My First Night as a ΘΑΠ (5th 1st)

[Part of the Five Firsts series and winner of the reader's poll.]

I bought an SUV last week. Which makes me feel very much like I did when I joined a sorority in college.

After years of railing against the evils of both SUVs and the Greek system, I found myself awkwardly drawn to the objects of my scorn. It's an uncomfortable feeling.

Even my explanations (excuses? justifications?) sound similar:

It's a Toyota RAV4, so it's small! And it has good gas mileage for an SUV -- almost as good as Toyota's hybrid SUV. I was tired of being the smallest thing on the road and not being able to fit anything in my little coup. Plus, the RAV4 is the safest vehicle in its class and it'll go great in the snow!

It's a really interesting group of women! They're not like your typical sorority girls at all! I know that I used to make fun of the whole idea. It's not like I'm using them to replace my current friends. I just felt like this was something I should do!

I felt the same way, to a lesser degree, when I started liking sweet potatoes and corn chowder. I had allowed dislikes such as these to define me. I mean come on: sweet potatoes and chowder? I was afraid that any deviation would make me look like a poseur. Like I had just pretended not to like Thanksgiving yams. I often imagine that if I decide to have a child, I will feel compelled to make the same sort of embarrassed, groveling statements, like "I was on the pill -- I don't know what happened!" I've spent so much time saying that I don't want children, or at least don't know if I want them, that I'm afraid I'll look like a fraud if I change my mind. What will people think? I wonder. And then: Why do I care? (And then: Who puts chowder and child bearing in the same category?)
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My first night as a sorority girl was surreal and embarrassing. After finding an invitation to join the sorority of my choice slipped under my door, I went to the gym for a ritual known as "table pounding." Each sorority had a small, round table covered in its "colors." We newbies, affectionately known as "pledges," gathered with our sisters-to-be around our respective tables and expressed our loyalty and jubilation with various cheers, chants, songs, and much pounding on said tables. And of course, we were all decked out in shirts showing off our new affiliation. Then the real fun began. We set out for a campus tour that included more cheering and chanting.

Back in my days as an "independent" (a status I still proudly maintain politically), my other indie friends and I would use this night to mock the silly girls who paid to have friends. None of us were really the cheerleading type, and this was waaay to perky for us. But now here I was, clapping and shouting, declaring my allegiance to Theta Alpha Pi:

T-H-E-T-A!

A-L-P-H-A!

Theta Alpha!

Theta Alpha!

Theta Alpha Pi!

When I finally came back to my room after my public humiliation, I found the wall next to my door covered in handmade welcome signs and my desk buried in a mountain of burgundy and grey. Each active ΘΑΠ sister had welcomed me with a sign and a gift. There were candles, notebooks, mugs, mason jars, shot glasses, and stuffed rabbits (our mascot). The sisters who weren't at table pounding were responsible for setting up these bizarre altars for each new pledge. Jess, my roommate, was horrified. "All those damn bunnies!" she remembers with a shudder. Keep in mind, this is the same girl who once held a mock "toilet pounding" for her fake sorority called Guava Guava Guava.

When I first started thinking about joining a sorority during my junior year, I kept it to myself. Here's what I wrote in my journal at the time:

27 October 1996
I have just attended the informational meeting for Spring Rush. I told no one that I was going, except hinting at it the other day to D. B and M both saw me on my way there. I told them I was going to pray when asked where I was headed. This wasn't a complete lie ~ I did pray and I did plan on coming to the Chapel afterwards. So here I am on the front Chapel steps.

I was extremely nervous ~ to the point of sick-to-my-stomach ~ before I went. I think I shook through the first half of the meeting. Thankfully C. go there at the same time that I did. 'Twas good to see a familiar face. I commented to her that I couldn't believe that I was there. She said that she was surprised too, because I "didn't look like the type to rush." Am I the type? What in tarnation is "the type"? No, I am indeed no stereotype. What am I doing?

Not looking like "the type" has come up more than once in my life. When I dated my husband back in high school, another black guy looked me up and down in the lunch line one day and said, "You and Simpson, huh? I wouldn't have thought you were the type." That's me -- breaking down barriers, baby.

But if I wasn't perceived as the type to date outside of my race, I certainly wasn't considered the type to join a sorority. I was terrified to tell my friends. Just the previous year, a close friend (the "M" above) had confessed that she'd considered rushing. We were all so relieved when she told us after the fact that she'd ruled against it. No one was more vocal about the idiocy of the Greek system than I had been. No one, that is, except Jess.

Telling her was the hardest. I sat her down one evening on my bottom bunk and said something dramatic like, "You know I love you, right? And remember how you said that we'll always be friends?"

"Yeeessss..."

Loooong pause.

"Well, I'm rushing."

Her response was so anticlimactic that I almost felt disappointed instead of relieved: "Oh. Is that all?" she said.

"Is that all?" I wanted to shout. "Is that all? What do you mean 'Is that all?' I'm thinking about joining a sorority. Don't you want to tell me how ridiculous this is?"

Because even though I knew this was something I wanted to try, it did feel ridiculous. The idea was so far removed from my reality that I feared I was going through a pre-quarter-life crisis. Why did I want to do this? I asked myself that question a lot.

The real reason I considered "going Greek" will sound ridiculous to some people: I felt like God was asking me to join.

Yes, I had come to the point of "table pounding" on a mission from God.

Seriously.

Sort of.

I'd spent the previous summer at the Ocean City Beach Project, which I like to describe as MTV's Real World for Christians: less hot tub debauchery and more Bible study. During that time I realized that everything I did and everyone I hung out with was Christian. This had been a blessing for my first two years at Grove City. At age 16, my new-found faith had alienated many of my friends and was partially responsible for destroying the long distance relationship with the apparent love of my life. (The fact that he was 21 and in the Air Force is neither here nor there.)

By my senior year of high school I was depressed, and terrified that college would be four more years of being misunderstood, ostracized, and lonely. But after a few shaky months, I found my footing, including wonderful friends and people who "got" me for the first time in my life. And it was perfectly fine to believe in God there. I was finally happy. In a melancholy English major kind of way.

After spending the summer learning about being a student-leader at OCBP, I came to my junior year of college with a new perspective. I wondered if I was too insulated in an artificial all-Christian environment. I felt like it was time to branch out. And it occurred to me: If I was so opposed to the Greek system, why not become a part of it? That way I could better understand it and try to be a force of positive change.

Why was I so against sororities in the first place? I suppose they seemed like a hotbed of debauchery on my quaint little Christian campus. And beyond that, they just seemed so stupid. I couldn't understand the point of them. I've never been very good at organized groups. I love Jesus, but don't like church. I'm glad to live in America, but don't understand the veneration of our flag or rabid patriotism. And school spirit? Assemblies and pep rallies were only cool because you got out of class early. (Althought I was in the marching band for six years. Go figure.)

I agonized over why I suddenly wanted to join such a group. Was this really a calling from God, or did I just want to do something "cool" for once in my life? Here's how I summed it up at the time:

4 October 1996
There is a twisted part of me that wants to pledge. I like to think that my reasoning is to bring Christ to a group that needs Him. However, if I'm honest with myself, I would like to be part of a sorority to satisfy this desire to "belong." But realistically, as a Christian, I doubt that I would find a lot of "belonging" to the sorority as a whole.

Looking back, it's easy to think that I really was searching for something. Three of my friends, including two of my very best, were planning weddings for the next summer. My other best friend and roommate was graduating. Several others were studying abroad. Everything was changing, and I didn't know how I fit into any of it. Here's what I wrote at the time:

27 October 1996
Am I doing this because I feel stagnant? With all of these friends having adventures in foreign lands and others getting engaged, I feel like I need to do something! I feel empty because I'm not giving anything. But a sorority... Do I want to go in that direction?

By the beginning of spring semester, I'd (mostly) made up my mind:

27 January 1998
...I think I'm fairly sure that I want to pledge. Just when I felt secure in the decision to pledge, all these doubts and questions crept in. So now I have all these voices yelling at me trying to confuse me. Like what will others think of me? M showed me how selfish of an attitude that is. By focusing on others' opinions of me, I'm really just selfishly thinking about myself.

Less than a month later:

9 February 1997
I'm a ΘΑΠ girl. How odd. I signed a bid. They sent me a bid. I'm in. Weird.

10 February 1997
So. Officially, I don't consider myself Greek. But I guess I technically am. Table pounding is tonite at 6:00. That's in a little over two hours. The reality of being in a sorority has definitely not hit me yet. I wonder if I'll like it. I'm excited about it. And I'm surprised that I'm excited. I swore I'd never pledge (at the very least, it was an unspoken, underlying vow). But now I'm at the start of Pledge Week. I haven't signed my life away. People still drop out during or after Pledge Week. I don't think I will. ... If nothing else, perhaps this will be good fodder for writing. I hope, though, that it comes out to be more than that.

Being in a sorority, especially ΘΑΠ, introduced me to new and wonderful people, and reaffirmed my belief that books and covers don't always match. I remember the first time I met my future sorority sisters. I looked around and wondered how on earth these women were in the same room, let alone members of the same group. There were the soccer players, the drinkers, the intellectuals, the artists, the pretty girls, the slightly punk, and the ultra-conservative Christians. Other sororities on campus had individual group images. This one had a bunch of individuals.

I made new friends. I did new things. And yes, I even talked about God and my faith with some of the girls, but only when they came to me with questions or a prayer request. I wasn't so delusional to think that I was there to "save" them all. I certainly wasn't the only Christian in the sorority. Looking back, I may have been just a tad too concerned with the perceived immorality of it all. Most people tend to get more conservative as they age. I've gone in the opposite direction.

Even now, being in a sorority feels foreign to me. I never fully got into the idea of "sisterhood." I've lost touch with all of them, even the ones I came to consider good friends and wish I could find again. The whole experience feels more like a story someone told me, rather than something I did. But I did it. And I don't regret it. If nothing else, it's good fodder for writing, right?

Oh, and the RAV4? As soon as I get over my guilt about being a gas-guzzling American I'll be fine.

Comments

[Jess]

i always thought you had seen me that night in the quad with the torches and the life-sized jennie doll!

the only reason my response seemed so anticlimactic is because i am such a supportive and accepting (not to mention fantastic) friend. you are very lucky to have me.

[Melissa]

I'm so glad I voted for this story . . . it was awesome to hear !!! Junior year was basically a blur for me, and I don't feel like I was present for a lot of this . . . so thanks for telling it ! And welcome to the SUV sorority, too !!

[hannah]

i finally read this!
good story, thanks :)
so, I'm not the only one who wants to belong, but not at the same time?