Hilary Moore: The geek meets the Greeks

I've always thought of fraternities as where the cool people from high school hang out when they get to college -- not very friendly places.

The cool people in my high school really didn't like me: I didn't smoke. I didn't drink and didn't misbehave. I loved classical music and read books under the table at lunch time. I wore glasses and clothes that were most definitely sad. I won the math and the physics prizes at the end of year. And I was a virgin.

In terms of popularity, it couldn't really get any worse. Except that I bore all my dorkiness with uncompromising pride. (For bullies, the only thing worse than a "humble" geek is a stubbornly proud one).

Nowadays, of course, I'm not much better. I mean, I'm an ethnomusicologist for starters. That's not so cool. I wear shoes from Payless, which set off my home-knitted woolies to perfection. And my curvaceous 160 pound body would make Kate Moss gasp with envy -- if we lived in a fairer world. But we don't. So that means -- well -- I'm not such hot stuff after all.

In Britain, fraternities were portrayed as something close to juvenile cults. Religious belief would center round three principle icons of worship: sex, money and alcohol. Aggressive devotion to these ideals were demanded of all members. Dedication to "brotherhood," physical indulgence and mind-altering substances were also tested with occasional rituals of group-inflicted pain.

Since arriving in America, my actual experience has been limited but hardly more positive.

As I stroll along Locust Walk, I see those imposing buildings, with the letters I don't understand above the door. Often, there is blaring music. It's not inside the building, but specifically directed out of the windows in order to impose its authority on passersby. In summer, guys loiter bare-chested on the doorstep.

Now don't get me wrong -- bare-chested men are delightful. They'd cheer me up any day. But it does feel as if the frat "territory" is bleeding out of the building onto the street, and the testosterone levels seem to be simmering just a little too high.

Every now and again, sordid scandals cloaked in mystery and intrigue leave the frats and sororities looking like dens of fatuous self-adoration and aggressive debauchery.

All in all then, they represent a strange, intense and intimidating world to somebody like me.

Of course, all these impressions are based on complete lack of first-hand experience. So last Wednesday, when I was invited to an intercultural night at a fraternity, I decided to go. Always one to confront my goblins, I was curious to see if frat houses were really as frightful as I'd imagined.

Discarding my woolies for the evening and putting on my most sophisticated pair of bargain shoes, I ventured forth into the waiting darkness.

I found myself in a light, airy, paneled front room with a large crowd of cheerful people. There were dried flowers on the mantel piece, free food and soda, and a lot of good will.

It was all remarkably wholesome -- dauntingly so. I felt no division between myself and the other people there and was refreshed and revitalized by the calm sense of community.

No doubt its more gruesome aspects are still alive and kicking, but that place, that night was somewhere nice to be. Even for me.

Of course, one positive experience doesn't mean the Greek system is transformed to sweetness and light. After all, since every fraternity has to do at least one nice thing each year, it may not mean anything at all.

But in this very brief adventure, I did find a reality I'd never expected to see -- one of multiracial inclusion, cultural vibrancy and straight-forward friendliness.

Whether you think it was simulated or sincere is up to you.

Whether the lack of representation for such positive initiatives is due to media neglect,or the fraternities' own desire to maintain a macho image of exclusion and notoriety, is also a good question.

What is certain however is that if experiences like mine were more common, campus would seem like a warmer place.

And those bare chested men -- losing their implication of self-adulation -- could provide us not only with an aesthetic improvement, but an ideological one too.

Hilary Moore is a third-year Ethnomusicology graduate student from Perth, Scotland.

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