College is a fun place.  At least, it should be a fun place right? Well, for those unlucky enough to call themselves freshmen (myself included), we have all found ourselves on one or several occasions caught in state of utter disappointment. 

But wait.  What about those things, those places that grant automatic entry to those of the same species.  Yes my friends.  A fraternity.  A place of acceptance, of friendship, of broken windows and shitty wood flooring, and of course:  a place that has the ability to root an everlasting supply of parties and beer.  And let’s be serious.  Existing brothers can lie to themselves and say hey this is more than a fraternity, this place is different.  They say ‘We do community service, fund raisers, tutoring, and so much more!’.  But come on.  We all know that underneath that six inch barrier of lead they call their brain there is a part of them that knows the true answer to why they joined a fraternity.  It is the embodiment of college.  It fulfills the college man’s three basic means of survival:  beer, women, and shitty living conditions.  But the price of broship is one to be reckoned with.

Joining a fraternity can be harder than finding an airline with no hidden fees (screw you Southwest).  This process, commonly referred to as “rushing”, begins with a complex combination of name tags, on the spot questionnaire, and male speed dating.  And you thought the gay bar was a sausage fest.  Throughout the week, you and anywhere from 10 to 200 other wannabe douchebags will participate in a variety of male-to-male relationship building activities, from dodgeball and barbecues, to haunted hayrides and long walks on the beach after dinner and a movie (just kidding). 

Finally, after about a week and around 15 total wasted hours, the process of meeting and greeting sixty bros comes to an end.  So now what?  Well the process varies greatly from frat to frat, but in general if you aren’t accepted you are left totally in the dark and have no idea about anything, and if you are accepted you are awoken at 2:30am by a powerful knock and a bid to the fraternity.  Yes! A bid, finally! 

But for those still unsure whether to accept the bid or not, often times the sly frat brothers will employ other modes of persuasion.  Techniques can include but are not limited to:  (1) Calling you and telling you to stand outside your dorm, then getting picked up, blindfolded,  driven in circles for two hours listening to Gimme More by Britney Spears 43 times, taken to a candle-lit basement and getting drunk in a literal shower of champagne.  (2)  Getting picked up again, being forced to drink 8 shots in fifteen minutes, and then taken to a shady strip club in downtown Ypsilanti with two twenties for lap dances and plenty of singles and not remembering any of it except the headache the next day.

If all that wasn’t enough to think about, you can always realize that asking your parents for an extra four thousand or so bucks to spend the next four years of your life with a ‘new’ family of Bros is one phone call that not even Rodney Dangerfield and his radio playing golf bag can talk his way out of.