Haha, you're welcome, AzTheta!
Day four:
So I had to miss last night’s events due to practice, but I let the women I had been talking to from each chapter know, and they all said that they understood and it was no big deal. But I still wished I could’ve gone because it was a formal presentation put on by Greek Affairs wherein each chapter gave a presentation, and then they all talked about things they do together as a community and I really would’ve liked to see it. Oh well.
The fourth day was a dessert party for all the sororities. I had hoped they would be all intermingled like the Greek Affairs party night—making it easier and less awkward to talk to everybody, but unfortunately that was just not the case. The whole one-big-happy-Greek-family image of the other night was nowhere to be seen.
Again, one of the Sephora ladies called me to see if I wanted to meet up with a group of them beforehand, and, again, I accepted. I arrived with them, and we all got situated with cupcakes, sat down at a table, and started talking. I had some very nice conversations with them, and we also joked around and talked about some of the music videos they were playing on a big projector screen on one end of the room. Being able to joke with them made me feel really comfortable and at ease, and I liked that. After awhile, they encouraged me to go visit the other tables, which made me feel much less awkward about trying to talk to everyone, and much less branded as “property of Sephora” like I had on day two.
Next I stopped by the table with the Tiffany’s ladies. There were only two girls there, though, which I thought was slightly odd, given that all the other sororities had at least six representatives present throughout, and then several others coming and going. I later found out that the reason for this was that the majority of the sorority was at a concert that night instead. Of the two women not at the concert, one was the same shy/nervous/scared girl from the info table (who seemed much more relaxed tonight) who had also been at the Greek Affairs party, and a different alumna than the one from the info tables. Several things about this worried me: first, I felt like everyone else was leaving the poor shy girl to do all the recruitment work and they didn’t really seem to care about helping her out, second, none of the other chapters seemed to be relying so heavily on their alumnae base, and this made me wonder if they really had any actives at all, and third, I wasn’t too impressed that the majority of the chapter had chosen a concert over helping out their sorority. All of those misgivings aside, though, I had an AMAZING time at their table. I was the only PNM at first, but was later joined by a really cool girl who also wasn’t sure just what to make of the whole process. We talked about all sorts of different things including life at the university, life in the city where the school is, and the different activities they do as a sorority and what it has meant to each of the Tiffany’s women who were there. I could’ve stayed at their table the rest of the night, but they, too, encouraged me to move on and talk to the other chapters present, so on I went to visit the ladies of Coach.
The Coach tables were interesting. They had enough women and PNMs there to fill up two tables, so they had divided in two and were playing a game. They were really involved in the game and quite competitive with each other, so the environment wasn’t really all that conducive to welcoming newcomers, and the seemed to be almost stand-offish to all the other sororities present. They did make a place for me, though, and I got to talk with one of the girls from the info table, one of the girls from the Greek Affairs party, met some other very nice PNMS, and also met their president. We talked a bit about their sorority, about music and concerts and our favorite artists, different majors that the women in the group had, and where we were all from. I stayed there quite awhile and had good enough conversations, but it all felt slightly icy—none of the PNMs who were with them even seemed to be interested in checking out any of the other groups, and the women of Coach seemed to like it that way. So on I moved to the BCBG table.
The ladies of BCBG seemed very happy to see me. My original contact with them had class that night, but she had told her sisters about me, so they all knew who I was, which I thought was kind of cool. I had met one of them briefly at the Greek Affairs party and also at the info tables. It turned out that one of the women at the table was the president of campus club that I’m a member of, and lots of her sisters were also members, which was cool. We chatted for awhile and a fairly good conversation, but I didn’t feel any warm fuzzies.
By this point the event was more or less winding down, so I decided to call it a night. I stopped by the Sephora table to say goodbye and thank them for thinking to call and invite me to meet up with them beforehand, and they said they really hoped to see me at their upcoming individual events. I also stopped by the Tiffany's table to say goodnight, and they said the same thing.
I left not really knowing what to do from this point on. This was the last all-Greek event before the individual chapter recruitment events started, and while they were pretty well spread out for the most part, some conflict of the individual events was unavoidable and I wasn’t quite sure on whom to focus my interest.
My feelings after tonight were this:
1. Tiffany’s
1. Sephora
3. BCBG
4. Coach