Vex and the Verm – a column: Nathan Goes Greek, A Real Story of Rushing
For starters, I am not the type of person who would ever rush. That was until I learned what Greek life is really like.
Going into this I had some predetermined guesses on which houses I would like or could get into. I also had a decent amount of friends in different ones, which may or may not have been as beneficial as I thought it would have been.
Rush week started with the tailgate event for the first game, which unfortunately I couldn’t make it to due to a conflicting prior engagement. I did however awkwardly wander around the last half hour of the tailgate. Off to a great start.
The official start began on Aug. 2, where I stood outside of North Complex with only one other student to tour the Fraternity houses. After waiting for a few minutes, with no one else showing up, we hopped in a Charlie cart and made our way to our first house.
Each house pretty much had the same thing – “you can customize your room” or “you can get your own room” – but the phrases that I heard at literally every house were “we have free printing” and “we have free laundry” which they then affirmed that you don’t have to live in to do and that as a freshman they would drag a bag of their dirty laundry across campus to save a few bucks.
Despite having preconceived notions of the Fraternities I still toured every single one, just to be fair and I hate to say it but what I thought about each one was pretty accurate. But still seeing all of them was a fun adventure.
The worst part of these interactions with members was the awkward pause between the generic surface questions. Then after about two questions and a few endlessly long seconds, they would say something like “Well let me introduce you to this guy” or even worse, “I’ll be right back”.
I get it, we may not have much in common, but aren’t they the ones who are supposed to make it easier for us?
On the second day, I decided to focus all of my attention on the Fraternity that I actually wanted to get into. Despite having to leave halfway through the gathering, I came back after to still try and make the best impression possible.
Returning to the house I felt a lot better. I was calm, I was talking to people and it felt natural and right. I ate a little food and just started talking to people. By now I could just talk to people and felt like I was finally breaking out of my comfort zone.
On the third day, I was really screwed on time. I would be stuck doing stuff until 7. I decided to stop by another one of the Fraternities that night because I was starving and didn’t want to stuff my face with food in front of the people I was trying to impress.
Unfortunately for me though, after only being in this house for maybe 15 minutes I was asked to go to a room and talk about joining, or something like that. Honestly, It threw me off guard a bit.
As soon as I could I got out of there and rushed to the main goal. At this point, I probably only had about 30-45 minutes to spend here. For that amount of time, I did the best I could. I sat down, ate some food and had actual conversations with some of the guys. It actually felt fitting.
People were remembering my name and it seemed all good. Unfortunately, I did have to leave abruptly to help a friend out. So I left without an invitation and I didn’t receive a text the next day.
After talking with different people, I have discovered that they had a lot of people coming by and that they have continuous open bidding throughout the semester so there could still be a chance. Maybe sometime.
Looking at it now, I am glad I tried it. Even if just to say that I did it. I still have hope that things might turn out, or that things happen for a reason. At the very least though, I hope it makes a good story.
