Searching for Josh Waitzkin

In this day and age, I have to wonder and ask if it is indeed possible to learn this classic competitive game without relying primarily on practicing mostly on a computer to do it for free /cheap?  I'm a learn by doing sort of person and I want to play to learn to play better, but preferably with human beings.

My teenage and adult kids aren't too interested.  I don't have many friends that I see often that know how or want to play and my social time is few and far inbetween.  I'd like to check out a chess club maybe, but don't feel that I play well enough to take on experienced players and am not really into the public ridicule thing.

I don't necessarily aspire to become the next greatest chessmaster or to build an arsenal of cutthroat techniques.  For now, I guess I'm looking more to increase my awareness to play a smarter game that might lead to occasional wins more often than the current string of defeats I have when playing fellow humans.

Thus far, players here are have been pretty patient and good to play with.  I'm just curious and would love to know what other folks have done to get into (or back into) the game as adults without spending alot of money to do so.

I look forward to hearing from you and perhaps playing with you.