It’s been a year since I, and many other students, embarked on the intimidating world of Greek life. In that year, not only did I rush, receive my bid and get initiated, I also made the decision to drop. 

Greek life has always been part of what I believe to be the quintessential American college experience. I remember watching videos of girls dancing on their sorority lawns, seeing my hometown friends rush during their freshman fall and thinking that Greek life would be fun. 

In reality, I am lonely all of freshman winter. 

My friends are busy taking their 20 — maybe 22 — unit quarters and don’t have time to eat dinners together or go on weekend adventures. On the worst days, coordinating plans to go to Arrillaga Dining becomes harder than my CHEM 33 p-sets. How does one run from that isolation? How does one continue to make friends freshman winter or even spring when people are neatly settled into their friend groups?

Perhaps that is the reason the rush cycle is timed the way it is. 

During the lows, Greek life sells me a promise, one of tight female friendships and finding my place on campus.

At the end of winter quarter, I sign up to rush.

I never go through a real rush cycle. Incredibly busy with research experiments and my overflowing spring schedule, I end up in absentee rush, the entire three-day process crammed down into one evening. I can barely remember the names of the sororities or the girls I talk to as they shove questions down my throat. Where are you from? What do you like to do? What are you studying? Why are you joining Greek life?

I’m from San Jose, California. I like dancing, cycling, hiking, camping, reading and writing. I’m unfortunately still undeclared. I’m joining Greek life to find my sisters and get involved in volunteering on campus.

As I riff off these answers, I can’t help but worry about how they perceive me. What if these responses are not interesting enough? What if they don’t think I’m pretty enough for their group? What if I’m not as feminine as they want me to be?

All of a sudden, I’m fourteen again hoping that the popular girls in high school like me. These feelings of insecurity from such superficial things are ones I promised myself I would never feel again. But here I am, experiencing them all again to find my sisters.

I receive my bid the next week.

It’s the sorority I wanted, the same one my biological sister was a part of and the same one all my upperclassmen friends are in. 

The rush process is easily swept under the rug as I get initiated, meet my Big and attend my first few sorority events. Suddenly my spring social calendar is populated with darties, formals and weekly chapter meetings. 

I don’t have time to attend a lot of events, but I am not lonely. There is always someone doing something who I can tag along with. 

Summer approaches quickly, and my Greek life experience slips my mind. I haven’t necessarily found my best friends in my sorority yet, but I assume that with time they will make themselves known.

I move onto the Row in my sophomore fall, living in a house half-filled with sorority sisters and half-filled with men. I do enjoy the simplicity of living in a Row house, being able to come home every night to my friends at the dinner table. But my problems with Greek life start as soon as I move into the house. 

As we sit at the dinner table, one of the girls tells me about the behind the scenes of running the rush process. “Because Chi Omega didn’t do a normal rush cycle, we had to take all the bottom girls by default,” she tells me, trying to explain why my pledge class was so big. 

I blink back at her.

Bottom girls?

I know, and I’ve always known, that the rush process was simply girls ranking other girls. That us potential-new-members probably all fell on some sort of numbered list based on the superficial three minute conversations we had.

But to hear it spoken so brazenly is sickening. 

I don’t go to chapter once in the fall. 

I think I am going to drop my sorority. 

There’s a lot of thought that goes into it after that interaction. 

I do a lot of digging into why sororities were created in the first place and what it means to be in one. What exactly have I been unknowingly complacent about in the past half a year of my life? 

And beyond that, I also do a lot of reflection on why I joined Greek life. I wanted close female friends and a community to volunteer with. But now, I have both of those outside of Greek life. 

I am scared to drop. I live, and will continue to live, in a house with so many other members of my sorority. Plus, choosing to leave Greek life is so permanent. It’s not something where I can come back and undo my decision a couple of quarters down the line. 

I tell this truth to one of my mentors as he takes me on a walk to the edge of campus. 

He was the Director of Philanthropy of his fraternity at CMU. He tells me he met his wife through Greek life, and he enjoys hanging out with brothers from other schools whenever he arrives at a new area. Greek life is this simple experience that is able to unite people from all different backgrounds. 

But then he tells me honestly that he’s seen brothers drop and considered it himself. “If they really are your sisters,” he reminds me, “they will be even after you leave.”

I choose to drop.

Leadership doesn’t make me read a letter at chapter, or any of the other horror stories I hear about so often. In less than a week the deed is done.

I am no longer a sister. 

I am not ashamed of my adventure into Greek life. It was a part of a specific season of my life, and also a place where I met many incredible women (many of whom are still my friends since dropping) plus got to know myself better. I would never do it again, evidently, but when else will I get to say I was in an American sorority?

There are many different solutions to loneliness, but at the core of it all is simply to try. To put your foot across the threshold of an unknown room and see if it brings you joy. 

This was one of my unknown rooms, and I know enough now to close the door.