Why didn't you join a fraternity (or sorority)?

The concept of hazing was off putting, as if they are saying “I am going to degrade you in order to prove you are worthy to be one of us.”

And I have always preferred the company of women, more to look at when conversation lags.

I played too much rock and roll music at fraternities to learn that I would never learn in one.

I dislike being associated with groups in general, but I especially do not want to be portioned into a binary group. I have made plenty of friends and have had my share of fun at university.

The immediate reason is, because I didn’t start college until I was 24. I’m actually not sure if I’m actually legally allowed to join sororities at this age… But, either way, aside from the actually quite large age gap, it really didn’t sound like fun to have tons of people basically abuse the crap out of me until I bought them booze. Given their history with hazing, I’m not guessing it’d be a pressure-free environment of “Will you buy us booze?” “No” “Oh, ok…” and then never asking me again…

But, even if I had started school at 18/19 – because, I kinda can’t stand most people, and making it so I can’t leave that group and have to like all 20–30 people really is just asking for tension. Because, I’m sooo not a party (woooo-hoooo!!!) person. Because the women that normally are drawn to sororities tend to drive me up the wall and get into Mean Girls/Queen Bee-Wannabee shit, and the guys who tend to join fraternities tend to drive me up the wall and make me afraid of date rape. Because there aren’t just really aren’t sororities for political non-heterosexuals who would rather curl up with a book, a glass of wine, and some furry friends in jammies.

I was the minority in my college. No one would have asked me to join anything.

I chose a college that never considered having sororities on campus. And since it was for women only, there were no frats. either.

I never felt the need to purchase friendship.

I didn’t want to feel like I bought or was forced into having a group of friends. I chose my own in college and was very happy to do that!

I had to work my way through college. I didn’t have time for fun and games.

I was asked to, but frankly I couldn’t be bothered. I wasn’t opposed to it, but I had my own social group in the dorms and I didn’t feel like I needed another one.

I was a music student. Aside from having absolutely no free time, I was thrown into a group of people that I would be surrounded by for the next four years. I can understand if one was, say, a history major and perhaps saw different students in each of her classes, she would feel the need for a peer group. But as a music major, you have the same people in all of your classes. You’re together so much. The peer group happens very quickly.

I didn’t want my friendships preselected for me, my loyalties governed, and my social life on a tether. And I had close friends among the independents. Declaring myself an independent felt much more natural and comfortable to me as a 17-year-old than donning a uniform and becoming a mindless partisan.

• I’m not a joiner
• I worked 30hrs/week
• I was a commuter student
• I made friends just fine
• I’m not sure my school even had them

Because I’m English! No such things over here.

Because I didn’t have to pay for my friends?

I didn’t join because I couldn’t figure out why a month of humiliation and forced drinking made me more worthy as a potential friend.

If such a thing had existed in the college I went to, I wouldn;t have joined it anyway. Another opportunity to extend the bullying I’d already been subjected to all the way through school? No thanks.

Too conservative.

I have a rather strange way of responding to this question. I went to a large university, and because I wanted to be part of a smaller group I went through rush. I pledged the one in which the women DIDN’T look like all of the others, didn’t act like the others. I liked that they were all individuals. Then, while I was a pledge, I realized that they DIDN’T like that and were trying to change. That’s when I realized I’d made a horrible mistake, and dropped out. I may have been naive, I don’t know, but what I liked the most about them was the fact that they were individuals and that’s what they were trying to change.