From my bajillion years of gaming experience, half of which was competitive, I'm going more with Tim on this. When I lived in po-dunk east texas, you could EASILY get a group of 6 or more people to play any game. In fact, there wasn't "oh, I'm a fan boy of this, I will only play this series," everyone was interested in whatever people would play because of community (and not jack else to do).
I move to Oklahoma, its broken up into cliques right off the bat and no one will budge in any direction. 2d and 3d were broken up. Then 3d was broken up between Tekken and Soul Calibur and would laugh in the face of each other and anything 3d that's not Tekken and SC. I will admit that I began to fall into this mindset. After the big fight scene died down, its virtually impossible to find a group of 3 or more people who are willing to play offline, willing to meet up at someone's house, or willing to travel. This brings me to my "hatred of console and the internet because it destroyed local community" rant, but that's another discussion all together.
If you want to have a competitive community, monthly is asinine. You're basically saying you will only have REAL offline practice 12 times a year. Being that offline and online play are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT with fighting games, you are really digging yourself a hole if you plan on doing anything more than casual.
I don't want to be negative about the situation because I tried really ♥♥♥♥♥ hard to have an MK community in Tulsa, but it is what it is. When it comes to gaming, OK is pretty lazy. I can say this because I've had the liberty of living and playing in other areas, seeing how community works there, and I can honestly say the glass is half empty on this one.
This rant only applies to the Fighting game community though. Some communities are fortunate enough (console fps) that their game play is almost the same offline as it is online (console fps's have lag compensation and medium auto-aim for those who didn't know), so that not playing with a soul and doing well will probably mean you'll still do well in offline play.
So yes, Steven, be pissed. We tried hard. I worked on foot for 2-3 months, going to all the local area tournament, posting all over local area forums on major Game Forums and Local Game Forums, I went to several video game stores and put out the word, attended several game nights for other games, etc. and I know you scoured the internet and the online scene, but people refused to get off their ♥♥♥ to play offline or just thought of the game as 2nd rate and didn't wanna put in the time. There was definitely wasn't a lack of try, just no interest.
I'm done with MK anyways. My last month of playing, I really began to see all the duct tape holding the pretty package together and there's no real sign of any real improvements with the use of 3d hit boxes in a 2d game creating unreliable hit responses from the game, the release of DLC characters that are unbalanced and the knee-jerk reaction to nerf some stuff, buff other stuff, and in the process create more bugs in the game by NRS. It wouldn't surprise me if the game disappeared from the tournament scene in the next year or two. That being said, I still enjoyed playing it, but the lack of local interest just made the game more unappealing.
Again, it is what it is... my suggestion to you now, Steven, is find whatever game people ARE playing, and just play that one, even if its one you don't enjoy as much, get in with that group of people, and then maybe you can open them up to other games.