Summit On The Future Of Philately

I say, that is rather courageous of you.
As we would say in Australia, "Good on ya!"

I think there is a bit of a comic, hidden in there.

Drew,

I'm in California and a member of the Collectors Club. Membership is not as difficult as you think, and as rewarding as you imagined. I'd be pleased to get acquainted and make introductions as needed. Consider the non resident membership, and think about if and when you could attend NYC meetings. They really are top quality. And the other members are "your birds". Send email through this site to pursue this.

Chris

I also have what is probably Social Anxiety Disorder, complicated by a touch of Asperger's Syndrome. I have learned to live with it and in general do not let it keep me from things.

I do think some clubs make a mistake in pushing visitors or new members to be 'social'. I went as a visitor to one club years ago and without warning was asked to stand up and introduce and tell something about myself. I got through it OK but it was awkward and I never went back. It was well intentioned but just felt invasive. Probably just me.

Some brave comments above.
I was thinking a lot on this today. There is a fine line between "being solitary" which I like and "being lonely" which nobody likes. In forty seven years of active stamps collecting, I have only ever been a member of a largely correspondence society for about three years in the 1980s.
Frankly I take the Groucho Marx view. I wont join a club that would have me as a member.
But I think thats more to do with me than any club or society.
There is something off-putting about elite clubs and societies and dealers but in my limited experience, an elite society does not necessarily mean that some or many members are "elitist" in attitude. Indeed we find elitists everywhere and some members of elite clubs or societies are among the most helpful and decent people that I have met.
I sometimes joke that the biggest problem I have with stamp collecting is....collectors.
I always feel slightly vulnerable in the presence of other collectors. There is a kinda "group think" ....an assumption that we may be look like 95% of all stamp collectors but the lazy assumption that we all have the same values is perplexing to me.
As a general collector (some would say "hoarder" ) of 1950s/1960s nostalgia, I collected plastic toy soldiers for over 25 years. But eventually I excluded myself from other toy soldier collectors because of the "group think" and the too often expressed world view of other folks.
It just wasnt worth the compromise of holding my tongue.