The best thing about joining a sorority was that I got 150 new sisters. My Facebook friend count became enviably high overnight. I walked down Locust and recognized every other person. I even learned a secret handshake, which, as a freshman, was the absolute most fun thing to do drunk.
Then I deactivated and all of those things became very stressful. Except for the handshake. Handshakes are always cool. But hiding from 150 people on campus is not. It’s also unnecessary, since at least 50% of the girls have no clue who I am. But when I see someone in my old letters, I have to fake a call or duck into a building or pretend that my headphones render me completely blind. If you were to map my routes across campus there would be enough detours to explain my perpetual lateness. It’s an uncomfortable world for an ex-sister!
When I log on to Facebook, updates from people that I haven’t talked to since rush fill my newsfeed. I read wall posts like, “OMG u were CrAzY at the [girls dressed like sluts and guys] mixer last night,” (“Liked” by 11 people), statuses like “I have the BEST BEST BEST LITTLE LITTLE LITTLE” and photo albums in which all hands are in sorority gang sign formation. It’s a world that I was part of for most of my college career, but suddenly it’s hard to believe I ever did it.
I never regret joining, but I never regret deactivating either. I met my best friends there and it made the first few years of college really fun. But at a point, I started to realize that on the rare occasion that I attended a function, I brought with me enough negativity and condescension to ruin everyone else’s fun. Maybe I had the wrong attitude all along. Unless I actually was too cool for it, in which case I had it right.
