Lets face it, when we all go through recruitment we hear it

again and again. “You’ll make lifelong friends here,” “These girls will be your future bridesmaids,” and it never really sinks in. When we first join a sorority, in all honesty, it’s awkward as hell. You don’t know anyone except for the few girls that recruited you, and sometimes those girls aren’t even who you expected them to be. You go to all the events and put yourself out there for what?  Free flat soda and stale chips?  

We expected to become “BFFs” right away with every single girl in the sorority. We never expected drama, or that there would be girls that we don’t get along with. We never thought that some of the events would be so boring that you would rather watch grass grow than be there. We didn’t realize that we would actually have to go to the library for study hours. It sucks. It’s boring. Trust me no one wants to be there, especially the older girls who have already been through it.  You can feel completely alone if your Big doesn’t talk to you as much as you expected. Or if sometimes you like to stay in and binge on "Gossip Girl" instead of going out every freaking Friday night. I am here to tell you that you are not alone. 

There are girls just like you who don’t like to go out every weekend.  There are girls that are probably just as obsessed with Gossip Girl as you are, and will probably have the next best series after you die a little inside when you finish it on Netflix. There are girls that have the same interests as you. There are girls that you can be awkward, weird, and 100 percent yourself around without fear of judgment. You just have to give yourself time to adjust. You have to suffer through those uncomfortable bonfires, grill outs and pitch-ins in order to get to know your pledge class. You have to spend extra time and become involved in a committee. And lets be honest; you probably should have been in studying in the library anyway.

It’s in a way like kindergarten all over again. You will say “do you want to be best friends” multiple times and half the time, that girl could very well become your best friend. You have to look at the girl beside you and be like “This is awkward,” “I feel awkward,” and I’m telling you she was probably feeling the exact same way. No one wants to be the one to say it, but we were 50-plus strangers that ended up in a sorority together, and suddenly became sisters. It takes time to really find your friend group. 

My group of friends right now is one that I’ve been waiting almost my entire life to have. The people I’m around now know exactly who I am. I cannot explain how grateful I am to have people who actually care for my well being, and are the first to realize if something is wrong. I know that if I have any kind of problem they will sit down with me and are the first to help me figure out any solution. I can be myself around them, which sometimes is extremely bizarre. I know that I have found the girls that will be my bridesmaids, and best friends for the rest of my life, but they were not that easy to find.  

I felt completely alone my first year in my sorority. I had an amazing big, but she had her own life and could not focus all of her spare time on me. I had my best friend from my Pi Chi group and that was it. We would go to the events and only talk to each other. We would isolate ourselves. We weren’t alone either; our entire pledge class seemed to have felt this way. No one said anything and that was the problem. No one told you that when you join a sorority there will be a time, no matter when, that you might consider dropping. The key is to stick it out. Give yourself to come out of your shell a little bit more. You joined this organization for a reason and you clearly wanted something more out of your college experience.  

When you join a sorority, you are not only joining a sisterhood.  But you are surrounding yourself with other women who hold the same standards and values as yourself. It is extremely hard, especially your first year of college, to find girls who you can trust. Sure it’s easy to make friends, but can you tell them all of your secrets and know that they won’t spread it across you dorm floor? Will they leave you at parties just to hook up with some guy? Will they build you up or will they tear you down? You never really know. And while, it sucks that you cannot all get along constantly. What they mean when they say, “You will find your future bridesmaids here,” is that you will find the girls that will understand and love you for who you are. Yeah there will be drama and yeah you will have to force yourself to go to random events. But when you are with your best friends anything can be fun if you make it. And while there are the few girls that you know you do not necessarily get along with, there are thousands of crazy girls outside of your sorority that you would have to go through in order to find your true friends.

As for the people who say that we are simply “paying for friends,” allow me to be blunt. The finer things in life will always come at a higher price.  And I for one have never been a fan of cheap knock-offs.