Join the club is an idiom that came into use in the mid-twentieth century. We will examine the meaning of the idiom join the club, where it came from, and some examples of its idiomatic usage in sentences.
Join the club is a retort that means one feels the same way as the previous speaker or that one is in a similar situation as the previous speaker. For instance, someone may state that he is short of money, and if his friend is also short of money, the friend may state, “Join the club.” The expression join the club to mean that two or more people are sharing the same experience came into use sometime in the mid-1940s, though its exact origin is unknown. A variation of the phrase join the club is welcome to the club.
Examples
If getting away from it all and living in nearly complete isolation is your current fantasy, well…join the club. (Boston Magazine)
And if you don’t know everything about everything, well, join the club. (The Atlantic)
If you’re already dropping threads of this plot, well, join the club – the bold and disparate strands of this series (Nazis! Footloose-style dance sequence! Jewish gangsters!) are individually compelling, but the show strains under the weight of its own webbing. (The Guardian)
“WELCOME to the club” my friend said facetiously when I finally opened up about the issues I had been experiencing with my mental health. (The Glasgow Times)