I have loved reading all of these posts but have never gotten the courage to post myself. Here it goes . . . . Please forgive any posting errors as I haven’t done this before.
Rumbly, tumbly: Obviously, if you are dead set against the chapter that offered you a bid, and you know you would be unhappy, I doubt anyone would want you to take the bid. However, I would urge you to think about giving the chapter a chance before giving up on it forever.
We had a woman in my pledge class, Kathy (not her real name), who had her heart set on a different sorority. She was very disappointed to receive a bid to her second choice and spent most of bid day in tears. (It made for interesting bid day pics for the rest of us that were very happy with our bids.
) Anyway, Kathy never came back after bid day. The next year, Kathy went through rush as a sophomore. On my campus, sororities did not look favorably upon women who de-pledged immediately without giving the sorority that offered the bid a chance. Kathy was dropped by my house and did not have any invites to other houses after second round. On bid day that year, we made quota plus but found out that we could offer Kathy a bid without it counting against our quota. (It has been so long, I am not sure if this was because she was a sophomore or because we were, essentially, re-issuing the bid from the year before.) This was a somewhat controversial decision within my house at the time, but it ended up great for everyone in the end. Kathy happily accepted the bid. She was a dedicated member of our chapter during college and a good friend to all of us. She ended up very happy and would comment on how silly she had been her freshman year not to stick it out and give it a few weeks.
Anyway, I thought I would relay this story for what its worth. I hope that you eventually end up in a sorority and are happy. It was a great part of college for me, and I still keep in touch with many of my sisters over 10 years after graduation.