The first thing I remember was how cold the room was. Normally a broken heater at the fraternity house wouldn’t be such a bad thing in late September 2014, but it was eerily cold. Case of bad luck I supposed. However, my “bad luck” did not end there.
When the chapter president and Herald entered the room, the hairs on my back shot up. Why was I called here? Why I am I the only pledge in the room? What’s the president doing here? All these questions and thoughts clouded my mind until the president spoke my name. In the beginning, it was nothing serious. He complimented on my “diligent” commitment in completing my pledge chores and my endeavor to present the fraternity to the best of my ability. Then... the true purpose of this meeting went into the limelight.
Due to an overwhelming majority vote, the brothers of the fraternity has decided to drop me from the pledging process. The reason? My delinquency at their last social as well as the fact that I was “distant” with most of the brothers.
Obviously, I didn’t take the news well. I asked every possible question, every imaginable loophole, hell, any fucking solution that would put me back under the fraternity’s wing. But the president would not have it. The fraternity would not have it.
The final handshake was firm but cold like the room. As I went down the stairs to the sidewalk, I became more and more demoralized with every step. David Jin, great job, you fucked it all up. Literally the chance to change everything about me from high school....an opportunity to not feel lonely in this forsaken world…gone down the drain. I had felt I had tried every conceivable way to feel belonged at Berkeley. My dorm floor. School clubs. IM sports. But every attempt, was met with failure and disappointment. Frankly, I had no idea what to do after I was dropped. Adding that on top of my grandpa’s passing and my friend’s recent attempted suicide, at the time…let’s say I was in a dark place…a very familiar dark place.
For the remainder of the week, I began to openly disgrace Greek life to everyone I came in contact with. I wrongly shifted my anger and sadness onto the Greek community that was undeserving of any of my degrading comments. Like a child in full tantrum, I blamed everything and everyone but myself for my emotional state. Looking back at it now, it’s ironic that I previously thought such negative thoughts about the community that I’m proud to be a part of now.
After four days of negativity had passed, I received a surprising text. One of the brothers hit me up, saying he wanted to get lunch with me at the Golden Bear Café. He claimed he wanted to “catch up and talk things out”. At first I thought he just wanted to use my meal points to buy him chicken strips, but a part of me wanted to talk to him. I wanted answers to why he, out of everyone, out of all the brothers, would want to talk to me.
As I expected, the moment I met him at the café, he immediately begged me to buy him the infamous chicken strips. Reluctantly, I appeased his request. When we sat down to eat, he went off the usual “how are you” and “how are classes” talk. At the time, I was infuriated. This brother is only using me to get him free lunch. He had the gall to ask a guy, that his fraternity dropped, to help him out. The whole deal appeared outrageous.
As I was about to leave, the brother noticed my irritation and diverted his attention away from his half-eaten strips and focused on talking to me. As he talked, he had this strange calm demeanor about him that made me wanted to listen (despite my initial annoyance). He started to explain how before he joined the fraternity, that he too battled with depression and other problems that ate away at his resolve. He told me how the fraternity, despite having both ups and downs, had helped him find that solid group of close friends, that solid foundation of support at Berkeley that he had always wanted and needed…which was the very thing I have been looking for.
Toward the end of his talk, he finally answered the question that I had before this conversation began. During his pledging process, he was almost dropped due to an arising conflict with a couple of the brothers. When he learned about his potential termination as a pledge, he carried the same sadness and disappointment I felt when I was in that room. However, the brother managed to absolve the conflict and gained the approval of the other brothers to continue pledging and later on, to initiate.
Out of all of that, he wanted to tell me, that he knew how it felt when I was dropped. He knew about my thought process that sent me spiraling down to a deep pit of darkness, the one that I was in after I was dropped. He knew the anger and frustration that I directed towards the fraternity and the Greek community, because he has felt it before.
To be honest I was stunned. To have someone in a fraternity relate to how I felt as someone outside of Greek life seemed impossible. I was so caught up in my emotions that I had forgot the most vital point in life. The sisters and brothers in Greek life are as much human as any other person outside of Greek life. They have the same emotions, the same motivations, and in my case, the same needs and wants for close-knit relationships. In the end, we are all looking for somewhere to fit in. Somewhere to belong.
As I thought more logically, the more embarrassed and self-disappointed I felt. I should not have told everyone that joining Greek life was a bad decision. It was a completely selfish action, something to this day that I am not proud of.
The cliché silence filled the air as I was taking it all in. The brother resumed to finishing his chicken strips and with the final bite, told me one last thing. He suggested that I rush again. That I should give Greek life a “second chance”. He compared fraternities to apples, how not every apple is going be delicious and ripe when you buy them, but you live and eat the apples that do (honestly I laughed when I heard this analogy, but I guess it works).
He gave me the hope that I needed, the hope to not give up on my desires and to continue to strive towards them. As we departed, he called me one of his “homies” and a potential “alpha” (look it up on urban dictionary). It was a nice ending to the conversation. Unfortunately, those were the last words that he ever said to me in person….
It was after Halloween, when I saw the news on Facebook. The height he had fallen from was high enough to where death was inevitable. When I attended the memorial service, with his fraternity brothers and loved ones, tears covered me, like a warm blanket. He had completely understood the pain I had felt and showed the most genuine care that I had ever seen, for someone who belligerently battered him and the community that he was a part of. I barely knew anything about him. His past life, his relationships, nada. But with a single conversation (and of course chicken strips), he had moved me in such a way that I was able to crawl out of the dark hole that I was in and bask into the light that life offers. And I owe him for that.
The next semester rolls by. Another set of courses. Another week of rush. As I went up to fraternity row, I hesitated and stopped my walk. Do I really want to do this? Will anyone in the community accept me after all the things I said? Then I started to think to what he would do. I started to think about the last conversation I had with him and how much he was in touch with me. I started to think about how much he made an impact on me and so many other people he encountered in his life. I felt the need to follow his advice. To honor his memory.
Flash forward to two years later aka the present. I am now a proud member of the Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity, Hilgard Chapter at UC Berkeley. I am the current social chair and have planned multiple socials and exchanges for the past 2 years. I give back to the Greek community as the Executive Vice President of CalGreeks Alcohol Taskforce, by enursing the safety of all guests, brothers, and sisters at Greek social events. I have participated in numerous Greek-affiliated philanthropy events held by other fraternities and sororities. And most importantly, I have found a close-knit group of men (with questionable maturity) that I can call as brothers. I had finally obtained what I had wanted for so long.
From time to time, the memory of the GBC conversation had with the brother comes up and I reminisce in the words that he said to me that day. Thank you, is what I should have said to him before he left. Without his guidance and care, I probably would have never joined Greek life, would have never been able to enjoy the experiences I had with my brothers. My happiest moments happened with my fraternity and, I definitely wouldn't trade it for anything in the world (well maybe to gain entry for medical school, #RIPpre-meds).
I was fortunate and blessed to meet a person who would encourage and motivate me to join the very thing that composes the majority of my life today. Now, I talk to those outside of Greek life who had shared similar feelings about the Greek community as I felt during my first semester at Cal. I hope that I change the jarred perspective that they have toward fraternities and sororities. Just as he made an impact on my life, I wish to do the same for others. It’s the least I can do for the community that has given so much to me and for the brother that had pushed me to become the person I am today.
