Reply With QuoteMuch to my immense surprise, I did.
Yes
No
Fuck those guys
Much to my immense surprise, I did.
Yes, Theta Xi. It was and still is the best part of what I remember from college. If I had it to do over, I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Years after college, I am slowly overcoming an intense anti-greek bias. I developed it in my tween years at a small school I suspect was started as a segregation academy. I never got along with those kids, and they unilaterally aspired to greekdom.
In retrospect I totally should have. But then, basically my whole college experience is a list of things I should have done very differently in retrospect.
Yes. To netrek and lpmud.
I had total contempt for frats and never dreamt of pledging. I suppose that was the beginning of my dazzling success at networking and schmoozing which has stood me in such good stead over the years.
I didn't, and tended to have a negative image of those guys before I got to college (even if I didn't I was too old to really feel much interest - I was there for college - and bars, cut out the middle man says I). But some turned out to be pretty cool and I went to several parties at frats. Friends of mine in local bands played at them fairly often too.
My college had no greek organizations, but I wouldn't have pledged anyway. Wasn't ever my thing.
I pledged but went inactive after a year.
So I feel that I got a good deal out of it...I know the secret handshake, found a good bunch of roommates, learned firsthand that joining a group indentity is not to be taken lightly, stoped paying due almost immediately and only missed a handfull of "official" events due to inactive status.
"Fuck those guys" is up over 50%. Geek bitterness? We need to hear more stories!
When I was in college I saw it as buying friends. I didn't feel I needed to do that, so I rejected the whole idea. Now I have a different perspective on the whole thing. Overall, I think it's mostly harmless and provides good connections to the people who want to engage in it.
Its buying friends at my college, as I only see a few of the same people who I know are in frats hanging around with the same people, day in and day out.
And I like my current group of friends, and my roommate is awesome, so why would I need more?
I had a great time with my frat freshman and sophomore year. The last two years I had a lot of other things filling my time, but some of my best friends to date are from that time period. It helped that mine was composed of a nice balance between jocks and rejects, and that our selection process often seemed entirely founded on the unsuitability of a candidate for frat life in conventional terms. Of course, the constant near Animal House level of dueling with the administration was tiresome, but I don't think my college experience would have been complete without getting in deep shit for doing stupid things from time to time.
I don't think there's anything wrong with opting out of the system, but I don't really understand the need people feel to jump on a soapbox about it. And I mean that generally, with the whole "buying friends" bullshit. Sure, that's true in some cases, but it's hardly the defining frat experience.
No time or money for Fraternizing.
Isn't the point of being in a fraternity or sorority supposed to be public service and boosterism? Or is that part of what being in a frat USED to mean, and now it's all about sand in the living room and date rape?
My dad was in a frat, so I wasn't raised with any bias against them. They were pretty sad little things at my college, though. Nobody had a house, though one got one with room for ten people when I was a Junior, so they all just lived in the dorms or a segregated area of student apartments. Their parties were usually open to anyone, I already had a bunch of friends, so I couldn't figure out the appeal. Joining was essentially deciding you would like to pay for everyone's free beer.
That's just the public vision statement. (The public service bit, not the date rape thing. That's part of the internal memos that are supposed to get shredded.)Originally Posted by DoomMunky
Plus, it varies by frat* and school. I mostly remember the greek system where I drifted aimlessly through those years as being a social networking system to maximize the amount of cheap beer you could drink. I never liked cheap beer, even when I was young enough to be too dumb to know any better about lots of things--for some reason, beer was never part of that set of things I was dumb about. I don't know, probably genetics. I should ask my folks if they ever "liked" cheap beer.
*psa for any youngsters currently picking the "fuck those guys" options: the proper response to the admonishing query, "Don't call a fraternity a frat! Would you call your country a cunt?!" is "Not my country, probably. But yours? Sure!" No charge.
A little bit from column A, and a little bit from column B. My favorite days were Date Rape Tuesdays LOL.
We actually got away with writing up our stolen bicycles as a community service project for a while. But the main point was having a community within the community, much like the way people join art clubs or whatever in college. The difference being we were more into just having a good time and collectively paying for beer in a semi-sanctioned environment than painting.
Certainly you'll find plenty of examples of social service/school spirit oriented greeks. *I'd* prefer other, more direct means for the former, and the latter is just a few cheers short of being the dumbest shit ever, but different strokes, you know.
Greeks were not big at my school (85-90; very large student body) and I did not view it as my thing. Didn't stop me from patronizing their parties from time to time. Some of my friends pledged, joined and stuck it out all the way through but it really did seem like a waste of time and money to me. Then again, as others have alluded to, who knows where I'd be and what kind of career I could have made with more contacts... aw fuck those guys anyhow.
I agree that it amounts to buying friends. As I told my dad, who in his day was a loyal member of Delta Tau Delta, some people have to pay $1500 a year to buy girls beer so they will talk to them, not me.
What I really don't understand is sororities. Why do you have to pay for your daughter's membership in a date rape stable? And why is there no such thing as a group rate discount for penicillin? Never have a I seen a larger bunch of vapid cunts than when I laid my eyes upon a sorority function. I wish I could say that I have met a sorority girl that I did not suspect was secretly retarded, and although I can be quite the fabulist, that is a bridge too far, even for me. I really don't appreciate condescension from a lady who I catch pissing in a garbage can.
From what I saw of it, and I saw a lot of it, it's guys and girls who are unsure of their social skills looking to replace their high school identity which has been swept away by the sheer mass of similar people with some false distinction and manufactured sense of pride. These aren't service organizations and everyone knows it. The level of machismo that pervades fraternities is also rather idiotic.
I cannot stress enough how much more respect I have for people who can make their own friends. Of my friends who ended up joining fraternities, I can say that every single one of them ended up as a little less of a person and a little more of a douchebag because of it. Still my friends, but a little too obsessed with appearances and overly dramatic. I am still greatful for all the free alcohol, however.
I guess it just depends on the school, then. Not so much as a single Dave Matthews track was played in my frat.
I had no problem maintaining and creating friendships outside of the organization, and it's about as relevant to my identity as the dormitory I lived in or the other friends I hung out with.
Like I said, I really don't understand the soapbox thing. I'm sorry your girlfriend cheated on you with a frat guy and that you had to come up with a complicated roofie rationale for it.
Flowers post is pretty much what my opinion of greek organizations was before I got to college. Hence my surprise at joining one.
My opinion of them in general still isn't great, I admit, except that I think there are significant exceptions to the general trend, such as the house I joined. I also think Greek life at my college was significantly tamer than that at the stereotypical party school.
I don't get the "buying friends" thing. I made friends with most of the brothers before I even pledged, and living in the house and being an active didn't cost me any more than paying rent/dorm fees and such would have added up to. And of course I got a lot of good times out of it. We were a more financially secure house than some, so maybe that had something to do with it.
Yeah, what he said.I had no problem maintaining and creating friendships outside of the organization, and it's about as relevant to my identity as the dormitory I lived in or the other friends I hung out with.
When they tested her at the hospital, GHB was in her system.
You fucking piece of shit.
Just kidding, we weren't going out at the time, but I still don't appreciate someone implying that frats are not riddled with socially awkward, chest puffing date rapists. You had a couple in your frat and you know it.
No. Nothing against them, really, but my courseload was heavy enough that I didn't have much time for my then-current friends let alone a whole new circle of socializing.
Though in hindsight maybe I should have and taken a lighter degree, as my entire college experience was rather dull compared to what I probably should have gotten out of it...
(Not US, but it's probably close enough up here.)
At the time I attended UT, the fraternities there were notorious for hazing. People were dying in hazing incidents; one organization had folks get drunk, and then swim across raging rapids to put out a fire. Needless to say, some kid drowned.
The majority of students at UT didn't pledge. Instead, there was a great organization for clubs of various interests, and that's how you would "shrink" the University size down to a manageable level -- you'd join some group with similar interests. For free.
And thus there were plenty of opportunities to lay hot chicks, get drunk and party or just make friends without having to pay any fees.
Sand in the living room?
I think it's a form of indoor beach party. Only saw that once, at Virginia Tech, and thought it was really original at the time...that was a very long time ago.
We don't really have that sort of thing here at the Banana Slug campus.
The results are unsurprising, but yes I did join a fraternity. Made plenty of great friends and established connections with alumni that have been helpful professionally.
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