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.