I Rushed a Sorority and All I Got Was This Muumuu

Some time ago, I watched the Bama Rush documentary. I loved every minute, but I was struck by how little of it was relatable, even though I was in a sorority and and went through rush myself.

Of course, my small, Midwest liberal arts college was (and is) very different from the University of Alabama in many ways, including Greek life. Our chapters were local only, meaning they were unique to the college, we held rush in the spring rather than the fall, and membership dues cost less than $100.

But as I was updating the digital storage for my pictures from my time as a sorority girl—ten-plus years ago—a new reason I didn’t relate to the Bama Rush girls became clear: Greek life at my college was weird.

We had homecoming, and Greek Week, and formals, and on top of that, we had functions with other sororities and fraternities. We had these anywhere from four to six times a year, and all of them had a theme. And they did not look like the themed functions you saw on Greek.

For example, there was:

The One Where the Seniors Picked

No memory of being (what I think is supposed to be) the Big Bad Wolf.

At the end of every year, my sorority had a function where the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors were assigned a costume by a senior as part of some big mystery theme that wasn’t revealed until the function itself.

The theme my freshman year was “nerdy obsessions” and I had to dress as Spock to represent a senior’s love of Star Trek. Based solely on photos, junior year’s theme was fairytales.

When I was a senior, the theme was “college mistakes” (my idea, which I was smug about for absolutely no reason) and I made one of the girls in my group dress as the bathroom floor in reference to the aftermath of a night where some of us played Edward Winehands.

The One Where We Dressed Like Old Ladies

75% of the women in this picture are moms now.

We held a yearly function with another sorority where we all dressed in ridiculous old lady clothes that we thrifted from places around town. We called it “Tea Party.”

This was held in a popular venue for Greek functions: a cabin in the woods about 10 minutes from town that cost $50 to rent. There were unmade bunk beds lining the sides of the this cabin, but no bathrooms, necessitating a good ol’ nature pee. (The freshmen had to clean up the morning after and pay for all their sins at least ten times over in doing so.) While the cabin looked like somewhere you would go to be murdered at night, in the light of day you could see that the outside was painted with…butterflies and flowers.

At this particular function, something like 65% of the attendees would start stripping down to their underwear (or less) a couple of hours in, so finding volunteers to DD amongst the fraternities was always easy.

The One Where the World Was Ending

Our “end of the world” function with a fraternity looked less Mad Max and more homemade shaky cam horror movie. Apparently, I thought the best outfit for surviving the end of the world would be…Target combat boots, an 1800s military-style jacket (she’s giving Javert), and skinny jeans. If memory serves, several girls got mono after this function.

The most post-apocalyptic thing about this photo is the setting. The choice of event venues in Crete, Nebraska is very limited.

The One Where I Got My Way

My now-husband was wrath. He probably felt wrathful to be in attendance.

For my sophomore informal (a function where we brought dates but didn’t specifically mix with another Greek group), I lobbied hard for a Seven Deadly Sins theme.

I thought this was the smartest and coolest and most unique function theme idea anyone had probably ever, even though it basically limited everyone to seven possible costumes. (But at least it wasn’t CEOs and office hoes! Or golf bros and tennis hoes! Or GI Joes and army hoes! Or—)

Without a trace of irony, I went as pride. And as they say, pride goeth before the fall: I remember getting in the car to be DDed to the function and exactly nothing after! Whoops!

The One Where…We Were Letters?

The theme must have been Scrabble. This was another function we held with our favorite frat (we had one with them at least once a semester), boys who invited comparisons to Revenge of the Nerds, so a party where we got drunk and spelled things checks out.

The One Where I Said “Fuck It” and Was a Shark

Another informal, the theme of which was clearly masquerade and which I clearly did not care about. Because I am obnoxious, I went around telling people I was “masquerading as a shark.” I’m not sure if this was a protest move (what did I have against this theme?) or, by this point, if I was just sick of dressing up in laborious costumes every other month.

Looking through these photos came with a healthy dose of cringe, but it also reminded me of two things:

I was never cool, but at least I never dressed up in blackface. (Not saying it’s a high bar, just one that a shocking amount of politicians and celebrities haven’t met.)
My Greek experience was exceedingly strange and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. As bizarre as these memories are in retrospect, I look back on them with more fondness than embarrassment since they forged friendships that have last more than a decade. Hanging out with my sorority sisters looks different these days, but sisters we will always be.