social snubbage.

Have I ever told you my sorority story? Here's my sorority story:

When I was in college, my mom worked with a girl who attended my university. Let's call her Jessica.

One day, Jessica and I were introduced. When she found out I wasn't in a sorority, Jessica was appalled. How could this be? How was I even coping? How in the world was I making it from day to day through college life? Sororities were everything.

So sorority rush time was just around the corner. I told her I wasn't sure sorority life was really my thing, but she insisted I sign up and do it. She promised she'd tell her sorority sisters about me and say she wanted me to be part of their group, and then my whole life would be better because we could hang out and be bestest friends and I'd make lots of other bestest friends, too. I really wanted some bestest friends, so I reluctantly said okay, but only if I can be in YOUR sorority, Jessica. 

So I just had to, you know, go through the preliminaries because that was protocol. This was supposed to be a low-risk, high-yield investment opportunity.

The process went like this: 

Step 1-100 million young, sorority hopefuls get on buses. The buses take 100 million hopefuls to the 20 sorority houses for meet and greets.

Step 2-You have a meet and greet at each sorority house. You get a tour of the facility, and then you get to sit and hang out with all the sisters of that house. You are not there to have fun or make friends. You are there to impress them. You are to smile and be ecstatic and enthusiastic about whatever they talk to you about including how pink all the rooms are. 

Step 3-After the 100 million hopefuls leave the house, the sisters get together and write down the names of the hopefuls who impressed them the most. These are the girls who'll receive an invitation to come back to that house in Step 5. Steps 1-3 repeat at the 20 different houses. Steps 1-3 (x 20) last from 8:30 AM to, like, midnight or something. It was a long, exhausting day in which you must whore yourself out to strangers. I am not good at whoring myself out to strangers. I am just not good at this.

Step 4-The next day, the 100 million hopefuls find out which sororities asked them to come back.

Step 5-repeat steps 1-4 until you're narrowed down to 2-3 houses and then YOU choose.

And then a whole 'nother step process begins.

So I didn't get past Step 4. Because when I got to Step 4, I only had one sorority (ONE, as in one out of twenty, which is like .05%) ask me to come back. And you are wrong--it was NOT Jessica's sorority. It was a geeky girl sorority that wanted me. Which, with 20/20 hindsight and the wisdom of my tragic 20s and lunatic 30s under my belt, I can now see was probably the perfect fit for me and I would have made lifelong friends had I swallowed the injustice and said sheepishly, losing all sense of self-worth and dignity, "Okay." 

However, this was not my reaction as a painfully shy, insecure, desperate-for-approval 19 year old. My reaction that morning, when we each received the list of callbacks, was to break down in public, uncontrollable, wounded sobs. It's 22 years later, and I can still feel the rejection of it. I went to twenty different houses, talked to countless different girls, and not a single one of them except the house with the Einstein posters in the kitchen wanted me. I was flattered the smart chicks liked me, yet completely despondent in a very unsurprised yet still disappointed way that the snobby Tri Delts had thought me beneath them. And stinkin' Jessica? Traitor. Later when I saw her and told her what happened, she apologized and said she didn't  know what had happened. 

Rejection hurts.

At any rate, I don't like sororities. Not my kind of people. And I don't like adults, grown up people who should know better, who clique up and snub other human beings because they aren't like them. I don't like people who refuse to interact with people because they aren't "on their level" (what does that even mean? and who's level? which level? because unless you're God, someone's always one level above you and so make sure you apologize to all the people you felt superior to as you pass them hanging out in their inferior levels on your way back down and oh, you WILL one day be on your way back down, make no mistake Mr. or Ms. Hubris). And people who refuse to communicate with people because they don't have connections or can do anything for them, or they aren't "the right people" are really yucky humans, I feel. (Can you tell I'm not a good ass-kisser?)

At any rate. People who refuse to be kind to people who admire them, to people who have less than them, or to people who look or act differently than them just feel like frat people to me and I have zero tolerance for it. And I don't like cliques, or people who are abrupt and rude. When I figure out that's who I'm dealing with, I quietly stop interacting or dealing with them. (Here, let me I promise I'm not writing a passive aggressive post about anything or anyone in particular; I'm just on a weird, I-have-no-idea-where-this-is-coming-from-or-why kind of rant-y mood tonight and this has nothing to do with anything I did, said, saw, felt, or thought this week, last week, yesterday, or today...stay with me, and you'll see I'm telling the truth when I get to the end and detail what I did today, which was pretty much a repeat of this week, last week, and yesterday.)

It's also why, when I read Poets & Writers, or I see a famous person on social media refuse to interact with non-famous people, or I talk to someone who name drops or hints they get special treatment about anything, I roll my eyes so hard they almost get stuck in the back of my head. I have a list of people I'd be totally star struck by if I ever meet them...but once the ice breaks? We are all in this crap together. We all sleep, shit, and eat, darlings. Don't let Ego fly the plane--it has no idea how the landing gear works.

I'm being so judgmental, aren't I? I think I said I wanted to stop doing this in 2015. But I've had a bad day, and it's not 2015 just yet, so I'm letting myself really air it all out. 

I had a list of things to do today. I only got one thing done (the dentist, a necessary evil). The rest of the time I sat. Again, just like the other day when I was in my pajamas til 3 PM, I did nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. I did take a really long drive. And I sat and looked out a window a lot. And I cleaned up one story I can't figure out where to send. Other than that, I just...completely checked out. 

I am feeling completely checked out. Disengaged. Despondent. And really angry at sororities.** In fact, I just decided to take away Miss M's inheritance if she decides to join one.

Tomorrow, I'll grade papers and be angry about that. And I'll take the Christmas decorations down and be angry about my vacation coming to an end. And on New Year's Eve (that's tomorrow, isn't it?) I'll think about 2014 and be angry for no real reason whatsoever. And then I will blame all this anger on sororities and egomaniacs. Okay, thanks. I feel better now.

**If you are a sorority alumnus, of course I don't mean YOU. I'm sure YOUR sorority never weeded the chaff from the grain. I'm sure YOUR sorority asked back all 100 million sorority hopefuls. I bet you also gave them water, knowing they'd been talking all afternoon and didn't ask them stupid questions like what stores they preferred to shop in or if they preferred stilettos or pumps. True questions I got in 1991. True stupid, sorority questions.

But I'm fine now. It's fine. Seriously.