My Boyfriend's Fraternity Hates My Sorority
 

And I don't know how to fix it. Apparently his brothers don't have a problem with me, but as a whole the fraternity will not mix or do anything with my sorority. They hate my sorority because 2 years ago we had less than amazing sisters that I was not around for and apparently the now alumnae left a bad impression on them. So we haven't done anything with my boyfriend's fraternity for over a year and it sucks. I love my boyfriend and it hurts when their fraternity chooses another sorority to do events with, when they do stuff with the same sororities all the time but never us.

I'm allowed to bring some of my sisters to their house parties and they don't care, but the brothers won't go out of their way to invite my sisters to their parties. And other than house parties we don't do anything together. I'm just wondering how our sorority can show them that we are a completely different chapter with a bunch of cool girls they haven't even gotten the chance to meet yet. If we ask to do a social, the answer will be no. I just don't know what I can do. I mean it seems stupid they hate us over how a couple of our sisters acted years ago. I wasn't even there for it and more than half of their chapter wasn't there for it either. So I don't understand why they still don't want to mix with us.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated :)

First off, you should stop bashing your alumnae in public.

Second of all, what caused the bad impression? Are we talking, like, the fraternity planned a cool mixer and your sorority barely showed up? Or are we talking, like, the guys didn't think your sorority was hot enough? Because the two problems are distinctly different.

I don't know....actually I do but you told me not to bash them so now I can't say.

I can tell you a bad situation can last for YEARS. My chapter wouldn't mix with a fraternity because of how appalling we were treated something like 6 or 8 years earlier than I was a member. But what they had done was really terrible, like lose their charter bad, but I'm sure my chapter didn't raise that kind of a fuss.

I would just let it go and enjoy the other mixers you attend.

For future reference, you could have shared your story without saying your alumnae were a bunch of uggs and you offloaded them for prettier girls. If that's not what you meant, that's how it was interpreted. If you clean up your original post you MIGHT get DeltaBetaBaby to update or delete the qfp. And then you might be able to get more helpful feedback.

Thanks.

That's not what I meant at all. This happened a while ago the girls that acted poorly in front of the brothers have since graduated. I didn't even know any of the sisters that did the things; I just heard about it.

This kind of thing can take years to fix, like DS said. Baby steps. Just keep going to their parties with your sisters and keep anything you say about ANY Greek organization positive. If they have a philanthropy, be sure to support it.

Honestly, the fact that he's still dating you is a huge positive in itself. I've heard of bans from both fraternities and sororities on dating members of this or that group that is in their doghouse.

I don't really think you bashed your alumnae unless I missed something somewhere. If they are truly the cause of the bad blood, then it is what it is and you have to start somewhere to improve relations. It can be done, but as the others said it will take time.

Have you considered having a joint social? If you have a good relationship with a sorority that has good relationship with them, then add a another fraternity. You can also ask them to do a philanthropy with you and split the profit 50/50. Perhaps raising money for their phil is a weakness, your chapter can be their strength. You just better make sure your chapter SHOWS UP!

Be slow, strategic, and deliberate. It will work after a while.

My daughter was in a similar situation. It wasn't that extreme - nobody hated each other, but due to a minor incident at a party, there were some older girls in her sorority who did not hold an overall favorable impression of her boyfriend's fraternity (they liked him, but they thought he was an outlier). In addition, both his fraternity and her sorority had other groups they had been hanging out with for a while, and they weren't up for change. It wasn't that they NEVER did anything together, but it was rare.

AXiDTrish's suggestions sound great. Daughter tried some similar things (she was social chair for a year, so she was in a position to do a few things although she didn't push it much), and they were helpful.

If all you are shooting for is an occasional social then those things should indeed work over time, but I hope that is all you are asking of these two groups. If what you really want is for them to become besties, you might be in for a bit of a disappointment.

Daughter was bound and determined that she and she alone was going to make sure that her sorority became the new favorite group for boyfriend's fraternity (and vice-versa). Imagine her shock when both groups felt they had their own friend groups quite well established, thank you very much, and as I said, they weren't terribly interested in changing it all up because she and BF decided to date.

Eventually she accepted this (what choice did she have) and came to realize that while it was nice when they did socialize once in a blue moon, having two separate groups of friends that didn't interact regularly had some serious advantages.


Good luck!

Really? You think it's okay to refer to the women in your chapter two years ago as "less than amazing"?

If there was a specific incident they were involved in (e.g. a few women got too drunk at a mixer and barfed everywhere), fine, it is what it is, but that's different from characterizing them as "less than amazing" and "uncool."

I actually laughed at that one. The word "amazing" is becoming so overused it's losing any real meaning. When everyone is amazing, then no one is. I saw "less than amazing" and wanted to say "Oh, so they were normal."

I'm obviously in the minority here, but I don't understand the big deal. Unless you are on a campus where there are 1-3 sororities and 1-3 fraternities, I'm not sure why you are freaking out over your boyfriends frat not "doing things" with your sorority.

Maybe its because I went to a big Greek campus (where with 12 sororities and like 15 fraternities it was more likely you wouldn't "partner" with a fraternity than you would).

You can't change things that happened before you were a member of the chapter. You also can't change the opinions (very easily) of the more established, older members of your boyfriends fraternity.

If it is such a big deal to you (which you should really be finding out if it is a big deal to the rest of the chapter and not just you), you should follow the advice given and try to plan a mixer. If it's only you who really cares that your boyfriends frat isn't hanging out with y'all, you kind of just need to get over it. If your chapter as a whole doesn't care that his frat wants nothing to do with them...you then just need to let it go.

Fair enough. I'm just trying to distinguish between "these women suck" and "these women did a sucky thing once."

No you're absolutely right. He told me "my fraternity is moving up in the rankings and socializing with higher tier sororities so we don't need yours". So I guess apart from the drama 2 years ago there's another reason they won't mix with us. It sucks, but I did talk to girls in my chapter and they said not to worry about it and just focus on hanging out with the fraternities that do want to socialize with us. Kind of makes me sad they think they're better than us, but I'm letting it go and focusing on improving relationships with other fraternities.

I don't see the big deal, either. His friends don't like your friends. You're not dating his friends. Your friends aren't dating his friends. Eff it. Not your problem.

If they say bad things about your sisters in front of you, look them square in the eye and say "My sisters are amazing. You don't know that though, because you don't hang out with them." and then walk away. This isn't your problem to solve. If the chapter wants to deal with it, great. If they don't, let it go.

Worrying about what his friends think about your friends just screams insecurity.

They're "We're too good because we're climbing the social rankings" screams insecurity even louder. Groups that are that focused on ranking are trying too hard and are never really going to excel as a group. Don't get caught up in their games.

I hope he prefaced that with "my brothers said" and added to the end "I'm sorry honey, there's nothing I can do about it." If not, you might want to rethink your relationship.

He told me straight up they had higher tier sororities to mix with and I asked if he thought his fraternity was above my sorority and he answered "What? Of course not!" In the absolute most sarcastic way possible. I don't know if I should be angry or sad.

You should be angry...that you're dating a tool.

I don't think you should be sad or angry, I think you should be happy that he revealed his inner jackass now so that you can not waste any more time with a tool like him.

My Panhellenic sisters just nailed it.

Nothing left to say.

Amen Ladies!

:eek:

This whole situation seems as if you realize that your relationship with him isn't going where you had hoped. In order to not lose him, you're trying to position your sorority as more desirable so that you, too, will be more desirable to him.

This thread has now turned :(

Hahaha...Xibair and AZTheta, you ladies rock! You get it!

At first I thought the drama from 2 years ago was the reason they stopped hanging out with us, then I found out it's also because they think they are "higher ranked" than us. I just wanted our fraternity and sorority to coexist maybe do one social together, maybe have brothers invite a couple of my sisters to their parties without me having to do it. But I guess that's just not going to happen and that's fine. Obviously I wouldn't want to mix with a fraternity that doesn't enjoy our company. And now that I know my boyfriend is in the same mindset as the rest of his brothers....I'm kind of done with his fraternity in general :/ And I might be in the market for a new boyfriend lol.

I second this. It also sounds as if you have some awesome sisters who have their heads on straight.

Which is certainly a valid distinction.

All of this.

Exactly.

Sounds like you've figured this one out. This is all stupidity anyway. You've got a group of women that have your back and that you can call true friends. You know this tier crap doesn't matter. You'll figure the rest of it out.

I was in almost the same situation when I was in school. Like the rest said my "boyfriend" was a tool and I left him. It works out for the better because then you won't have to see him at every party or social because you don't mix together.

I am SO glad that you came to this conclusion!! You deserve SO much better than this kind of crappy, "we are so much better than you and your sisters" attitude from him. What an ass.

:( I'm sorry you had to deal with such a shitty attitude, but I'm glad you've figured things out.

Amen. Good luck to you, OP. I hope you realize that you and your sorority sisters are wonderful women who deserve better! You'll find guys who actually want to spend time with you and deserve to do so. :)

There are probably good reasons why your sorority is mixing with the fraternities that they do mix with--it sounds like you should be socializing with these guys that value your sorority. You'll probably meet some great guys!

The social climber guys in college usually end up being the social climber guys even when they're in their 40's and think, do you really want to end up with that?
(no offense against social climbing but if it's not your thing, you'll be miserable living the social climbing life)

My chapter definitely did not have the social schedule that most of the sororities on campus had, which always bugged us. We had an exchange scheduled for one night with a fraternity we definitely did not dig. It also coincided with a chapter visit from an ELC. She completely berated us for being exactly what we didn't like about the fraternities who thought they were too good for us. She told us to put on our big girl pants, suck it up and have a good time regardless of the guys or the letters over the door. We did and we did and we did, and it is one of the more memorable exchanges for my 4 years in college.

So do THAT.

And by the way, with the nature of my chapter, I can't imagine us having an exchange every week. Some chapters had them more than once a week. That is a lot of pressure to be FUN. It would have been nice to have a couple more per semester to give us a more well-rounded social experience, but I don't regret being in a more subdued chapter probably seen as boring by the others.

If there are 10 fraternities on campus and you are mixing with the bottom 5 (sorry, in this conversation, I think ranking is the only way it will work), work on that #6 fraternity, not the #1 or #2. Invite #6 to work on your philanthropy with you or something else that isn't Homecoming or Greekweek. That's a lot to ask if they've never mixed with you before or in so long that nobody remembers.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! And I think it would be poetic justice for a guy to be dumped by a girl from a so-called "lesser sorority".

Sometimes a person THINKS they have problem A when in truth they have problem B. She came here looking for ways to improve her sorority's relationship with a fraternity. With a little counsel she realized they're (both the fraternity AND possibly him) not worth it. This is one example where seeking advice from strangers can be helpful. The same advice from people closer to the problem might have been brushed off as cynical, too aggressive, giving up too easily, whatever.

In that case, I don't understand this thread. I hope the OP doesn't jump to relationship conclusions based on Greekdom and Greekchat.

I know breaking up with a boy over the greek system is probably stupid, but he was just so pretentious and exclusive. Like I can go to their parties and bring a couple sisters with me, but the only reason I can do that is because I was dating a brother. If any of my sisters tried to go to a party without me, they wouldn't be allowed in. It's just childish like grow up. They know my sisters and they aren't bad people but because they aren't a "higher tier" sorority- nope sorry can't come in we're full. I just don't feel like putting up with that shallow mindset anymore. It just brings me down and makes me think I'm not good enough either when I know in reality we are all equal. We're all college students, we all got into the same school, and we all have the same requirements to graduate. It's just annoying. Plus like other people said after college he will still probably be in the same mindset and hanging out with the same brothers that don't like my sisters. It's just going to be more drama, and I don't have time for that. I'd rather meet a nice boy that gets along with me and my friends lol.

Other than Greekdom, what are your issues?

Issues with my boyfriend?

I mean he's not necessarily the gentleman type. His idea of taking me out on a date is taking me to a party at his dirty fraternity house which are always fun, but still I'd rather go see a movie or eat dinner than have random guys try to hit on me at a party. And sometimes at the party he just leaves me to socialize with random people while he shotguns with his brothers in the backyard. I've let it go because the parties are fun, but I feel like I deserve better treatment. It's too much greek life for me like sometimes I need to get away and just relax at home with my sisters. And when I tell him I don't want to go to a party, he gets really sad like "But I love having you there it's only a fun party when you're there with me" so I kind of get guilted into going every time. And when only a couple of my sisters are there it's not as fun because I can't take all my friends to his parties only a couple. I'd rather just do things with my sisters than be treated poorly by him. I guess I just let it all go before, but I guess his views on my sorority really just opened my eyes to see that I could do a lot better.

I joined a sorority to meet and hang out with people other than my boyfriend...we had been together for a about 4 years before I rushed...

The fraternity that my boyfriend was in did not exactly care to hang out with my sorority and the feeling was mutual with most of my sisters.

I didn't care! I had so much fun at the mixers with all the OTHER fraternities and sororities!