I had a similar reaction. I often use my local hackerspace (Robots and Dinosaurs in Sydney) as a place to hang out and talk to smart interesting people - I guess because I find people who make stuff more interesting to people who just talk about stuff. (Maybe that makes _me_ the try-hard pseudo-intellectual sometimes… Hmmm…)

Well, I'm not much of an intellectual either, but if there were sufficient amounts of free whiskey, cigars and monocles, it still could be worth a try...