What it’s like being a GDI in a school of Greeks

What is “Greek Life?”

For many incoming freshman girls at UF it means a sisterhood, a group of your best girl friends to spend every waking moment of your college experience with. It’s a way of life and it’s a commitment beyond what anyone prepares you for on that first night of recruitment orientation.

Starting my freshman year at UF I was one of those freshman girls ready to spend my first week of true independence impressing the sororities of my choice because, if you aren’t in a sorority, what are you?

Participating in formal recruitment, as it turns out, is nothing like they show on TV. There are no parties, no life changing revelations about friendship and sisterhood. Just six days of sitting in the grueling August heat, praying your makeup stays in place as you walk into yet another of the many beautiful on-campus sorority houses.

However, the heat is the least of the worries weighing down the Potential New Members (PNMs). It’s the fear of, “will the girl they assigned to talk to me like me?” or “Will they notice my foundation has all but melted off?”

At the end of the day you may even find yourself running out to Walmart, after nearly twelve hours of formal recruitment to buy setting spray or grab one of the last in stock electronic fans.

Even after enduring the nearly forty-eight hours of formal recruitment over the course of six days, saying all the right things, and blotting your face with innumerable coffee filters, the reality of not getting in to your top choice is all too common. The moment after finding out you’ve been dropped feels like the universe has condemned you, doomed you to a future of social isolation. At a school where it’s go Greek or bust, you’ve found yourself on the bust side of the line, “My life’s over.”

It’s not.

The small space that is the destination of  most post recruitment depression

After your mandatory mourning period (one to two weeks is acceptable), during which you cry on the phone a lot to various family members, you move on. There’s a lot of resentment in those first few weeks, watching your friends move on and make new friends, it feels like the whole world is out having fun while you are doomed to suffer within the confines of your tiny dorm room, but after a long time of moping and punishing yourself, you make the decision to get over it.

Theres tons of stuff to do outside greek life, like take bad selfies at the stadium

There are hundreds of organizations on campus, and over 50,000 students. After a few weeks of living on campus you start to notice not everyone is wearing an anorak with letters on it or a bid day t-shirt. Once you stop zeroing in on what’s got you down you start to notice you’re not the only one on campus who busted on Greek life.

If those other people are happy being GDIs, then you can be too. After a while you may even become grateful for your trial by fire first semester, because you might come to realize you and Greek life simply are not compatible, no matter how badly the initial rejection hurt, it was for the best.

Of course there’s spring rush, which most of us swore up and down we’d participate in. If after an entire semester you’re still heartbroken, then by all means, go and give it your all. But if you’re anything like me, the months after being dropped have given you perspective.

Watching your friends who did make the cut balance their academic work, their philanthropy, their weekly chapter meetings, and overall social lives makes you grateful you were spared the stress. Of course your friends love it, they may even eat, sleep and breathe sisterhood. But to some of us it’s a relief to not have the constant stress, to be flexible in your scheduling, and to be able to spend a pleasant Friday night in with your roommate with only minimal FOMO.

Being a GDI in a school of Greeks is a scary prospect, but if you’re like me, it can change your life for the better. Though you may not start your first semester with hundreds of instant friends, you are forced to figure out what you really want out of your time in university and go grab it.

Being Greek or GDI doesn’t define you as a person, its how you cope with either that makes you who you are and defines your college experience.