A Cynical Brit at a Frat Party

For the sake of Tab research, I took a break from all of the work I’m doing on my year abroad in the ‘Land of Enchantment’ (more commonly known as New Mexico) and decided to go to at least one fraternity or sorority party.

The cut off point for booze… so much potential.

I spotted some girls in one of my lectures sporting their sorority’s Greek letters painted on their cheeks and t-shirts. After approaching them, I asked them to tell me about sororities.

They clearly thought I was a potential sucker (sorry, pledge) willing to exchange money for friends and promptly gave me a long spiel about the joys of sisterhood, making friends for life and philanthropic activity. Yawn…

While that sounded like great fun, I was invited to the first frat party of the year and thought this would be a much better starting point. So, just for the sake of research obviously, I accepted the invitation, donned a bed sheet and headed off to the toga party.

Some international students looking awkward in creased bed sheets.

Now, you have to know that the campus of the University of New Mexico is one of one third of all US colleges that are “dry”. This means no alcohol.

You have to know this because I did not think this kind of madness existed, but apparently it does. This also means that the party at the frat house on campus was dry.

So basically, we were sober and bemused as we were patted down by a security guard, and, as we stepped, in I instantly felt as though I’d walked into the Lemmy in June whilst wearing a Christmas jumper.

Yes, we were this sweaty.

At least in the Lemmy you can drink, the DJ occasionally plays more than old RnB, and you can feel reasonably safe navigating the dance floor without fear that some awful frat boy with shark eyes and a backwards baseball-cap isn’t going to grab your waist suddenly and make you grind on him. Oh, and did I mention that there was no alcohol?

SO MUCH GRINDING!

A few weeks later, I was offered another frat party. I thought I’d go along. This party was clearly dying down, consisting of a room, once again, with terrible music, beer pong tables and guys wearing more backwards baseball caps (why?) and basketball shorts (WHY?).

I was informed that this particular fraternity had lost its official status and that it also happened to be known around campus as the date rape frat. (I’m not even joking.)

This information, combined with being led into a bedroom full of guys and being told to “shut up, Nosering Girl” for talking to my friend, resulted in us promptly leaving.

It’s possible that I’ve just had terrible luck with sororities and fraternities so far, but all I can say is that they make the guys at Wednesday Timepiece seem, believe it or not, like absolute gentlemen.