I purchased my friends

And it was the best investment I've ever made

In college, after feeling overwhelmed at the sheer size of my university, I longed for ways to make my community smaller. In my youth, Theater had been my escape and where I found my friends. Suddenly, it became my education, my work, and the thing that occupied the majority of my time. While I love the friends I made in my program, it no longer was the escape from life. It was my entire life.

I began to feel stifled and suffocated in a way. The drama from class bled over into rehearsals. The cattiness from Friday night activities was present on the walk between classes. Any embarrassing mistake in class became the joke at the parties and vice versa. There were no boundaries and all lines were blurred.

So, I did what any girl longing for strong friendships would do, I went through Sorority Recruitment.

At the time, it was a complete 180 for me, and came as pretty big surprise to those who knew me best. I had always thought the idea of joining a group of girls where you had to fight to achieve membership was archaic and sexist. Why would I want to be friends with people who wanted to make my life miserable first? Also, as a fat girl (even a smaller fat at the time), was I willingly signing up for a public flaying of my greatest insecurities?

But it was a long weekend, and most of my friends had gone home, so I figured might as well follow the other two girls on my floor going through it. What did I have to lose?

I will be the first to admit, my perceptions of sorority life could not have been more wrong. What I ended up finding was so much more than any stereotype could ever imply. Greek life offered me exactly what I was looking for: a smaller community of diverse backgrounds and experiences.

I ended up finding a home that I would cherish for years to come, filled with women who would become not only my best friends but my family and community. They studied different subjects and came from different backgrounds. As it was a public state school, they represented not only different parts of the commonwealth but also different parts of the country. We were bonded by sisterhood and over a hundred years of tradition. Add in some imagery from my favorite Greek myth and I was hooked.

In this choice, I would lose some friends. Some from growing apart as our social circles diverged, others who told me directly that they “judged and viewed me less” because of my choice to go Greek. But my sorority sisters have remained true. They’ve seen me through the ups and downs, the deaths of loved ones, helped me change my career, were bridesmaids in my wedding, etc. It is a circle of mutual support and adoration. Joining this group was truly one of the best decisions I made during my collegiate career. And it’s even given me a community of women in adulthood, those I’ve met through alumni events, that have helped me grow to the person I am today.

A quick insult often leveraged at members of Greek like is “you had to pay for your friends,” as if most groups and organizations don’t require some sort of financial dues. This has now become an affectionate turn of phrase within our circle, where we often tell one another how happy we are to have bought our friendships. Ten plus years later and the joke is still going strong.

Maybe I did pay for them, but the return on that investment has been exponentially more beneficial than I could have predicted.

So thank you to those four women and their mentor who sought to build a secret and safe society for women on this day in 1895. Thank you to the women who came after and laid for the ideals we strive for. Thank you to girls who spoke to me during recruitment and saw a sister in me. And thank you to the friends who have filled my life with joy and laughter.