When does Chess become....well fun?

I have been playing chess on again off again since I was in elementary school. I am recently coming back to it, and I am thinking about buying a membership; however, after playing a few games I just get frusterated and end up giving up. I just always feel like I have no where to move, I am always behind in games, and just feel overall lost. Is there any overall things I should study or do to get better? Is a membership for someone like me even worth it?

Never, mi amigo.  Nothing but crippling depression and sadness in the future for chess players.

Save yourself! Run!

I can only speak for me personally, the more I learn about endgame and stategy the more fun chess gets because I'm able to construct plans better and don't feel quite as clueless when I play games. But chess has always been fun to me, it's very exciting. Another thing you may try is just solving tactical puzzles. Personally I think doing puzzles is a little more fun than playing an entire game out.

It's a question you have to ask yourself though, if you really don't have fun playing perhaps it's best to find another hobby.

It's pretty fun once you realize one day that the patterns are getting imprinted in your head and you start predicting your opponent's moves. It put a smile on my face:)

pack away your chess pieces, buy some balloons, call your friends, pawwwwwwrtayyyyyyy!!

Bad jokes aside, of course you can get better, and for that you just need to be disciplined and follow a proper study program. As a beginner, though, you should be solving tactical puzzles above anything else, that will give you your first push.
Being able to see all the videos from chess.com could be a huge plus, so the membership would indeed help. Although I don't know you and I don't know where does that self-deprecating tone in your latter question comes from. Perhaps you hunt kittens as a hobby and you are indeed not worthy of a chess.com membership.

Jimbob2014 wrote:

"... Is there any overall things I should study or do to get better? ..."

I would suggest Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf , Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf , Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html , and Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Mueller.

Make a plan! If the game is too boring, sac some pieces, see where it gets you!

There is a game called Chessmaster available for Playstation 2...It's fun and very informative. 

They have many lessons and walkthroughs detailing how to approach almost every situation imaginable, while visually showing you where not to move in certain situations.  They go into detail on a variety of things like openers, pawn structure theory, pinning, forking, sacrifice, and they have a lot of fun exercises to help drive the concepts home.

You can also play against different known styles of historic chess players. I have found that it is one of the best learning tools that I have ever come across.  I would recommend it to any chess player.

PS. I sold my PS2 a few years ago, although I kept two games  (chessmaster and the megaman collection)...Now that I am getting back into chess, I am on the market for another PS2 if anyone's got one!!

I recently beat a man at 3 games in a row and the next day he told me he couldn't sleep that night because I beat him so badly. That's when chess becomes fun! 

It helps to get a solid start.  Just in case some of your fundamentals are missing check out the free Chess Mentor courses here.  Maybe FUNdamentals will help put the FUN into chess for you.  Yes, I am a little embarassed... They're good courses though.

http://www.chess.com/blog/webmaster/free-chess-mentor-courses

Hopefully that journey includes a dictionary...

Thanks for all of your helpful feedback. I have made a conciouse effort to put at least an hour into 5 minute games, and one hour into studying end game. I hope it helps!

5 Minute games are probably not the best choice for time controls when you are trying to improve.

At the very-very least, I would suggest 15 minutes. Personally, I feel it takes at least a 30 minute game to really get into the type of play that can produce useful learning opportunities.

As for having fun at chess, I find it helps when I wear a hat like this:

win lose or draw play for fun

if you need to play chess to get a kick out of life, somethings up!!!

I love chess.com and if I had the money I would support it and get a full membership, but you can find a lot of learning material elsewhere for free.