Well, the number one feature of Chess for me is it’s duality as an individual game and a team sport. The team sport takes away the persistent shadows of ‘isolation‘ and ’weirdness‘ or ‘different nature’ that hang over Chess players. One only has to look at the World Chess Olympiad (hey!!, the olympiad is coming up in Dresden in just a few months time! yippee!) to see the gregarious outgoing nature of Chess players. On the other hand, the individual game gives the opportunity to engage in the most basic and primeval of contest formats; mano y mano, one on one. After all, how else can you truly measure yourself against another human being, if not in a game of Chess - against artificial intelligence also, I might add. 

Chess, and indeed, the Chess player need not be viewed with trepidation, apprehension and all such similar emotions. Instead regard the concept of Chess as simply a test of logic. Logic in all its rationally bounded forms.

I rest my case.