[ReachTheLimit]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

Here's the thing. Those of us who have been around GC for a long, long time have seen a huge change in the AI climate. A few years ago, things were calm and uneventful, and there were a few successful AIs who posted their stories and all was wonderful in the world.

Then there was The Great Sorority Shopping Caper where someone posted in great detail about her AI pursuit, which involved four or five organizations. I think that most of us were horrified by the whole thing. After that, more and more hopeful AIs started crawling out of the woodwork, and more than a few of them were, well, not right -- such as the woman who was "practically engaged" and chased tornadoes when she wasn't attending two different "sister" law schools and scooping ice cream. There were others, as well, a few of whom actually became AIs of NPC organizations. There also is a long history of perps and crazies posting on GC (on subjects other than AI), some of whom have been discovered to be potentially dangerous in real life.

All that has me (and I think quite a few others, although I don't speak for anyone else) suspicious of people who come on GC and want to pursue AI. I think that many of the questions asked of these women aren't intended to be cruel -- they're intended, more often than not, to get to know a little bit about who these women are and whether they're scary or creepy or unsuited for membership. Of course the local alumnae groups and executive offices/headquarters/boards/whatever of our organizations can weed out the inappropriate candidates, but it's pretty easy to ask questions on GC and give a heads up if a woman seems unstable or inappropriate.

I think that most of us are happy to have awesome women initiated into our organizations, whether as collegiates or alumnae. However, due to the way things have played out on GC over the past few years and how many PNAMs have appeared to many of us to be unstable and/or not suited for membership, we're skeptical when new GCers post about wanting to pursue AI. I think that's perfectly reasonable.

Well, actually, I didn't realize that the history had been that bad. I can understand the skepticism (I probably didn't spell that right). There isn't anything wrong with asking a few questions, nothing at all. This is a public forum. Some just appear to be just way too defensive in their questioning, and I seriously doubt that if someone was standing in front of them, they would ask the same question. That's just common courtesy.