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Ha ha, Gee Ess, maybe I should call us seasoned greekchatters. Onward to Day Two!
Set One Day Two - Open House
Jackie – This is another large sorority and they have a big sunny and comfortable newer house. A girl from my church youth group, who was a senior when I was a freshman, is a member of this group. Let’s call her Liz. She was the most stylish girl I knew as well as being extremely nice and smart. I totally idolized her and am thrilled when she recognizes me and picks me up. She remembers me! She does a great job of summarizing who I am and how she knows me when she bumps me to the next sister. There are a lot of girls from my high school here as well as from the two public high schools nearby. I am a little intimidated though. Everyone seems to be a beautiful blonde and I am not. I do also have another small concern. Many of the girls I know there had a bit of a party girl rep in high school and although I like to have fun, I am not exactly a party animal. They also have one of the lowest GPAs on campus. I know my folks would be less than thrilled with that!
Eric – This is another large house with the highest GPA on campus. There are lots of girls from Central Suburbia High here and several from my high school. The older sister of one of my church group friends is a member and she recognizes me and picks me up. They have a stately big red brick house with pillars; it’s very traditional looking and what I imagine a sorority house should look like. They seem very down to earth and nice, but from the girls I already know and the conversations I had, I get the sense they may be a little too uptight for me.
Laurie – This is a smaller house with maybe 60 members. I don’t recognize anyone and can’t seem to get a handle on who they are at all. No one and nothing stands out and they seem just kind of blah. Although they are nice enough, I can’t see a single thing that would make me remember this group, much less want to join it.
Midge – I don’t recognize anyone at this house either. They are another one of the huge groups on campus and have a beautiful old house that looks like a Spanish villa. The girls are beautiful, but in that 1970s natural no makeup needed kind of way. I have some good conversations here and feel pretty comfortable even though I don’t know anyone.
Red – This is another larger chapter. A couple of older girls from my high school that I don’t really know are members. I am having a great time until I see a girl I will call Vicki across the room. She went to Central Suburbia but I know her from junior high and Girl Scouts. I can’t stand her. If anyone has ever seen the movie Election, she is exactly like the Reese Witherspoon character. Insanely high strung hyper opinionated over achiever at all costs. She plans on being the first female president of the US. She waves frantically at me, but I am thankful the room is so crowded and she is not able to make it over my way. My feelings about her really cloud the way I feel about this house even though the girls I talk to seem nice and normal enough. I don’t know what to make of this situation.
Leo – I don’t recognize anyone here and they seem to be primarily local girls. Although it was built specifically for them about 15 years ago, the house looks like a dorm to me and is really really ugly! This is a smaller group with maybe 40 members. They are pretty socially awkward, and seem much more interested in talking between themselves and giggling over private jokes. The other thing that’s kind of odd here to me is that a lot of them are biologically related to each other. There are at least four sets of sisters, and several make a point of letting us know they are cousins. I feel like I am having to pull conversation out of each sister I talk to and am super uncomfortable here as well.
I have to admit that not knowing anything about Greeks made me much more vulnerable to the opinions of my suite mates and others I met during rush. I am NOT proud of that, but it’s a fact of life and I made notes that included these opinions, although some of the things that I was told I had already figured out for myself. (I mean, it’s not too hard to figure out a chapter is struggling if it has 25 members and most others are well over 100.) Some of these comments are going to be pretty blunt, but I think it’s important to see the kind of pressure others can put on a girl who’s completely naïve to the system and why that’s not a good thing!
I don’t specifically remember which houses the other girls went to on each day since they weren’t in my group, so the comments of others are pretty random and simply what I can remember when looking back 30 years and deciphering from my notes.
Lisa mentions she is a legacy to both Randy and Kitty, but didn’t bother to list them on her rush application or have “paperwork” sent to the chapters. (Whatever that meant! Again, I had no clue about recommendations and legacy forms and she had to explain this all to me.) She does not want to be invited back. Tina is far meaner. She calls them “dog houses.”
When I mention how uncomfortable I was at Bob, Tina tells me it’s because I am not Jewish. I was pretty sheltered and wasn’t sure what this meant. Of course looking back, I realize that even in the 70s, Greek life at JSU was still very segregated.
When I mention how thrilled I was to see Liz, Lisa has a lot of good things to say about the Jackies, telling me they are great girls and very popular with the fraternities. Tina says it’s because they are drunken sluts. This totally confuses me! I know Liz and the other girls I know in Jackie are beautiful and lots of fun, but from my experience, none of them was ever out of control that way. They just like to go out and party but were not remotely what you’d consider loose. I hope no one would think I’m like that since I really like the Jackies a lot!
And of course everyone raves about how wonderful Fez is. Everyone loves the Fezs!
The thing that I remember the most is a comment Lisa makes: “You’re a Prissy Prep girl. You will end up at Donna or Kelso where all the Prissy Prep good girls are.” This comment leaves me confused, like my fate has been pre-ordained simply by virtue of where I went to high school. Didn’t Lisa think I would be a good sister to her and Tina in Fez? I really really really want to be a Fez too!
Later that night we go to a huge rush party at the Milwaukee house, which is supposed to be the “best” fraternity on campus. I find out that I know about half the guys there because they are also Prissy Prep grads. The girls I’m with from my floor are agog, which I find totally hilarious since these are just a bunch of goony boys that I have mostly known since elementary school. I remember them with zits and braces and it cracks me up that the girls think they’re so cool. But I am also starting to understand exactly how ingrained this sorority/fraternity thing had been in the people who I grew up with AND how oblivious I had been about it. A couple of my guy friends urge me to “Go Jackie because they’re fun and foxy.” My guy friends also warn us not to drink the punch. This is where I learn about this devil’s brew called Everclear. Tina doesn’t listen and proceeds to get completely pasted and pretty much makes a fool of herself by hanging all over any guy that looks at her. I appreciate the irony of the fact that she’d referred to the Jackies as “drunken sluts” just hours earlier.
So that’s where the first two days end. My head is spinning. My feet ache in spite of the fact that I wore my most comfy pair of platform sandals. I am dead tired but can’t sleep. At this point, rush is still an experiment in curiosity for me and a social outlet until classes start. But eventually that will change.
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