So you joined a sorority and your best friends from back home hate the “fake b*tch” that you’re becoming. They say that sorority life has ‘changed you’ and that you “just aren’t the same.” Maybe they’ve made a snide comment or two about how you’re now more interested in partying than you are in getting an education. It has probably stung to hear the women who you considered (and probably still consider) your closest confidantes and support system tearing you down about something that you consider to be building you up. It’s an indescribably shitty feeling, but you aren’t alone in feeling it.
When I first joined my sorority, my friends from home came up to visit me before school started. We had gone to an intensely academically rigorous private high school, where if you weren’t in multiple AP’s or on the National Honor Society, you were in a minority that included about twenty students. I had yet to purchase my books for the upcoming semester, seeing as how school had YET to start, and one of my best friends asked me bluntly if I had decided to say “fuck school” now that I was in a Greek organization.
To say that I was shocked and hurt is an understatement, since I clearly still remember the scene in great detail three years later. I couldn’t believe the negative reaction that I had received from a girl I had considered family, just because my Instagram locations had started to include more fraternities than libraries.
In truth, I still to this day do not understand why sororities bring about such negative reactions in friends who choose not to partake in the Greek community. Maybe they don’t understand the all-encompassing, fundamental point of these organizations as ways to not only create a smaller community within a large university but to create a support system that will last well beyond your years as a collegiate. Maybe they get jealous when they see their friends making new friends and new memories that do not always include them after they’ve been the center of your life for so many years. Maybe they’re biased because of the stories that they have heard about the detrimental possibilities Greek life can have.
Whatever the reason, it really doesn’t matter. The point is, if you are doing something that makes you happy, your true friends will support you. They may not understand it, and that doesn’t matter. To be a friend to someone is to accept them for all facets of their being and to love them unconditionally. If an old friend disapproves of the new life that you are making for yourself at school, take a few moments to consider if she is someone you really want to bring into the next chapter of your life.
College is a confusing time of life, but it is one that everyone has to face at some time or another. You may think that you are turning into someone completely different than who you were in high school, and you probably are. Coming to college and joining a sorority puts you straight into the throes of a massive life transition. The funny thing about it is that every single one of your peers is also going through this crazy growing up thing to varying degrees.
It may seem counter-intuitive because you’re in a chapter full of fabulous women who seem like they have their shit together, but once you get to know them, you will realize that each and every one of them is different. We’re all nerdy in our own ways, but the beauty of sisterhood is that we not only accept, but embrace one another for our quirks.
And at the end of the day, if you want to cry because a high school friend said something mean about your joining a sorority, remember that you’ll have one hundred plus more women at your funeral, because your sisters will be there for you until the end of time..
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Lindeliciousss
A native Seattleite and self-proclaimed Snapchat queen, she's been a coffee addict since she found out what a coffee bean was. Believer in and promoter of the #freeguac and #freegucci movements. She is obsessed with all things Harry Potter and has been known to stop people at parties to tell them how to remove the wine from their clothes. In her spare time, she enjoys baking, writing for TSM, and pretending like she has her act together. Hit her up @ lindeliciousss@gmail.com
@lindeliciousss
@lindeliciousss
