A couple of things to keep in mind. First, you're just beginning, you shouldn't expect to average 200 just yet. I've been bowling for about five years and am still working on it.
Second, you won't embarrass yourself, most bowlers don't average 200 and probably won't ever average 200 over a whole season. If you're looking at joining a scratch league, you'll probably get killed by 50+ pins a game, but that's what you'd expect in a scratch league.
But that's not a major concern as most leagues aren't scratch anymore, handicap leagues are very easy to find. You'll likely find that there are plenty of other bowlers who average 150-170 in most leagues. Most bowlers, even scratch bowlers, don't (or shouldn't) look down on lower average bowlers, particularly new bowlers. For one, we can't afford to make it unpleasant to bowl in league the first time. Second, as Lefty said, everyone started somewhere. They may have forgotten having to pay their dues, particularly around the time they lose to bowlers with lower averages, but they did it just the same.
Finally, this board isn't really representative of the bowling population at large. There are a lot of serious bowlers here, a lot of pro shop operators with a lot of experience and knowledge, more than a handful of PBA pros. The national average average is in the high 170s, if you took a poll here you'd probably see an average average in the 190s if not higher. Nationally, probably 3-4% of bowlers have an honor score, here it's easily double digits. This is not the best crowd to comapre yourself against if you want to see how you stack up against "typical".
SH
