by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Join the Freemasons and you're privy to ancient secrets and a special handshake. Hook up with the Shriners and they'll hand you a spiffy red fez and keys to an adorable little motor vehicle. Join the bowling league and your life will roll smoothly, well away from the gutter. You can also sign up for the Rotary Club, NDP and the Elks Club and still have time to finish the week denouncing the devil at the church of your choice.

Group membership can be attained easily. Flip open the book and you've got a tantalizing cornucopia of local associations to fit your customized needs: The St-Laurent Ringuette Association, The Somebody Loves You Association, Anxious Troubles of Quebec Association, Psychosocial Readaptation Association and the Quebec Association of Wells and Pumps are all at the ready.

It's easy to join but people don't. Why? Like many Montrealers I resist clubs. I don't want to hold hands or sing or listen to somebody talk for more than 30 seconds. I'm too tall for the Quebec Association of Small People, too short for the Tall Club. Maybe it's a "Hell is other people" thing, or a "I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member" thing.

Experts warn of the social implications of such thinking, as traditional clubs offer a sense of connectedness, community and social redemption. The theory is that once you're involved in such communities, you're invested, more integrated, less alienated, a better, more caring citizen.

Just what you didn't want!

The decline of clubs has academics like Robert Putnam sounding air raid sirens, discussing it as a disastrous "social capital deficit."

Others suggest that groups are simply being replaced by more updated varieties of clubs: adult education centres, social protest movements and kiddy soccer leagues are growing, while other informal groups thrive: peek into the Nicholson house or the McKenty digs in Lower Westmount - past the pile of canes in the hallway - and you'll see a fellowship of crusty old-timers discussing whatever the hell they discuss (rheumatism cures, the proper use of Lanacane, etc).

Still, in relative terms it's probably finito la commedia for a lot of traditional clubs.

That's because many young people are indifferent to or even actively hostile to once well-loved institutions. A prior generation once flocked to clubs so they could spend their leisure hours with earnest people offering excessive eye contact and too-firm handshakes. Nowadays people prefer solitary evenings watching subtitled videos and surfing Mexican farm erotica.

But there's a reason we've dropped out. Like a lover whose time is up, clubs that once represented opportunity now appear to be devices of entrapment. For example, my greatest fear is that a PTA leader will come to my house, outstay her welcome and then disapprovingly conduct a finger-wipe dust-test on the furniture while I've left the room. Nowadays urban dwellers want to zonk out in our fast-disappearing spare time and prefer our leisure hours to be exempt from social judgment, duties or cliquish loyalties.

Some argue that the decline of clubs is good, as it lowers barriers to social entry. Non-joiners are theoretically more open to strangers, less conformist and closed-minded.

And part of being open to the urban experience lies in its glorious anonymity. Non-members can stroll around like a chameleon (waddle around like one anyway) and experience unlimited urban adventure with no corresponding social responsibility or agenda. As a non-joiner you can interact with people on your own random terms. You can meet a girl at the mall and lie to her about your job. You can be judged on your ideas and hairstyle rather than by your social affiliations or the amount of time you've lived in town. Forget Cheers, what you really want is a bar where nobody knows your name.

As a nostalgia addict with a recurring impulse to sentimentalize the buggy whip, I'm saddened by the slow demise of venerable clubs. But clubs might still evolve and even thrive - after all, millions of Montrealers are already informal members of the Club of People Who Don't Want to Join Clubs.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca