A Part of the Huge Whole

It was Preference Party night. Each girl had the opportunity to be invited back to 3 houses. I only had two on my invitation list. Beta and ODP. It was down to the wire. This night would seal my fate. Before going to bed, the whole thing would be tallied. I wouldn’t find out until the next day when the Rho Gammas came to get us for the run, but I was a nervous wreck.

It had been an exhausting day. It was Sunday, so I had to get my homework for the next week started. I had my lab with Mark on Monday, and we had to work on some pre-lab assignment, which seemed ridiculous. How do you assign a lab assignment without the actual class meeting? Whatever. I am just bitter they expect me to do work, I think. Mark and I didn’t have time to meet up and actually work on it, so we just kept emailing the drafts to each other until we thought it was complete.

On top of my work, I didn’t realize that some girls were actually not getting asked to preference parties at all. This came to my attention when I went into the communal bathroom and saw a girl from down the hall, Michelle, crying hysterically in the entrance to the shower as she was getting her shower pale ready.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her cautiously. I wasn’t much for random conversation, but I have this theory about public crying—if you’re crying and go in public, you want people to ask about it. Otherwise, you’d put off human interaction.

“The—the party list...” She just started sobbing harder.

“Oh, Michelle, I’m sure you will be happy. You’ll find a house for you.”

This just set off a bigger gush of waterworks. “That’s just it!” She wailed. “I-I-I” she was getting to the hiccup part of the ugly cry. Bless her heart, she was a mess. My heart broke for her. “I didn’t get any!!!!” she yelled out in exhaustion. I could tell she was worn out.

I went over and hugged her. Granted, she was only wearing a towel, and I’m not much for touching, but she needed comfort. “You are not defined by a sorority. You’re fine. You’ll be fine. What’s meant to be will be. And just because you didn’t get any invites doesn’t mean that you can’t get a snap bid tomorrow or an open bid later.” Sororities constantly recruit. And if they see that they want more members, they’ll continue to recruit members throughout the year, open bidding. Snap bids are a scenario where the girl had not been invited to the party, but on second thought she would be a really good addition and was someone they wanted in their chapter.

I was apparently not the first person to say this to her this afternoon. She swatted me off. “You don’t know that will happen! I’m just going to have to realize this is where I am!” I nodded. I couldn’t console her. She wasn’t listening. I just patted her.

“Listen, I’m here to talk whenever you want to. Just come knock on my door. If Candace says I’m out, give me a call. I’ll come hang out. You’ll be fine; it’s just a shock right now.” I smiled and hugged her. I left without so much as a word from her.

I didn’t realize this whole thing was so hard for some girls. Here I was having a hard time picking between two awesome groups of girls, and some girls felt totally left out. Did I want to be a part of something that excluded people and hurt their feelings? Did I want to be a reason why some poor freshman trying to find her way might cry the next year? I was so conflicted. It gave me a stomach ache just thinking about it.

I arrived at ODP first. The house had a much more somber and real feeling that it had every night before. Prior to Pref the house was full of giggles, over energetic smiles, and colorful dresses. Tonight, all the girls wore a deep red. The smiles were serious, and the giggles were replaced with single red roses held by each girl. It was a total shock to my system. I was prepared for the apparent severity of the night.

Everything was much slower paced. The house didn’t shake with songs, it sang sweet lullabies. There weren’t boisterous skits, it was a thoughtful play. It made me realize, that while the girls may have excluded some people, like poor Michelle, it was because they held their sorority so dear. They loved their sorority so much that they wanted to make sure with absolute certainty that it was a good fit. And I hope Michelle finds that in everything she does in life, not just sorority rush.

As I sat there though, I realized, I was in the wrong house. I needed to be with my family. I needed to be part of something everyone in my family held dear. I needed to be some tiny spec in some huge thing that made thousands of women over the years smile with fond memories. I needed to be a Beta.