I remember discussing this with Hootie-and I loved her response! It was somthing along the lines of:

If I paid for my friends, I certainly didn't pay enough!

How true! I don't know where I would be w/o the sisters I met through Chi Omega.

Money doesn't just fall from the sky. How else are supposed to pay for our gorgeous houses? And the bulk of our huge bills goes toward the meals we have at the house. All we need to do is show anti-Greeks the bills our parents are sent that outline where the money goes, and they'll shut up.

PS: Sisterhood (and brotherhood) is priceless, as we all know. I love the "I must not be paying enough" response!

This is what you do (if you have a minute or two). Ask them how much it costs them per month going out to eat with friends. How much does it cost to do things like bowling, putt-putt, movies, etc? How much would you spend if you decided to have a formal night out?

Tell them to add all this stuff up. This is the money that they spend to do fun things with their own friends. The money we spend on dues goes to pay for all kinds of activities such as the ones listed. You would never expect to get to do all of that for free, so why would you expect that a group that does those things does not need money? If you consider that paying for friends, then that means that you are paying for yours too!

Actually . . .

On some campuses, its a kind of insightful and accurate remark, that Greeks are in fact paying for their friends.

Everything in life is going to have a price. I tell them that one of the biggest reason for paying dues is to support the fraternity both Nationally and locally. If they believe that we're "Paying for our friends" then they are just as guilty by paying tuition to go to a college where they meet friends of all walks of life. No one asks them to go to college and meet people. College charges tuition to support the institution just as GLOs charge dues to support the fraternity/sorority. As everyone in here knows, the GLO experience is a life learning lesson in itself. Often times more so than any book you read. People choose to walk our pathway just as there are those who choose to walk a pathway of higher learning. Fraternally Yours, Mystic Cat32

ROI
 

ROI = Return On Investment

Invest nothing = get nothing

Invest in fraternity or sorority = fun times, brothers or sisters for life.

If what they say is I pay my dues for friends... well in a sense they're right. But I get soooooooo much more out of those dues. I have a national body of gentlemen that I can call "brother". People I don't even know that I can depend on.

I get leadership skills, experience at running programs and projects. I have taught large groups of people and filed IRS paperwork.... If they could have a college class to teach this stuff it'd cost a helluva lot more than I'm paying right now!

I'd say that's a pretty damned good ROI...

LHT
Kevin
MT #5

Excellent way to look at it! I had 53(+) sisters in my collegiate chapter...my dues were $25 a month. I paid .47 a month for my friends! Not a bad deal! Now I pay $7 a year for alum membership, and there are over 400 women in my alum chapter...that's just a little over a penny a year for each one. Cool.

I HATE THIS STATEMENT! But I have to admit at one time I would have agreed with it. But as I sit and think about how my friendships with friends before I was Greek blew up in my face once I did go Greek I am glad to pay the price to have a bond of sisters that will always be there for me in any tiem of trouble or what not. Obviously these friends that I had that were saying this to me were not really friends if they couldnt stick by me through the stuff I was going through during our friendship.

I still have plenty of non-Greek friends and I love each and everyone of them, but I always think when they say something like that about how much they are missing out in and how all they really do is go out and get drunk and do stupid stuff. (not al of them by some of them.) I think that going Greek has made a big impact on my life and I have learned to have better friendships through this. Again whether they are Greek or non-Greek or whatever. Also I am proud when I go home and people say something about paying for drinking buddies or something as some of the people from my town sometimes put it. I just come back and say no I had those for free before I went Greek. It always makes them think.

Oh and another thing you can say to them if you feel extra mean is when was the last time you did community service because you wanted to rather than had to because of some kind of jail sentence?

Ok, that one was kind of lame, but man that is my biggest pet peeve when people say that because I have plenty of friends that werent "paid for".


ARGHH!!!

I bumping this because of the point made in the "Looking Back on Greek Years" thread that it's looked down upon in American society to supposedly pay for friends, but in Europe, it's thought of as paying for your activities, which is exactly what we try to portray.

I explain to people that dues pay for everything we do, including setting up philanthropies, rush events, sisterhood events, mixers, etc. The only thing that we pay for out of pocket is tee-shirts.

I think that's funny how some of you have calculated the amount of money/sister. Maybe I'll have to start using that. :p

Yeah, the whole "at least I don't buy my friends!" thing is unoriginal and ignorant. Pretty much everything in life costs money...
-if you want your kid to make friends through their soccer team, it costs money
-if you want your kid to make friends through Brownies/Girl Scouts, it costs money
-if you want to make friends through university (even if you join no clubs), tuition costs money
-if you want to make friends through joining, say, the Spanish Club at university, it costs money.

Sigh...I could go on, but what's the point.

$$$
 

We can only hope those people don't want to have children some day. Kids are REALLY expensive but worth it!! :D

One of the TKEs at my last school calculated how much money he paid in dues in relation to ALL his brothers from every chapter. It was well under a penny/brother. He says he wishes he could give everyone a fraction of a cent and have them be that nice to him! ;)

All the Greeks who worked at ResNet with me (4 SigEps, 1 TKE, 1 Theta Tau, and me) used to get a lot of isht from our non-Greek coworkers. I said that at least I spent my paychecks on something more exciting than new computer parts. :rolleyes:

Re: Smarta$$ reply
 

I don't want to take this thread off on a tangent, but my dues have never and will never pay for any alcohol, per national rules. Does no one else have this policy?

But what everyone else is saying is right on target!

Re: Re: Smarta$$ reply
 

We do also - I don't know if it's international or not, I would assume yes, but I know for a fact that none of our chapter dues went to alcohol...

My thoughts
 

I went to a school that was and probably still is a bit anti-Greek (Texas A&M U) and the sentiment there was 'Rent a friend, join a frat', it was on a t-shirt. There seemed to be some tension between the guys in the Corps of Cadets and Frats. But, what is really funny is that most of the guys in the Corps chased after sorority members and were quite happy to have a GF in a sorority.

I think the whole 'buy friends' attititude comes from the fact that the only way you can participate in your GLO activities is to be current with your dues. No dues = no activities, no particiaption with your chapter (i.e. friends). But of course, true friendship does not co$t a thing!!!