And there is nothing wrong with others presenting other options, is there?

But when a guy is rushing in his 30s and he has a wife and kids, it's also pretty likely that he's not going to have the fraternity experience that the average person looking into greek life is looking for.

If it turns out that his campus isn't open to 30+ year old social fraternity pledges, he may want to look at what's out there.

Had the OP been an 18 year old recent high school grad, yours would totally be a point worth making. For this guy, maybe not so much.

How many business fraternities have houses?

Here is where we draw the line between Greek Lettered Organizations and Fraternities. Any CLUB can slap Greek letters on their name and POSE. Fraternities, which when someone expresses interest in joining Greek and mentions a house, as the OP did, you assume hes talking about FRATERNITIES. FRATERNITIES aren't clubs, they're brotherhoods, they're much more, so we gentleman in fraternities shouldn't be short sold, by a bunch wannabes. If you would like to offer the situation to the OP, phrase it better:

Dear OP,

Perhaps you should consider a service organization club. I joined (not pledged) one, and I was of a similar age, and found it to be a great fit.

And stop making up words. Smartassity?

You flatter yourself.

In an incorrect way, grammatically speaking, no less.

Smartassity used to be in someone's signature here and I loved it. I wish I could take credit for making it up but I can't.

Actually, at UGA one of the business fraternities has a pretty nice house, but I'm not sure who, if anyone, lives in.

http://www.terry.uga.edu/akpsi/


It doesn't hurt to give a guy who may not find a place in the typical brotherhood some options to enrich his college experience. I don't think anyone posting thinks they are equal substitutes for someone looking for a social fraternity brotherhood exclusively, nor were they presented as such.

Sorry, but I joined a service fraternity, not a club.

Having a house is not a criteria for being a fraternity. At many colleges and universities, many if not all social fraternities/sororities don't have houses. Does this suddenly make them clubs and not fraternities/sororities?

The only accurate thing you said is that Fraternities aren't clubs, they're Brotherhoods. Totally agree. But owning a house is not a requirement for that.

I can't speak about professional or honorary GLOs being fraternities, never having joined any.

But I can say that the service GLOs that I am aware of (APO, GSS, OPA) are most certainly not 'posers'. You're not just being 'smartassity', you're being stupid and insulting.

Does your service fraternity have a very elaborate ritual which is conducted once a week, a 150 year history, a rigorous 10+ week pledging process, a situation where almost everything about your college experience involves your fellow members, you live with all your closest friends, and you know they will be some of your best friends for the rest of your life? Because that's what makes my fraternity a "brotherhood", not just the fact that we choose to describe it as one.

Ok, you found one, not at the university he was referring, and more fraternities than not, have houses, and more GLO clubs than not, don't. So it is very safe to say that he was talking about joining a social organization, and thats what everything said in thread was pointing to, until some jackass had to plug in for a service, professional, whatever the hell bullshit that was, that will clearly never be able to offer the same opportunities and atmosphere, as true fraternities.

You are really over-selling it. There's no reason why this thread should be making you feel like you need to defend and justify your social fraternity.

I'm sorry he takes pride in his organization, and wants to distinguish himself from someone who merely puts on greek letters but has no real concept of what they mean to him.

I honestly take offense to the idea that a service or professional or whatever fraternity is on anything resembling the same plane as social fraternities.

I'll tone it down, but just take from my post that I think calling a service/professional group a fraternity is laughable. I have friends who have joined both service/professional groups and social fraternities that would agree whole heartedly as well.

Yeah, I think it's clear that the OP wants a social fraternity experience if it's available, but he also got some tips about additional options if it's not.

I'm not sure why you guys are riding the social fraternity horse so hard.

I don't have a problem with it. But its the way he went about it. He made the situation sound like him being 30 and joining a service organization, was one in same as joining a social fraternity. Maybe it was bad wording, maybe I read it wrong. But I don't think its fair to say that a service organization is comparable to a social fraternity.

At least in my experience I don't think I would be remotely happy with being in a service fraternity instead of a social fraternity, and I would imagine that the flipside would be true as well.

What they offer is completely different and the people they draw will generally not be interchangable with each other. In my view to suggest that they are, would be comparable (on a much lower level obviously) to someone saying "I'd like to one day work for the NAACP" and getting the response of "Well if that doesn't work out for you, you should consider getting involved with the Klan."

Yeah the two groups are comparable, but only in as much as they're both clubs and they both have a purpose that they're united around.

(And the NAACP/Klan thing is purposely exaggerated for the point of being funny while still kind of sort of making a point, thought I should clarify that since the sense of humor in here is kind of lacking).

See the analogy is more like:

Hey, I'd like to be a baseball player. I really love the sport of baseball. I think it would be really cool to play on the college team, but I don't know that I can devote myself to it completely and I don't know if the skills that I'm used to using line up with what the kids are doing these days.

And someone saying, well why don't you work with our community program for youth baseball. You can either volunteer and do good in the community working with kids' teams and doing service or you can work in our office with our corporate sponsors making connections that you can use in your career later.

Nobody really thinks it's a one to one substitution, just that there's value in the second options too.