My Elf Casts Magic Missles on the Wench's Book Club

On my list of "Things that are so Stupid, I must be missing something", Book Clubs rank right under Dungeons and Dragons. No matter how many times these things are explained to me, I still can not grasp why normal people need to engage in such things in order to socialize with other people. People that engage in such things, always have the enthusiasm of 15 Umpa Lumpa's when explaining it to you.

D&D:
Them: It is SO much fun and there are endless possibilities so the game never gets boring. It is like collaborative story telling with dice.
Me: Why do you need dice to tell stories?
Them: So you know if your character succeeds or fails at whatever it is the Dungeon Master has told you to do.
Me: But if you are so bad at telling stories that you need a Master to direct you, maybe you should work on the craft a little more so you can work up to the point of telling a story without dice.
Them: You just don't understand!

Book Clubs
Them: We all read the same book and get together once a week to discuss what we have read.
Me: Why don't you just read whatever you want to on your own time and get together with friends once a week to, i don't know.... just hang out without having to complete an assignment first?
Them: It is a lot like hanging out. We generally drink wine and eat snacks...but the book gives us something to discuss. We are able to get each others perspectives on what happened in the part of the book we are reading.
Me: I hang out with my friends and drink wine all the time and we manage to have good conversations without having a specialized topic for the night.
Them: You just don't understand!

I think I do understand, though. Book Club people create an environment where everyone has the same experience in order to give them something to relate to others about. Right? What I don't understand is, why are their lives SO boring that they have nothing else to talk about.

It seems like it would be handy for a book club to only read Choose Your Own Adventure books. This way, they could all practice talking about different topics while still talking about one book. It is all about the baby steps.