As a feminist and member of a women’s fraternity, I have come to the realization that people tend to see me as a case of contradiction. My friends from high school were understandably confused when I updated my status with the picture of my bid card, and while they had been supportive through the entire process, I think my family was a bit nervous to realize that I was actually going through with the decision. I like to imagine that everyone I had left back in East Texas watched with bated breath to see if I would cause a campus wide debacle at the first whisper of sexist treatment, or if perhaps I was going to cave into the life of a “cool girl”, laughing along with the misogynistic jokes and chugging luke-warm natty lights from a Bush-Reagan ’84 koozie.

Secretly, I was wondering the same things. Did I want to keep up with my social justice-vigilante routine at the risk of becoming a pariah to the community I had craved so desperately the entirety of my freshman year? Did I turn my back on all that I had learned about myself and my responsibilities in exchange for oversized comfort colors t-shirts and blurry nights filled with racially insensitive party themes and uncomfortably drunk frat boys? This was my two roads diverged in a yellow wood. It was one way or another, and everything I had been told said that my entire college experience rested in that decision. As we all know, there is no such thing as a socially conscious member of collegiate greek life...

Not.

I think it’s easy to guess that this never ended up being the case, as life is rarely so dramatic as Gossip Girl and Sorority Wars makes it seem. I was welcomed into my chapter with warmth and intellectual equals (and a vast many superiors), not a single vapid, stereotypical or uneducated girl in sight. Of course I had my stumbles, and my social media game was weak in the ways of education as I learned, straying more to the angry radicalism I thought my words were merited, but never once was I publicly shunned by the sisters who didn’t agree with me. In fact, the very women I feared would hold it against me the most were those who came to me with questions about my beliefs in order to educate themselves, rather than to humiliate me.

Have I faced adversity with the (very, very few) frat guys I’ve come into contact with who disagree with my opinions? Yes. Did life ruining, catastrophic consequences emerge from my dissent over their homophobic punch lines? No. Have fraternity men been the worst offenders of verbally berating me for my stance in gender/marriage/racial equality? Absolutely not. In fact, the support and feedback I’ve received from my brothers and sisters in Greek Life has helped lead my efforts toward genuine causes, and helped shape my intelligence into affecting others around me with positive, lasting impressions.

Starting this fall, I will be completing my final year as a collegiate member in my chapter. After three years, I have yet to become a registered republican (sorry mom), or worn a Native American headdress to a cowboys and Indians party. Yet, at the same time, I have learned that lewd comments are not worth the incensed rant on respect when made in the middle of a mixer, and I’ve learned when to say I was wrong for assuming something was inherently insensitive, rather than a unintentional oversight.

I suppose what has really come out of my experience, is a lesson in healthy balance. I don't mean to turn this into yet another article on how I never saw my self as "a typical sorority girl" because let's face it, we all get it by now, every one in greek life is a unique and special snowflake, blah blah blah. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: we are all adults now, and typically we all tend to act like adults, meaning we realize there are people with beliefs and opinions that differ from our own. Instead of throwing ourselves down and screaming in a fit of rage about it, we adjust. I've lost connections over my posts, and I've even had an alum say that I was a poor reflection on our chapter because of my "radical" behavior. But never once was I asked to choose all or nothing. I was simply asked to learn, and I guess that's kind of what I signed up for with this whole college thing in the first place.

Crazy how life works, sometimes.