Making friends in college is a very different situation from high school. There are more ways to be friends with someone than just knowing them from class or a sports team. People meet in clubs, in the library, at campus jobs, or on Weekend Blitz trips. A really common way to make friends at college is by going Greek, and joining one of the social organizations on campus. That’s not really how I went about it.

I am part of a Greek organization, Alpha Psi Omega: The theater honor society. It’s a little different than joining Phi Delta Theta or Phi Mu on campus, and the similarities end around the part where we wear letters. That's all cool - I like being crafty, and I have a huge collection of letters. But being in a sorority just wasn’t for me. I don’t feel a kinship to sisterhood. It’s just not my style. This can be really funny to some people, because I’ve been asked by many people why I’m not in a sorority. A lot of people think I have the “personality” for it, whatever that’s supposed to mean. I take it as a compliment.

As a bit of a side note, making friends with girls is hard. I personally think it’s harder than finding someone to date in this crazy world. As a girl, I think it’s valid to say that girls are complicated. We’re weird.

So anyway, when I started my McDaniel college experience, I made some really great friends. Most of which ended up being male. But I also made three great female friends, like Alex, Stephanie, and Megan. Now, when we were freshmen, Megan went out for formal recruitment and joined Alpha Sigma Tau. She loves every second of it and she has a great time being a part of these women. It never really occurred to me that Alex and Stephanie would want to be a part of that too. Megan loves it, why wouldn’t they love it as well?

Alex decided to do formal recruitment the spring of our sophomore year the night before it happened. I was really shocked because I didn’t see her as a “formal recruitment sorority woo” type person. She had her ideas of what she wanted and where she wanted to go, and ended up joining Phi Alpha Mu. A few weeks later, Stephanie decided that she wanted to join as well, and here I was, all by myself.

Now I went through fall informal recruitment my freshman year. It’s something I thought I may have wanted, but after I went to a few events, I reached the conclusion that I was “Not That Girl.”

I’m ashamed to admit that I was convinced I was going to have no friends. I thought they were all going to be super involved with their sororities, we would never see each other, and I wouldn’t be a priority for them anymore. They wouldn’t want to see me anymore because I’m not part of their “exclusive little club,” and boy was I bitter about it. When Alex joined Phi Alpha Mu, I spent the entire day crying because I was convinced I had lost my best friend.

Those worries I had were simply not even close to being right. I spent time just last week with Megan and Alex working on crafts and watching Megan’s roommate play LEGO Harry Potter. Alex and I live together, so we see each other all the time. A few weeks ago I made letters for Alex and Stephanie because that’s what friends do. You support each other’s passions, activities, and decisions, even when sometimes it’s new territory for you.

The bond that I have with my three best friends will never change. The strength between us will always remain, even if they have their sisterhoods and I do not have one I belong to. And when we all graduate, we will be forever bonded by the McDaniel experience. Our ridiculous trips to McDonald's, surprise parties for each other's birthdays, spending late nights in rehearsals together, and having sleepovers. The fact that they wear letters for a social Greek organization has not and will never change the way that I feel about them as my best friends.