Ari Paul
"No way," I said.
"But, Ari, you have to keep an open mind about things," my older sister replied.
"There is no way that I'm going to enter a life of elitism and needless exclusivism."
"Ari, you don't know what it's really like, you have to let go of your stereotypes."
"No way."
Before I left for my first year of college, all the people around me wanted to ask me questions about my future and give me advise. One question I heard a lot was the question about joining a fraternity. It was easy for a Che Guevara shirt wearing, Clockwork Orange watching punk like me to turn my anti-establishment head away from the Greek system. Not that I had anything against parties, drinking, and meeting people, it was just that I wanted to have nothing to do with the Abercrombie and Fitch wearing and booty rap listening crowd. I wanted to be content with a less formal crowd where I could rock out to the revolutionary sounds of Public Enemy and The Clash. At a university as large and diverse as the University of Michigan, it is inevitable that a large enough group of incoming freshmen comes with a disapproving, almost hateful view of the Greeks. This crowd laughs and jokes about the crowds of beer guzzling, macho guys and sorostitutes that go out for Rush. And anyone that goes to the frat and sorority events with the intent of joining is a sellout in this crowd's eyes.
The strange thing is, however, that many of these people with such an adamant, negative opinion of rushing end up either frequenting Greek events or even rush themselves. Usually they have no intent of pledging, but are interested in the opportunity to meet more people. How did their friends react when they told them about their collegiate social activities? Probably the same way my friends did.
"If you pledge we're breaking up," my girlfriend said.
"You must be really, really stoned, Ari," my friends said.
I couldn't really understand why my friends reacted so negatively when I told them that I was going to rush Sigma Phi. I was rushing because I wanted to meet people. The guys in Sigma Phi were a lot more like me than the other fraternities. They were regular fun-loving people, who didn't concentrate on exclusiveness and rivalry with other fraternities.
But my friends said that I was just falling into the trap. I couldn't have been. Was I really selling out? Or was it that my friends just didn't understand what was going on? I wasn't going to join, I just wanted to go to events where I could meet people. I was just having an open mind. Was that so wrong? Sure, it's true that I didn't like the atmosphere of most frats, but Sigma Phi wasn't like most frats.
Most people who rush don't actually believe that people in a fraternity or sorority are necessarily better people, or people who have more fun in college. When most people come to college they usually only know a handful people, if any at all. Freshmen look for as many opportunities as they can find so they can meet new people. Some don't really know if joining a fraternity or a sorority is going to be an essential part of their future but feel that they need as many choices as possible. Rushing, for many people, has very little to do with selectivism and childish ritualism. Rather, many incoming freshmen just don't want to feel that their social choices are limited.
Dave K., another freshmen, had no intention of joining a frat, and thought that there was no way he would ever fit the role of a frat boy. Eventually, Dave also rushed Sigma Phi. In his opinion "Sigma Phi just seems a whole lot more laid back and real than all the others." One thing that we learned from Sigma Phi is that fraternities were not all the same, and that some fraternities had people that we were like us.
The other thing that I started to think about after going to Sigma Phi was my general stereotype of the Greeks. For 'outcasts' like us, it is easy to criticize the Greek way of life. But is it so wrong for a geek to check out the Greeks, if only to meet people, or just out of the common love of beer? And what happens when you turn the situation around? What if a mainstream, football player type wanted to go to an R.C. Players meeting, just so they could meet people? His friends would laugh at him and call him a freak. It's this kind of intolerance and close-mindedness that us geeks are supposedly against, yet we practice it readily when a friend of ours decides to rush.
In the end, I quit rush after only a few Sigma Phi events. I had other things to do, and I also just lost interest. But I got what I came for: connections, socializing, and free beer. What I realized is that a true egalitarian will sample everything, no matter what the mainstream kids or the outcasts have to say about it. My friends were wrong; they didn't understand that a fraternity could house regular, unoffensive people. I did, however, realize that even though I thought Sigma Phi was better than the rest, I felt that there was still something about fraternities that was not for me. But what I do have to say, is that, whatever feelings you have about Greeks coming into college, they, like everything else, are worth a try, and if your progressive friends have a problem with it, then maybe they are not as anti-elitist as they think.