Let me start with a personal anecdote. My boyfriend and I have been together for almost six years; we started dating in high school and we came to college together. Yeah, it's cute. After beginning our freshman year of college, I went through recruitment and pledged a sorority. My boyfriend showed moderate interest in joining a fraternity at first, receiving bids from a few well-respected houses, but ultimately decided that the non-Greek life was the life for him. Honestly, at first I thought this would be the end of my social career (that hadn't even started yet, mind you). I was upset. I didn't understand why he could possibly ever not want to join a fraternity. It didn't make sense. I loved being Greek, and we had similar interests, so why wouldn't the transitive property kick in now?

My selfishness kicked in and I found myself trying to convince him to pledge a fraternity. If I could go back and tell myself to shut up, I would. I so desperately wanted to share my Greek life experience with him, as we had been able to share so many other experiences in our previous years together. I could feel resentment creeping in between the two of us, and I didn't like it. We managed to make it this far, so why was something so trivial as our fraternal membership (or lack thereof) causing such a problem? It's not like I was forbidden from bringing non-Greeks to my sorority's functions. It's not like I was going to be shunned for dating a non-affiliate. Why, then, did I spend so much energy worrying about what wasn't there instead of what was?

The answer: college got the best of me but, luckily, it was only for a few months. I somehow absorbed this weird belief that everyone I surrounded myself with needed to be Greek. I was too caught up in labels. As I learned more and more about my sorority, got to know more of my sisters, and became an initiated member, I finally stopped feeling the need to prove my worthiness to everyone. This isn't because my sorority was pushing these thoughts onto me; rather, I was being ridiculous and imposing these ideas onto myself. I was tired of trying to keep up this weird set of standards that I had misconstrued as being "correct." Being in a fraternity, believe it or not, isn't what the world revolves around. It is, however, a big part of my life, and it is something I hold dear to my heart still today, even if my boyfriend doesn't share that same connection.

So, while there are many morals to this story, I will focus on just one: to be a Greek member who is dating a non-Greek should be seen as no different than a blonde dating a brunette. Labels don't matter. Affiliation doesn't matter. Be with someone because you love them, not because they are part of a Greek letter organization. If it matters to you, then you need to reevaluate yourself and what you find important. I did, and I've never been happier in both my relationship and in life. Don't let these weird, pretentious ideologies cloud your life the way that they clouded mine. This is not to say that Greek relationships are inherently wrong; rather, I don't want the mistakes that I made to be made by anyone else. Don’t live a life centered around sad attempts to exclude others in order to make yourself feel holier than thou. It's not worth it, I promise.