Firehouse. And at this point, like we've discussed in past episodes, what I'm able to see in this group had dwindled down to basically nothing.

I had already won the most blocked poll by a landslide, and even discussions that had nothing to do with me, were completely unavailable, and Maggie was quick to point out that while she is a prominent member of the group, she says that she does not subscribe to the blocking and mass model of many of her peers, and I

say cool, thanks. So the four of us start to really dig into the safety concerns of the annual gathering in Indianapolis the previous year, and this is the first time the inconsistencies I felt developed within the group's firm online isn't real life philosophy kind of start to manifest in person. So in the next hour and a half I start to notice a couple different contradictions emerging. Amanda, who is the woman I had spoken on the phone

in October, who holds a high position in MENSA. She's deeply concerned by the safety allegations from Indianapolis and says that the group is doing everything it can to ensure security in the year's upcoming event in Phoenix. Immediately after saying this, she also expresses some doubt that at least one of the women who alleged that her drink was drugged in Indianapolis was for certain a roofie, and that it may have been the way the member's medication was

mixing with alcohol, and there was no actual Roofie. She also mentioned being bothered by the way that conversations about safety are conducted mostly in online groups instead of in real life. She defends Firehouses community in a way I'm beginning to grow alternatively confused by and used to, and she argues its value to a lot of mentions and

again one of those contradictions. Amanda and Maggie are very supportive of women having leadership roles and prominence within the MENTA organization, but they're also just as quick to dismiss the women's only MENTA Facebook groups as overly reactionary and not worth participating in at all. Amanda says to me at this meeting, there's a lot of badass women in this group. Most of the most amazing people I've met

in this group have been women. The other thing Amanda and Maggie share in common because the third gen y woman doesn't speak up that much throughout the afternoon. The other thing they have in common is a protectiveness of Firehouse that I hadn't anticipated. While Maggie is a daily participant of the group, it's clear that It has some sentimental value to Amanda as well, and she literally pumps her fist at one point when describing a previous thwarted

attempt to get the group shut down. The member who threatened me directly, which you can hear in all its

glory in episode two. He's been spoken to officially and won't be allowed to post things like that moving forward, which is good, and I appreciate that someone was spoken to and all of this, but that sort of feels like a drop in the bucket to me, considering how many people have spoken to this group's volatility in the past, and it's frustrating to hear that the only way to get the bare minimum taken was to inadvertently stir up some bad press about the group. It doesn't make you

feel like they care about you, does it. At this time, I had spoken to several people who had had terrible experiences and tried to report them, and not even the bare minimum that had been done for me was done

for them. So I bring these situations up. I recount other members who have shared their bad experiences and lack of feeling protected by the organization, and I met with head Nods and they listen but no promises or real expressions of interest in any actions are taken, and I can say for sure now with the year's perspective, that truly nothing was done. And this time I try to adjust my approach a little to get some changes implemented.

Instead of the burn it down mentality that I went towards the group with in October, I told them that while I think the group is unhealthy and should not exist, there should at very least be a single rule to this unmoderated group that members cannot actively threaten one another. So instead of doing away with a group altogether, just don't say you'll kill each other. And this has heard in the room in the general sense and then argued against.

Maggie is dominating the conversation from here on out, and she explains that one of the members who was the most aggressive to her in firehouse ended up looking after her safety in real life at annual gatherings, and also repeats the anecdotal go fund me stories that have succeeded within the group. Phrases like really good guys is sort of bandied about, and another plea that if I merely met these people in real life, as I was meeting with the three of them, I would understand and I

would be able to trust them. This conversation was very confrontational and very frustrating for me, because maybe it's over the top to suggest that this meeting was called in an attempt to get me to stop writing about the group altogether, operating under the assumption that putting a kind face to a name would, as the prevalent logic is, resolve every concern I'd ever had about MENSA to that point.

What I can say for sure is that this meeting was not called to indicate any intended changes to protect member safety, and in a lot of ways doubled down on mensa's unwillingness to prioritize safety over online social engagement that regularly broke Facebook community guidelines regarding hate speech and

put a number of members at risk. Folks, the meeting was bad and resulted in nothing, but it was interesting to hear an in real life defense of a group like this, because if you were to look at this meeting, you would see four normal looking women at a table having a discussion. These interactions with comments sections and hearing what their jobs are, what their interests are, and what their lives are like outside of this group is something

that I think people should consider. More. That said, the meeting was bad, but at one point in our conversation, Maggie talked about her day job in I t and she tells me that her co workers are by and large, very intelligent people, and that she feels that most of them could probably get into MENSA if they wanted. But she laughs a little and says that she does not encourage them to join, though, saying that she thinks they might find the way she talks in firehouse versus how

she talks in real life to be jarring. And the other two women are kind of laughing along as if they agree and and what we do with that. So I tell them that I appreciate their time and for going out of their way to meet with me, and I'm offered a light discount to come back to the gathering later in the weekend, and we're talking about the annual gathering as well. Phoenix comes up and it's here that I first learned of the existence of the Firehouse suite.

Maggie tells me she swears to God she'll go with me and protect me if I don't feel safe there but that no one was going to do anything to me and that they're not bad people. And I tell her, sure, I'll think about it, and spoiler alert, Maggie will not offer to protect me or communicate with me at the annual gathering at all, most likely because I wrote about this meeting and said what I felt then and still

feel now was the very bizarre intentions behind it. Also worth mentioning while Maggie said she doesn't block people at the beginning of the meeting, which after doing a light fact checking after the meeting was over, I discovered was completely untrue and that she's had me blocked for months.

I leave the hotel in San Pedro, I think about the incredible weirdness of this group, and I impulsively put my annual gathering tickets on a credit card, because when a mens invites you to do something, you do it. So let's go back to the party gang. It is July. It is night too of my time at the MENSA Annual Gathering, so so tonight I'm not drinking and walking

to the firehouse suites stone cold sober. I can now with presence of mind, confirmed that the stairs I'm getting from the hallways lined with Firehouse members are just as unsettling as they were when I was four beers deep. The people i'm with our Sam, tall guy and a firehouse member I don't know, and they don't bring me into the same cavernous suite as the night before this time, and in fact, to Firehouse members loudly vocalize that they do not want me to go into that room, and

it's a little panicked. They're like no, and their eyes are you know, darting towards me, and Sam assures them that we were headed to the room next door where the invite only party is. So that's a sort of alcohol taste testing that's taking place with invite only members of Firehouse. So if you're keeping track, this is kind of an exclusive group within an exclusive group within an

exclusive group. Doesn't make your head hurt at all. And there's one older man whose messaged with me before, and he's from near where I grew up, and he's the only person in the hallway who seems happy to see me. There's an older couple that grimaces and just kind of shoves their way past me when they see my name tag. So feeling very safe, Sam assures me that this party

is going to be fun. And we walk into a single hotel room with about fifteen people or so just squashed inside, well lit this time, and I'm not two steps into the room before someone offers me a glass

of home brewed mead. Sam says, this is j V Loftus, and he's looking between me and mead Guy expectantly, and mead Guy understandably appears a little weirded out at the forced nature of this meeting, and I'm right there with him, so I kind of awkwardly say I'm all good on mead, and before I can take another step, a full foot below me appears Katie in her infamous Maga hat, and even though she is a full foot shorter than me, I'm very confident she could absolutely kick my ass. But

she says, hi, Jamie. She reaches up for a cautious hug and I reciprocate. Sam continues to talk do you know who this is? And he's kind of smiling between the two of us, and Katie replies, Oh, I know exactly who this is, and I mean, I would hope so, given the extensive writing I'd seen her do. She first is a little bit leary of my presence here at all, but she relaxes after we talk for a minute about and you will never believe this how my a g

is going. And from this conversation forward, she is extremely kind to me, and bearing in mind what she's written about me in the past, she really surprises me here. I mean, I don't know what sort of discussion happened in Firehouse regarding the bizarre debacle of the previous night where my phone had been taken, but Katie seems equally surprised that I am polite and I listened to her and she warms up to me pretty quickly, and this

sounds very similar to her interactions with two. And I have a little bit of whiplash from the suddenness of this change and attitude towards me, because, yeah, my mannerisms are subdued in real life compared to online, and my insecurity and anxiety is more visible when in a physical room full of commenters instead of a screens distance away.

But I'm not that different of a person. There's a persona and that's part of my job as a comedian, but it isn't the completely disparate experience that Firehouse members describe. I would say most people aren't the exact same person they present on line, but they're not the exact opposite of who they present online, if that makes sense. But it seems that Katie feels that my nervousness is interpreted as an admission that I am not who I said

I was. And we walk deeper into the room and the same kind of division surfaces in the room as it had at the party the night before. So some members are frowning and turning their backs to me to continue their conversation unhindered by my gaze. Others kind of look over with some curiosity, and Katie explains to me that this party is an annual firehouse tradition where members bring alcohol specific to their hometown and everyone samples it. And after much are you drinking? Are you drinking? Are

you drinking? I just take a can of craft beer or something and we keep talking. Things we talk about include the East Coast, we're both from there, the annual gathering, we're both currently there, and the choice conversation of the gathering, and this podcast how your online persona did for from your real life one. Because in this moment, I am drinking beer with a woman in a maga hat who has directly called me a slimy, fraud and unfunny cunt, and is making good on the threat that she would

quote see me in Phoenix unquote. She SIPs on her drink and tells me that she wasn't completely clear on why people were upset with me before going after me online at all. She explains, I see someone fucking with my friends and says that some people in the group interpreted her decision to post direct insults and threats to

my Instagram was over complicating the situation. She says, as so many have before, that the people in Firehouse are so different online than they are in real life, and that she was surprised at how friendly I was in person. I'm honestly surprised that she's friendly too, and try to skirt agreeing with her assessment that presenting pleasant in person and being a vindictive online troll with something inherently normal,

because I don't think that. Instead, I agree that the tone of certain online writing can be difficult, and that social media does obviously appear designed to encourage in fighting and harassment that meeting in person usually doesn't. And still I don't know that that's completely true, because after all, half the room is treating me exactly the way they would online. Backs turned whispering among each other physically, if not digitally. Blocking me being brought up here was either

in olive branch or an act of trolling. I'm still not sure which, And my presence here at all is at least in part a result of the satire I'd written on the group. Originally making a specific insult or threat towards a specific stranger is really hard to view as a misinterpretation of tone, because yes, we're being civil to each other, and yes, I think that's an impressive feat given our digital history, but how different are we really?

A few other women cautiously ask what maybe decided to come back to firehouse after the previous night, and mead guy returns. I tell Katie was curious to meet you, and I'm glad I came. And this is mostly true, And this time I take the fucking mead and meat guy immediately comes back with you, drink the meat, you put your name on the mead tag, and he hands me a sharpie and a wooden tag to put my

initials on. I signed the meat tag, and I tell Katie that I'm gonna head back down to the gen Y suite because it's hot in here and I can feel a lot of latent hostility. But before I go, she says, let's take a pick together, girl, and I am nervous, intimidated, and tall guy less enough to agree this time. And this exact picture will be posted to Firehouse a few days later with the caption this is my new friend Jamie Loftus, spurring over three hundred comments

from members only, some of which I can see. Here's a random assortment. The Swedish woman who I hadn't taken a selfie with, says you got a picture with her? She denied me that she owes the entire group and apology, which would go a long way, I am O. My personal opinion is that she somehow realizes that she sucked up with a group of people that she really would have enjoyed hanging with, but can't figure out how to make things right. Hey, guys, she's actually really nice in person.

Whether it ends well or terribly, it's good to give people a chance. Real life differs from online drama. This is Katie writing in another comment, but on this night, Katie says that she wants to join me at the toga party downstairs, and so she, Sam and I leave the private party and go out into the hallway. Again, Katie keeps hugging me and assures other firehouse members that I'm really nice, and she suggests that we go back into the larger suite where I was the previous night.

She keeps saying, this is my new best friend. Jamie loved us, really, seeming to enjoy the attention that embracing the most hated member and mensa brought her. And again I say I'd rather not go into the main firehouse suite, and again older members of the group agree and say that's not a good idea. One guy tells me there's nothing in there you interested in, like there was like a dead body in there. And a few tense interactions

with other hosers. Later, all I can see if Katie are the glowing MAGA letters at the Toga party across the room. And so I slip out of the hotel

around midnight. So yes, my first night was a nightmare and my second night felt more like a Stepford wife switch in the video I record on my computer back at my Airbnb recabing the night, I say the phrase I don't fucking no no less than twenty times, and as I'm falling asleep in the ninety degree bedroom, it occurs to me, I have not learned anything since I got here, and I wake up to take one last note and say, I actually think I've become stupider. So

there you go. That's episode three of my year in Mensa. We have one part to go to really wrap up this hillacious nightmare. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to follow me online, you are welcome to do so at Jamie Loft just Help on Twitter at Jamie christ Superstar on Instagram. Thank you so much to Sadie Dupui for writing the theme song to this podcast. She's at sad thirteen on all platforms. And I want to thank the following people for lending their voices to

Mensa this week for this episode. They are Isaac Taylor, Anna Hosni, Sharine Lonny Unez, Daniel Goodman, Robert Evans, Sophie Lichterman and Jaquis Neil. See you next time on my Riam Mensa.