A friend of mine has a freshman son who is considering joining a fraternity (Theta Chi, if you must know.) They messaged me with all sorts of questions, the specifics of which I am not at liberty to say. That said, one of the questions gave me pause:
"If you had to do it over again, would you join?"
One of the undergrads where I work asked the same question a week later.
Oooo. Wow. It's that whole "knowing what I know" thing.
In both cases I said "I don't know." However I wanted to think about it more and consider what either decision may have meant to my life.
For those new(er) to my blog (does anyone read blogs anymore or is it all substacks?), I joined Phi Kappa Sigma (Skull) fraternity in May 1985 while at Drexel University By August '86, I'd transferred to Penn State, where the fraternity was very different from the one I'd pledged. At PSU, Skull lived in a mansion near campus, and was the #1 fraternity on campus according to the sororities. These were the rich kids and former jocks (who weren't playing college sports due to injuries, usually, but we had a few people on Penn State teams, especially Rugby.)
I wrote about pledging, etc, in part 1 of my unpublished book: Men of the Skull. I've posted many chapters from Part 2 here, but only one from part 1, because... reasons. I just think Part 2 is better and has more bearing in my life. That said, Part 1 has more to say about why I joined Skull. Maybe I should post a couple of the Part 1 chapters so they can be ignored as well. Or not. If I do, I'll link them here somewhere. In any case, back to the question.
Answering it means weighing the positives/negatives of the fraternity experience then and now. What has the fraternity meant to me as far as my growth as a person? What benefits did I receive? What have been the downsides?
When I was given a bid (invitation to join), I was genuinely shocked. I hadn't actively thought about joining a fraternity. But, things change. My thought process was "they're taking a chance on me, so I'll take a chance on them." So I pledged along with a group of guys I'd never met. The idea was that your pledge brothers would be your "closest friends for the rest of your life." While my pledge brothers were all great guys, I'm only marginally in touch with three of the eight others. Some I haven't heard from since leaving Drexel in 1986. So much for that.
That said, when I started pledging, I only knew the few people on my dorm hallway and a few others here and there. Pledging forced me out of the dorm to meet many people, many of whom were unlike anyone I'd ever met. It wasn't just the brothers- it was people I'd meet running errands for them, like at the 7-11, whom I got to know by being there so often. There were people from other houses, and some of the few women who attended Drexel at that time. (Back then, Drexel was 7 guys to every girl. According to their website, Drexel is now 49.6 male, 48.4 female- which leaves 2% left over for non-binary (I'm guessing.)) I met Jewish people, people of color, Muslims, and even *gasp!* LGBTQ people! I'd never met such a diverse group in my pathetic small town, and meeting them expanded my perceptions.
Add to that, pledging was hard. Aside from EMT work, it was the hardest thing I'd done to that point (voluntarily.) I finished it- I succeeded. I really didn't know if I would, so that gave me a major sense of accomplishment.
In 1986, I started the process to transfer to Penn State. I HATED Drexel. I hated living in the city. I hated my life. PSU seemed like heaven. I'd never tried anything as audacious as this before... and again I succeeded. There were a few people I miss from Drexel (I always wondered what happened to my roomie "Ripper."), but my biggest regret was leaving the Drexel brothers behind. I felt like I belonged for the first time in my life, and it would be decades before I felt anything like that again.
At Penn State, as I mentioned, Skull was VERY different. I was very different than the brothers there, and they never let me forget it. Eventually, I was 'accepted' and allowed to live in the house, but I think I was more 'tolerated' due to my going above and beyond to do things for the house in general. Eventually, I made some friends, but only one of them were active when I first arrived, and we became friends after he graduated. The few I became friends with have been loyal friends ever since. That said, of the people I knew and were close to at PSU, far more were not from Skull than were. I learned that I could drink prodigious amounts of alcohol- frequently drinking others "under the table."
Being a Skull at PSU opened opportunities for me. The name carried prestige then. I wouldn't have met certain people without my affiliation cracking open doors for me. I eventually was on an Interfraternity Council Committee (community relations) which I would've never gotten if I weren't in a a "top" fraternity. Just being in the Greek system gave me an "in" to meeting two of the people who would define my PSU experience, and whom I wrote about extensively in my book: "Judy" and "Virginia." They absolutely changed my life, for good and ill.
Right- so the negatives. The way I was treated by the brothers when I arrived at PSU was horrible. I was treated like a plague by almost all of them. I was told many times that I didn't belong, and that I "wasn't a real brother"- even years after graduation. This rejection (hazing?) hit me right in my insecurity and Pain. I felt worthless. I even wondered for a while if I'd made a huge mistake by transferring. In some ways, I never recovered from that. Perhaps I became so close to Judy and Virginia because of the rejection. I don't really know. What I know is that I felt alone, lonely, and vulnerable. Perhaps that is one of the (many) reasons I started drinking like I had a death wish.
I've been working on this bit for a few weeks. On November 6, I learned that one of my dearest fraternity brothers, Ty, died in a surfing accident. That puts a lot of this in perspective.
The weird caveat to this is that Judy and Virginia were both Little Sisters of a different fraternity. IF they still got to know me, etc., there's a good chance they would have strongly encouraged me to join that fraternity. It was a mid/low tier house, but some of those guys were really great. Virginia and I dated a while, and the breakup was... difficult. After that I lost touch with those brothers, but, funny enough, not the little sisters who I knew through Judy and Virginia. They invite me to tailgates and such. But I digress.
So. In the end, my undergrad experience with the fraternity was bittersweet. Had I not been a Skull, what sort of PSU experience would I have had? No idea. If I still became close to J and V, there's a chance I would've joined their house. Or not.
Then there's that whole transgender thing that I was actively suppressing then.
Knowing what I do now, and remembering who I was then... Yes, I would've joined at Drexel. I desperately wanted people to like me, and had few friends. That said, I think that, again knowing what I do now, I wouldn't take as much hazing from the PSU brothers. I would stand up to them more. There's a good chance I would've simply stopped going to the House, and let that part of me fade away... but I took an Oath. So, aside from standing up for myself, I probably would've stayed in.
It seems weekly that another story hits the news about fraternities being suspended for hazing. In the eighties, we hazed. Hard. Everyone did, despite repeated denials. Maybe those people asked about if I'd do it again after hearing one of the reports. Or if I told them about the book. I figured a fraternity would make a man out of me. As you can tell from photos and storied on this blog, it really didn't work.
Be well.
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