I didn't get my first choice - it gets better.

[SWTXBelle]

Bumping . . .

[SWTXBelle]

Annual bump time!

[carnation]

Yay! Because this is a great thread!

[ASTalumna06]

Ironically, this showed up on my Facebook page earlier today:

http://blog.phiredup.com/redefining-...-and-sorority/

Every time I’m around my sorority sisters or on a campus working with fraternity/sorority members or the professional staff, I ask what seems like 10 million questions. Recently, that question has been “What is One Thing You Wish Fraternity/Sorority Would Have Told You Before You Joined?” I expected to get the typical responses of cost and time commitment, but this wasn’t the case. The overwhelming response I get instead is along the lines of…

“I wish someone would have told me how hard making friends was going to be.”

This blows my mind. Here we are, SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS, and our members struggle to find friends? The more I reflect on this, and the more I dive into question mode to learn why, I can’t help but think that fraternities and sororities have failed to define and create an expectation on what friendship REALLY looks like on the inside of our organizations.

Think about it. We preach brotherhood and sisterhood, which implies a family-like connection with others. We show photos of us laughing and being best friends with each other on our social media and during recruitment. We share stories about the fun things we do as an organization. What we don’t do is set the expectation that this close family-like connection does not come automatically with a bid. Actually, most individuals I talk to shared that it takes anywhere from a semester to a full year to find the people in their organization that feel like family. That connection is there waiting for us, but it takes time to find and build.

[33girl]

To play devils advocate (or maybe just devil):

Perhaps when it was mandatory that pledges showed up at everything - every meeting, every mixer, every sisterhood event - it made it easier for those shy ones to make friends. You didn’t have to worry about who would show up to something, because you knew who would - everyone! If you miss one event, you miss a chance to make friends and bond, and it snowballs from there. I know I did things as far as putting myself out there socially (in both my pledge times) that I wouldn’t have had the guts to do only months earlier, because I had to. I’m so glad I did!

[NYCMS]

Originally Posted by 33girl

To play devils advocate (or maybe just devil):

Perhaps when it was mandatory that pledges showed up at everything - every meeting, every mixer, every sisterhood event - it made it easier for those shy ones to make friends. You didn’t have to worry about who would show up to something, because you knew who would - everyone! If you miss one event, you miss a chance to make friends and bond, and it snowballs from there. I know I did things as far as putting myself out there socially (in both my pledge times) that I wouldn’t have had the guts to do only months earlier, because I had to. I’m so glad I did!

Good point. And re: the earlier poster's post (the one with the quote), I wonder about a few other things.

1) At many schools, pledge classes are so large I think girls get lost...ironically you'd think the more girls, the easier to make friends, but sometimes it might be the reverse.
2) More students go out of state these days so imagine you're the one gal from Arizona in a pledge class in Kansas while most of your pledge class are Kansas girls who know each other already...almost like breaking into a clique.
3) Expectations. I think this is key - kids today are used to getting everything instantly (technology) so they unconsciously transfer that to making friends. Technology has skewed their social habits and expectations and that's changed how they view relationships to some degree, I think as they have expectations of things happening "instantly" and "easily." They makes friends via social media, yet they never meet in person - just chat online. They spend hours texting or Snapchat-ing their local friends. I've seen kids texting each other while sitting in the same room.

This is one reason why I think girls de-pledge so easily these days...when I was in school one never did that unless there was a super serious reason. Now I hear of girls who are nonchalant about it, "I just didn't feel it." Well, "feeling the love" takes time but many girls aren't used to having to give things time due to how technology makes everything so immediate. Oddly enough, we are more connected than ever via technology, but from a mental health perspective, we're more disconnected, hence the dramatically rising rates of depression, anxiety and suicide, among adolescents, college kids and young adults (and older). So many great kids out there, but so many that face real challenges, hence the "failure to thrive" young adult that we in behavioral health see all too often today.

[carnation]

Fantastic points!