Wanna Flirt?

By Don Mueller

As I go about meeting new Mensan's, it gets more complicated to make generalizations about smart people, because all of us are so individual. But one thing sometimes seems to occasionally stand out. Mensans are strong on logic, weak on emotional issues. The new book, "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman redefines what it means to be smart. His thesis is that when it comes to predicting people's success, brainpower as measured by IQ and standardized achievement tests may actually matter less than the qualities of mind once thought of as "character" before the word began to sound quaint. Actually, that's not an incredibly new concept-- the Dale Carnegie Course in human relations has been saying for about 50 years that 85 percent of your job success is based upon getting along with people, and only 15 percent of your job is based upon your mental talents. In other words, we're so smart we have trouble getting along with each other! Or the problem that I have, I try to be so logical in relating to the opposite sex that I've ended up terminally single! Which gets into my thesis for this month......

I collect books and articles with social "How to" themes in my pathetic but logical attempt to meet single women. A couple of years ago I was watching "48 Hours" with host Dan Rather profiling unusual ways of earning money. A lady in Texas found a way to get rich. Marry a rich person! In fact, she wrote a book called, "How to Marry the Rich". She's an expert in flirting, meeting people, and she's a self described "Gold-digger". Ginie Polo Sayles married Reed Sayles, who's a Texas millionaire. But here's where I really woke up. In this program, she took a woman to a posh singles party, and gave tips on how to snare that special someone. She took out a tape measure, and explained that the magic distance of 16 to 19 inches from another person is one of the ways to tell the other person that "you're interested". ALRIGHT!! Now we're talkin' Mensa logic here!! I went to my nearest hardware store & bought my retractable flirt kit. At least I had a logical grip on one of the many techniques of being sociable. Ginie has appeared on Donahue, Oprah, Sally, and many other shows, talking about the art of flirtation. And, as Dan Rather closed the report, he intoned that a "TV movie is being planned on her life story".

I was impressed by Ginie's techniques, and I wanted to learn more. The idea of flying to Texas and trying to find her to give me personal flirting lessons by accompanying me to parties would be highly impractical and extremely expensive, not to mention downright illogical. But I did the next best thing. I decided to find a local course that deals with meeting people. I flipped through the "Colorado Free University" catalogue under "Relationships". I scanned the various titles, and saw a course entitled, simply, "How to Flirt". Perfect!! I plunked down my 20 bucks, and awaited my intensive training.

I had two big surprises awaiting me.

SURPRISE NUMBER ONE: When I walked into the room where the course took place, a friendly older man processed my admission ticket. As I sat near the front, I eyed the female "instructor" for this course, and it slowly dawned on me as she set up her books and materials, that....that.....IT WAS THE SAME LADY!! That's right, Genie Polo Sayles herself was teaching this class, and it was her wealthy husband Reed who just took my admittance ticket!! Honest, I had not paid close attention to the course description when I signed up!! It turns out that she traveled all over the country teaching her course, and she would teach for a couple of nights in Denver every few months. Well, hey...it was a great class, she called me up to the front for some role-playing, and I got to get some personal advice from her during the breaks, and I took a lot of notes!

SURPRISE NUMBER TWO: Whenever you take a course from Colorado Free University, they don't tell you exactly where the meeting place will be in the catalogue course description, until they actually send you the ticket for admittance. This is the honest, exact truth. This course was held at the Glendale Community Center, Floor Two. That's right, the very same room that we always hold our Mensa General Meetings! And when I gave my ticket to Reed Sayles, it was at the same door and table that you pay your buck to be at our general meeting. It's rather strange to think about it, but if Mensa wanted to have Ginie as one of our speakers, we'd have to pay thousands of dollars to get this famous lady here, yet she has spoken many times from the very same room!

After all of this information gathering, I have sort of a "How to Flirt" presentation myself that I've given to various groups, and although the term "academic theory" might apply in my case, I have it ready in case one of our general meeting speakers cancels out. One group told me that was the funniest speech that I had ever given. I'm sure, of course, they meant the humorous way that I delivered it, using personal anecdotes!

Wanna flirt?

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