CFK-
I don't think you need to belong to a formal group, but I do think you need to find a way for your child to interact with others regularly. When I started homeschooling, my "support group" was a small handful of families that got together a few times a week. That worked out fine for us for a while, but when we found our current group (which covers a large fairly rural area and has close to 200 families on the mailing list) I was thrilled.
I think my son sees more gifted friends through homeschooling than he would in a traditional public school; at least in our small town. He's free to hang out with kids both older and younger, and from different towns, so the "fishing" is pretty good although the pool of kids exactly his age is significantly smaller than it would be in a public school class. So he has his social needs met pretty well, for now. I'm not sure how things will go in the next few years. Our homeschool group has a teen group that has been very active over the last few years, and DS is just old enough to take part. He's doing teen Shakespeare class and teen book club, though he hasn't yet been motivated to do the more strictly social activities such as movie night or mini-golf. His buddy is trying to talk him into attending the prom next Spring, but DS is not into it.
We're trying to make decisions based on what is working or not at this time, and right now everything is going great. I'm trying not to borrow trouble!
take care-
