I'm going to start this out by saying that I'm generally conflicted on my opinion of the whole Greek Life thing anyway. Sometimes it looks like fun, like, yeah, I'd like to be in this big group who all seems to like each other and have sisters and a support system and get to wear cute matching shirts and have socials and stuff. And then I think, last year when my roommates were in sororities, it all seemed so stressful and they don't actually all like each other (because how could you expect a house full of girls to all like each other anyway that's just ludicrous) and if I could be friends with all of the girls in a sorority anyway then why would I pay to be in it? It also makes me question if I could get a whole group of girls to like me enough to want me in the group too. I feel like I wouldn't be able to be completely me, like I would always be putting up some kind of front because I would be afraid that if I was really me, they wouldn't like me (which is basically just how the world works anyway). Now on to the real story.
My best friend Katie goes to UMBC (University of Maryland - Baltimore County or U Must Be Chinese) and she recently rushed for Phi Sigma Sigma. She knew a lot of the girls in it beforehand, so she thought that would help. She was really excited; she knew that while she was friends with the girls and could just hang out with them anyway, she wanted to be part of the group and be able to go to their little functions and wear the letters. She got invited back to their first invite-only function after rushing started, but then last night, she got voted out. Obviously she was very upset, and she didn't understand why she didn't get in considering how close she is with many of the members. She's found out a little bit of the reason, in that some of the older girls didn't like her, and because they were more senior members, their opinions carried more weight. She probably won't be able to find out the actual reasons and things that were said by the girls who didn't like her, because apparently all of the members are sworn to some insane secrecy and nobody will breathe a word to anyone outside the sorority (which, if it were me, you know my mouth would be wide open as soon as I left the house - maybe another reason why I shouldn't be in a sorority). She really was pretty upset at first, but now she feels better because apparently most of the girls did want her, and she wasn't the only one who was friends with the members but got passed over. We think that maybe because she acted like she was already in the sorority, not because she was that confidant but simply because she already was close with so many of the members, the older girls wanted to teach her a lesson in confidence and humility, same as her other friends who were also voted out. Now she's thinking that maybe it was better, because she can still hang out with her friends in the sorority without the pressures and expectations of the whole system.
This is the kind of thing that pisses me off about the whole sorority/fraternity system. Katie knew the girls, most of them liked her and wanted her as a sister, but some older girls had an unknown beef with her so now she can never be a part of the real group. Apparently during the voting process, negative comments count for more than positive comments, and if you make any comments about a potential new members, you can't stay to vote. So basically someone who doesn't like you can gossip and talk shit about you to make the other members think badly about you, and then they can't vote about you. However, if anyone wants to try to defend you, it would require twice the amount of positive comments to counter whatever awful things the first people said, and then all of those girls who defended you wouldn't be able to vote in your favor. It has something to do with if you know someone well enough to say something about them, then you're obviously biased for or against them and shouldn't be able to vote. That make absolutely no sense to me - it leaves the voting for the people who have literally no opinion, who couldn't care less if you got in or not (unless someone kept their mouth shut so they can give you the vote that they want). Shouldn't it be those who do have strong opinions to vote for or against you? The people to whom it actually matters if you get into the sorority or not? I don't know, I mean obviously I have no say in how sororities work, and I don't know if I have this exactly right or if this is how all sororities work or anything, but it just doesn't seem right to me.
It all just further cements for me the fact that I probably will never attempt to join a sorority. I say probably because I can't see into the future, maybe this semester I'll meet a bunch of girls and decide that I want to be a sister and I'll rush in the spring and then everyone who read this will call me a hypocrite. I really don't know what's going to happen. But, I don't think I would want to be a part of a social sorority. It really does seem like too much pressure, too much work. I don't want to go through all of the rushing process and think that I'm in and that people want me and then find out that no, I can't actually be a part of this big family, I'm out. I don't want to set myself up to work under that pressure, that huge potential for failure. It's just not for me.
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