I can’t decide if this is one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received, or if it’s just a huge blow to something I care dearly about and that’s a huge part of my life.     

I was flying home from my adopted state of Michigan back to New York so naturally, as soon as I’m seated on that airplane, I find myself reverting back to my East Coast mentality: “I hope there’s no one seated next to me,” “I don’t want to talk to anyone.” Not to mention the fact that I was already fighting back tears, yearning for this upcoming month of boredom to fly by so I could return to school. To my dismay — but not to my surprise — the flight was full and I had a seat buddy named Greg. I know his name because as soon as he sat down, he introduced himself and shook my hand. Clearly Greg and I were not going to be friends.   

He figured based on the amount of kids wearing University of Michigan gear on our flight that I was returning home from school. Once I told him that, while that was the case, I actually attended Michigan State, he said, “I like you better already.” That made me like Greg a little more too, but not enough to want to make small talk the whole one hour and eleven minutes. Once I knew nearly every surface level thing about this man that I could in a 15-minute conversation on an airplane, I knew he wasn’t going to give up, so instead of trying to make him get the hint, I caved and let my honorary Michigander status take the reins.   

I took out my headphones and asked Greg where he was headed in New York, and if he’d been before. We talked about the holidays in New York and how pretty all the lights and decorations were. He told me about his family and how they spent one Christmas visiting his brother in NYC and how his son sprained his wrist falling on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. But our conversation changed when I mentioned something about living in my sorority house.   

After I said this, Greg paused and gave me a confused look. He said, “A sorority? You don’t seem like a typical sorority girl.” At first I was caught off guard by this comment. I know the negative connotation society puts on “sorority girls,” but I never thought that, in context, someone would really believe it so wholeheartedly to say such a thing. I asked him to define a “typical” sorority girl and how I differed from it, and what he said astonished me. He said, “You seem very independent. I can tell you’re driven by passion rather than money by the way you talked about your future. You don’t act like you have it all figured out or that you’re better than anyone. You never spoke about partying or drinking, and you didn’t speak to me like an adult trying to impress me, you spoke to me like a person, an equal.” I was incredibly flattered, of course. I’m not sure I’ve ever received a kinder compliment in my life, and he asked me to share that he said that with my parents.   

But something still didn’t feel right. “I wasn’t the ‘exception’ in Greek Life,” I thought. The people I surround myself with are the ones who’ve shaped me into who I am and how I act. Peoples’ perception of Greek Life and “sorority girls” is so tainted by our false reputation. Yes, we might like Starbucks, and on any given day we can most likely be seen with one or more item of clothing with our letters on it around campus. We sit next to each other in class, our laptops decked out with stickers of our letters and we’re probably on Facebook or taking Buzzfeed quizzes at one point during a lecture like everyone else. But I’ve never learned more about myself and about life in the last year and a half of being at college than I ever have before, and I attribute a huge part of that to my sorority, to the people I’ve formed bonds with in it and outside of it, and to anyone else whose paths I may have crossed.

Greek life gets a bad rep as far as our excessive partying, rich parents paying for everything, including our friends, rarely showing up for class but still managing to make the Dean’s List semester after semester, expensive clothing labels and fancy cars, and thinking we’re above everyone else. But I find it so frustrating and completely untrue.   

Greek life doesn’t define us as people. It bonds us together. It gives us structure and a tight-knit community. Don’t judge a book by its cover, even if its cover is composed of Greek letter spirit jerseys, Starbucks, Uggs and iPhones.