Can Independents Be Friends With Greeks?

On many college campuses, most girls seem to fit into two general categories: independents (those not affiliated with the Greek system) or Greek. Usually, the Greeks hang out with the Greeks, and the independents hang out with the independents. This happens a lot of the time because girls have a tendency to look at themselves in only one way. The independents think, "I could never be close friends with a Greek girl because we are so different" and vice versa. Well, I'm here to tell you that that statement is completely and utterly false.

For as long as I can remember, I've noticed that most girls latch onto their certain groups of friends, and sometimes won't reach outside of their comfort zones to be friends with someone who they don't have familiarity with. I know this because I was that girl. As an independent, I used to look at sorority girls and think that I could never be friends with them because we had such different values or social lives, and that they lacked individuality, but I could not have been more wrong.

My freshman year of college, I became really good friends with one of the coolest girls I had ever met. She was so laid back and down to earth, and I liked her so much that I planned to be her roommate throughout sophomore year. When that time came around, she decided that she was going to go through recruitment. In my mind, I never could have imagined in a million years seeing her join a sorority, but she did. I felt almost like I was wrong about her the whole time, and maybe she wasn't as down to earth as I had originally thought she was, all because she joined a sorority.

It took me a good month or so to see that I was being so closed-minded toward Greek life and associating myself with it at all. I could see that my roommate was beaming in all of her sorority pictures. Being Greek gave her such a sense of pride and joy that I hadn't seen from her before. I then realized that she didn't have to be just one thing. She could be the cool, laid back, down to earth girl that I'd always known, AND the sorority girl. I could still love her just the same.

Once I broke down my personal barrier between myself and Greek girls, I saw myself start to become friends with so many of them. Girls can be so judgmental of anyone that is different from themselves. In my eyes, my roommate going Greek enhanced every single wonderful thing about her, and made our friendship even stronger.

Girls, and people in general, are so much more than one label, one talent, or one group. Every single person is wonderfully unique and complex. It would be a shame to not be able to know someone's amazing attributes because of the mental label of "Greek" that you put on them and cower away from for fear of doing something outside the norm. Everyone is different, and we are all just people trying to live a great life with great people surrounding us, Greek or not.