Post by T J Gordon on Jan 19, 2012 14:10:09 GMT -5
Good story about "Do you buy your friends?" 
U. Nebraska Can’t Buy Brotherhood
By Mark Zmarlzy Daily (Nebraskan, 4/2/1998)
I buy my friends. I don’t have much money so they aren’t good friends. Just kidding, fellas.
That’s the reason I joined a fraternity. I figured I wouldn’t make any friends on my own so I’d better buy them. I pay for the privilege of friendship.
It is a commonly held stereotype that members of the Greek system buy their friends. There are social, pledge, and initiation fees the first year that push your total living expenses as a freshman over that of someone living in the dorms. There are also in-house scholarships, paid offices, and payment plans that reduce that cost below that of living in the dorms.
I didn’t join a fraternity because I feared I wouldn’t fit in. I joined because I thought the guys there would be loyal friends for life. On March 27, I received a reminder of that fact.
It was the last day of spring break. I was sitting around with five friends in our Panama City Beach hotel room. We were sitting around talking, waiting to go out for the evening. We were supposed to be talking about the week, women, the trip home, or what club we would be going to.
Instead we were talking about another friend of ours who was back in Nebraska. In March 1996, a brother in my fraternity came up to me at 8 am the Thursday before spring break. I had heard his little sister had passed away the night before. He walked into my room and told me when the funeral was so I could spread the word among the fraternity members.
I asked him how he was holding up, and he broke down crying. I hugged him for 10 minutes, not knowing what to say. I told him how sorry I was and that I would see him at the funeral.
I didn’t know his sister; I didn’t even know he had a sister before that morning. But I felt an instant connection to the pain he was going through and I felt devastated. The funeral was on Saturday. My fraternity brothers took off work, delayed spring break trips, put off going home, and even came back from out of town to be there in support.
When we arrived, the church was packed. There were five seats reserved in the pews for myself and the other officers. The rest of my brothers watched the funeral on a television in another building, without sound.
We weren’t there to hear the funeral service. We weren’t there to speak. We were there to support our brother. That support came in the form of simply being there for hm.
We saw our friend for a total of only 30 seconds that day. In those 30 seconds, he walked out of the church, looked over at all of us standing in the grass and said to his mother, “That’s my fraternity”.
That brother had a difficult time with the death of his sister. The next time we saw our friend he made it obvious how much our support that day meant to him. When I think of that day I think of tragedy and pain, but most of all, I think of support. Brotherhood and the fraternity experience are concepts without definition. When someone comes up to me and asks me to explain what brotherhood is, I can’t. It is something different to all members. Friendships are formed and tightened in every aspect of our lives. A simple conversation over dinner can make a friendship stronger. Fraternities and sororities add another dimension to a friendship.
Members of the Greek system are there for a common purpose, to add their abilities and skills to the organization. This common purpose and the shared experiences bond members together tighter than in a normal situation. You work and live with these same members, and it only increases that bonds that you feel.
The goal of this article is not to convert all members of this campus to Greeks. The truth is that being Greek is not for everyone. It takes a lot of time, dedication, personal sacrifice, and selflessness. The unity and friendship that results from this conscious time sacrifice has been enormous.
I could not imagine surviving and excelling the way I have over the last five years without my fraternity brothers. People in the dorms may have friendships that match or even exceed the ones I have described above. If you believe that Greeks pay for their friends, I won’t disagree with you. We pay with time, sacrifice, and ourselves.
drurygreeks.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/i-buy-my-friends-2/
U. Nebraska Can’t Buy Brotherhood
By Mark Zmarlzy Daily (Nebraskan, 4/2/1998)
I buy my friends. I don’t have much money so they aren’t good friends. Just kidding, fellas.
That’s the reason I joined a fraternity. I figured I wouldn’t make any friends on my own so I’d better buy them. I pay for the privilege of friendship.
It is a commonly held stereotype that members of the Greek system buy their friends. There are social, pledge, and initiation fees the first year that push your total living expenses as a freshman over that of someone living in the dorms. There are also in-house scholarships, paid offices, and payment plans that reduce that cost below that of living in the dorms.
I didn’t join a fraternity because I feared I wouldn’t fit in. I joined because I thought the guys there would be loyal friends for life. On March 27, I received a reminder of that fact.
It was the last day of spring break. I was sitting around with five friends in our Panama City Beach hotel room. We were sitting around talking, waiting to go out for the evening. We were supposed to be talking about the week, women, the trip home, or what club we would be going to.
Instead we were talking about another friend of ours who was back in Nebraska. In March 1996, a brother in my fraternity came up to me at 8 am the Thursday before spring break. I had heard his little sister had passed away the night before. He walked into my room and told me when the funeral was so I could spread the word among the fraternity members.
I asked him how he was holding up, and he broke down crying. I hugged him for 10 minutes, not knowing what to say. I told him how sorry I was and that I would see him at the funeral.
I didn’t know his sister; I didn’t even know he had a sister before that morning. But I felt an instant connection to the pain he was going through and I felt devastated. The funeral was on Saturday. My fraternity brothers took off work, delayed spring break trips, put off going home, and even came back from out of town to be there in support.
When we arrived, the church was packed. There were five seats reserved in the pews for myself and the other officers. The rest of my brothers watched the funeral on a television in another building, without sound.
We weren’t there to hear the funeral service. We weren’t there to speak. We were there to support our brother. That support came in the form of simply being there for hm.
We saw our friend for a total of only 30 seconds that day. In those 30 seconds, he walked out of the church, looked over at all of us standing in the grass and said to his mother, “That’s my fraternity”.
That brother had a difficult time with the death of his sister. The next time we saw our friend he made it obvious how much our support that day meant to him. When I think of that day I think of tragedy and pain, but most of all, I think of support. Brotherhood and the fraternity experience are concepts without definition. When someone comes up to me and asks me to explain what brotherhood is, I can’t. It is something different to all members. Friendships are formed and tightened in every aspect of our lives. A simple conversation over dinner can make a friendship stronger. Fraternities and sororities add another dimension to a friendship.
Members of the Greek system are there for a common purpose, to add their abilities and skills to the organization. This common purpose and the shared experiences bond members together tighter than in a normal situation. You work and live with these same members, and it only increases that bonds that you feel.
The goal of this article is not to convert all members of this campus to Greeks. The truth is that being Greek is not for everyone. It takes a lot of time, dedication, personal sacrifice, and selflessness. The unity and friendship that results from this conscious time sacrifice has been enormous.
I could not imagine surviving and excelling the way I have over the last five years without my fraternity brothers. People in the dorms may have friendships that match or even exceed the ones I have described above. If you believe that Greeks pay for their friends, I won’t disagree with you. We pay with time, sacrifice, and ourselves.
drurygreeks.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/i-buy-my-friends-2/
