Anti-Greek Friend
 

I've probably posted about this before, but it is getting worse...

I've got a friend who I've known for probably 5 years.. So we're pretty good friends...

Anyway, we're both going to Mizzou this fall. I'm going to live in a fraternity and he is going to live in a dorm.

At some point this year, for whatever reason, my friend has turned totally anti-greek. It is fine if he wants to do his own thing and live in a dorm, but his continuous greek bashing comments are really starting to piss me off now. I tell him to stop, but he doesn't take me seriously.

Whats strange about it is that when I was rushing, I invited him to one house that I was checking out... He partied with me and spent the night and even to this day he'll admit that it was one of the best times of his life. I think he really wanted to join this house (I'm not sure, he denies it now.)

He even wanted to look at other houses with me...

ANYWAY! I chose AKL after several rush events which he refused to attend.. He has never met ANY of the guys, just knows that they have a pretty good reputation on campus and since then (I have a feeling he felt a little intimidated).. All he does is make mean comments that even make me question our friendship... (which is also strange because greek life is HUGE at mizzou)

Just today he said...
"AKL is gay."
"Fraternities are gay, why would you want to live in a house with 90 other guys?"
"I don't need to pay to make friends."
"Have fun getting raped in your gay fraternity"

... And other things like that.. it happens way too often for me to ignore.. And as you can imagine, I'm getting pretty fed up..

Please help me out with ur opinions..

Why is he doing this?
Any ideas on how to get him to stop?
Is this worth ending a long friendship over or should I just continue to ignore it?
Have any of you ever experienced anything similar to this?

-Matt :(

alot of my friends from highschool think the same way as your friend does.
I slowly introduced a couple of my sisters to them (usually in the union or something) and wouldn't tell them that they were greek until after my friends said they thought the sisters were really sweet :) they slowly started to open up about it. But then again, i still have some friends who just won't accept it. And whenever they say mean stuff, i ask them to stop. and if they don't...i turn on my B**** mode:)

i know what you mean, my roommate this year was like that and i just joked back with him about being a GDI and it was an ongoing thing. He went through rush and decided against it after he got a bid and i think he is just regretting it mainly.don't worry about it he will come around, or if he doesn;t don't push him.


Good luck with your choice in Fraternities at Mizzou. i have been up there once and enjoyed my time.

It may be that he is jealous that you are moving on and making new friends before him. Not necessarily that he is jealous of greek life (although that may be it too) but that he's not sure he's going to be hanging out with you once you move into the house. He's probably nervous about starting college-like everyone else-and maybe was counting on you to be his buddy at school. He's scared that you are going to hang out only with members of the fraternity so his way of dealing with the situation is to talk negatively about fraternities-sort of a defense mechanism. You may be able to make him stop by having a conversation about it. Tell him it offends you to hear those comments and let him know that you'll still want to hang out once school starts. If you aren't into tallking about it maybe just make an effort to hang out with him and include him in things with the fraternity if you can. That may help the situation if he doesn't feel left out of the loop. Just my thoughts, hope it all works out!

I also have this problem, one of my good friends rushed my house with me all the way up till we had only one week left of our pledging period and then dropped, supposidly because of his grades. Now everytime I mention I'm doing this our that with the Sigma Nu he instantly says "oh spending allof your time with the CULT". My roomates and many of my friends on my floor this year were also GDI's and they would say things such as " getting butt raped by your frat bro's and things such as that. I think my one roomate was jealous because he tried to get into DCHI and didn't get a bid. I think your friend might also be angry because he doesn't get to hang out with you as much as before. If your fraternity is anything like mine you spend alot of time preparing for homecoming and greek week so that could also be a reason.
All I can say is good luck...

I wouldn't really let it get to me. I wouldn't try to guess his motives. I wouldn't try to attack his beliefs. Over the next few years, he'll see (if he chooses to remain your friend) how good a thing it is for you. He'll either take all of the new evidence into consideration and changes his mind, or he'll be stubborn and not change his mind.

Don't know what else to tell ya.

You made a good choice though.

I wouldn't worry about him. If he continues to act like this I would ditch him. It's not worth it. I have friends who initially made fun of me when I said "I'm hanging out with the sorority tonight" but when they met the girls they thought they were pretty cool and I haven't heard negative comments since. Who cares what people think? If you are happy in your choice to become Greek then that is all that matters. I think that most times when people make negative comments they are completely ignorant about stuff.

I wouldn't worry about it. As college goes on, either you'll remain friends or you won't. All of my best friends are non-Greek.

I think there's a great deal of insight in what OtterXO says. The things he's saying are about him, not you. Everything will work out the way it's supposed to, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if one day down the line he ends up in a fraternity, too.

I agree. All but two of my close friends are non-Greek. (some of the ones that were non-Greek had debated starting their own local... but no one really wanted to commit the time and energy to that).

If you're asking him to lay off the comments, and he's not, you have two options-- ignore him and figure he's got his own issues, or start distancing yourself and figure he's got his own issues. From the comments you're giving, I'd argue he's got homophobic issues more than greek organization ones, and they're misfounded. Maybe he's getting comments from other friends (or relatives) that reflect this change, and he's projecting on you because you happen to be interested in joining a GLO.

Either way, friendships change in college... and it's not worth the energy to keep being friends with those who refuse to show common courtesy in respecting your interests as your own without critiquing them.

~ Mel.

Re: Anti-Greek Friend
 

Ummm...all these gay comments make me wonder if your friend is a homophobe.

It sounds like "Bitter...party of one?"
I wouldn't spend too much time listening to him. Honestly, I know very few people who remained best friends with people from their high school after they went away to school. People grow apart, and he's inadvertantly speeding up that process.

Could it be that he is jealous of you being a pledge? Maybe he didn't get a bid or maybe he can't afford to join.

People will feel different. They may feel that they are losing their Friends.

The problem is, they may not know what they may be missing or dony feel that they will be accepted!

Matt, PM me.

Lets talk one on one on this.

Just keep This off site for a while! K?

My experience with people that make fun of things are that they are jealous or do not understand. I am convinced that my mom wanted to be a cheerleader in high school because all she has ever done is make fun of them!

People grow and change and perhaps this is happening with you and your friend. However, college is all about meeting new people and if you stay friends with the high school friends then great, but if not, it's called life and it happens.

Why does everyone assume it's jealousy? Just because someone doesn't like something, it's not because they're green with envy. He might have his own, very personal reasons for not liking Greek Life that much.

haha...hey Sikes,

I USE to be the dude who was very anti fraternity. i didnt join till my second year cuz i realized my school sucks and i wasnt as big shot no more (HS)

the best way to handle the dude is just to be like..." alright man well thats cool. you are still more than welcomed to come and chill dude"

you know. the whole, kill em with kindness trick. it works dude. you are still trying to be his friend u know, but in a way you are moving on. wanting to start a new chapter in your life. if he wants to be part of it, then thats his choice. i hope he chooses to be part of it though you know, cuz it sucks losing a friend.

now...he says that AKL is gay...have fun getting raped by your fraternity brothers...why would you wanna live with 90 guys...have fun buying your friends. well shit. i still haven't figured out what to say. i normally just joke around back with them and laugh with the guy. that way it makes his comment look stupid. then he'll stop saying it ...trust me.

I didn't mean to imply jealousy of Greek Life, I meant jealousy that he is moving on and making new friends in college. Like someone said before, it's more about him than about Sikes and his fraternity. Most people who feel compelled to make accusations like the ones that he mentioned are typically insecure about something-it could be a variety of things but there's a lot of stuff that happens to a person when you enter college, so who knows exactly what it stems from. Point is, Sikes' friend may or may not want to be a part of the Greek system at his school, but in my opinion his actions toward Sikes definitely suggest some sort of insecurity or jealousy. :)

Or maybe it's just because he's what, 17 or 18? Immaturity is at its peak at that point. Either they'll remain friends or they won't--and that will have little to do with Greek Life.

Exactly my point. I think we're both saying the same thing!:)

my roommate/best friend was doing something very similar. she's very anti-social and goes home on the weekends a lot, so she's never there to meet any of my sisters. one time i told her we were going to dinner and when she got in my car, i swung by the sorority house and picked up one of my sisters and we all got dinner together. it turned out that she liked her and thought she was nice. but when i was pledging, she was very vocal about the fact that she didn't like me doing it. we are from a small town and it's not looked upon as a cool thing to do. she would say things like, "i could be a delta gamma too, you know" and if she saw me wearing a DG shirt she would just be like, "ugh" and make an ugly face. but she eventually accepted it. i think for non-greeks it's hard to understand what kind of bond you have with your brothers or sisters. because of this lack of understanding, i think they feel kind of left out. i think they might feel like, "well, i thought i was her best friend, but now she does all this secret stuff with all these other girls that i don't know." and that's not cool to them. but, i agree with killing them with kindness. that makes it so much harder for them to hate greeks. that way they can see the good that we do. good luck!

Funny how that happens!:)

A lot of misconceptions just need a little nudging:cool:

The horrible unknows can make people afraid. If it is finances, usually that can be worked out.

As one gets older and finds that not only did you find a lot of new friends, Brothers but if you hang in and keep in touch, you will still be friends.

None of my H S Buddys ever became Greek and most did not attend college.

One of my best Buddys and I keep in touch a lot!:cool:

UPDATE
 

Surprise surprise!

So I'm in the middle of summer orientation and my anti-greek friend calls me up and the conversation goes like this..

Friend: "Matt... You'll never believe where I'm going"

Matt: "Where?"

Friend: "You'll never believe it."

Matt: "Well tell me and I'll tell you whether I believe it or not."

Friend: "I'm going to shakespeares"

Matt: "Thats great.. with who?"

Friend: "A fraternity"

Well.. apparently even tho my friend is not on the rush list, a fraternity called him and invited him out for pizza. Without much thought this anti-greek friend decided to go.

It is a very small fraternity on campus who I've heard some bad things about.. Creepy guys, etc... Which he knew nothing about... Buy I didn't tell him this. I merely called him a hypocrite, told him to have a good time and to tell me what happens...

Obviously his anti-greekness was a coverup... What still puzzles me though is why he always refused to come to AKL events with me... He knows nothing about them except they're a large house with a good reputation on campus...

:confused:

Anyway... McDonalds time!

-Matt

Now that is a classic :-) i'm glad that things seem to be looking good for you and your friend

i'm sure that he didn't want to go to events at your fraternity because it would be like admitting that he was wrong, you know? if he takes such an anti-greek stance to either convince you to drop it or just to piss you off, and then turns around and accepts your invites, it's like he's one step from losing the battle because then he'd have to open his mind to it. but i hope that he has a good time with these guys, even if they are creepy and whatnot because then that'll change his mind...and if he comes back with a negative impression, then i guess that you can always be like 'well, you need to hang out with a real fraternity, why don't you come hang out with us?'