During Formal Fall Recruitment, every chapter will ask you what you look forward to most in joining a sorority. My go to answer, every single time, was getting a “Big.” I’ve always been the older sister, and I was excited to finally have someone I could look up to and confide in beyond just a best friend. I joined a sorority to find the perfect “Big” (check), create genuine life long friendships (check), and make incredible memories (check). Little did I know that one of the biggest blessings I would be given wouldn’t even be within my chapter.
I’m talking about boys. Not the super cute ones that you gawk at during serenades or the guys you hit on during exchanges, I’m talking about finding your brothers. Now you’ve probably made plenty of guy friends in college especially in a setting like the Greek Community. But sometimes you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation where some random guy you’ve only talked to once will ask you to be his “Little,” and due the stares of the others in the room, you kind of just say “Yeah.” Sometimes it’s purely for the social reasons and you’ll never see your fraternity gentleman of a “Big” outside of the party scene, but sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you find people, a whole family, that you never knew you needed until you had them.
So maybe your life is filled with boys that you didn’t even know were your “brothers.” Here are some things to think about in determining who the “bros” are in your life.
They want to get food whenever you want to hang out, which makes you poor.
You’re a foodie, you’re always down for a slice of pizza or a fro-yo run. So your sober hangouts consist typically of going to do that, but it seems as though just a few hours later your hangouts include going to Hawaiian BBQ or Safeway at midnight. Because you don’t want to be left out, and the sight of an aisle of chips on sale is actually a message from God, you spend money. At first you don’t think it’s a big deal, but then it happens every weekend and you can’t seem to say “No” (even though your wallet wants you to)—it’s family bonding.
They know you’re upset before you do.
Maybe they’re highly attentive or you have an easy-to-read face, or maybe they have no idea what’s going on they’re just playing it safe and asking if everything is okay. No matter what the reason, you can’t help but revel in the attention and feel a little extra love when you need it most.
They share more than necessary.
Who knew that “Little” would be synonymous with “therapist”? I bet you didn’t see that one coming when you awkwardly said “yeah” that one night four months ago. I’m a firm believer that deep down boys actually have feelings, you just slightly underestimated how much feeling they would have. As someone who lives for gossip, you’re obsessed with the fact that share so much with you.
They’ll yell for you in public places.
For some odd reason they feel compelled to embarrass you. You know it’s true love when they’ll yell at you for wandering to the chip aisle because apparently you’re not a real adult and you can’t wander off in a grocery store.
They’d actually murder someone for you.
It doesn’t matter the circumstance, they’d just do it if someone ever hurt you.
So you joined a sorority and got a ton of sisters that will have you back no matter what, but you also met the type of guys that will be the big brothers you never thought you’d have. Check.
