Funny Look At NYU Fraternity Rush From Unknown

Okay, we have no idea who this guy is or what's his deal. He has a blog called "Mathwithanger.com" There are a bunch of easy jokes to make here but the long and short is that he must be a cracked out financial analyst, no life but with great computer skills. We did find this account of his unexplained "mission" hilarious. Read on and make of it what you can. -Not for Four Years


Oh, man alive. What have I begun?

After putting on my extra tight, bright yellow "Hug a Pineapple" T shirt, my black Hawaiian button-down (purchased in Hawaii!), Klydewon's well-worn UGA Football hat (backwards), my fading cargo pants, and shaking my head in disgust at myself in the mirror, I ventured out to what might be the beginning of the worst, most nonsensical meeting of my life. I went to my first rush meeting at NYU.

Thank the lords, I suppose, that I didn't have a hard time getting into the student center. I've never been there before, and was, even up to this point, uncertain if my ID was going to get me into the building. I surveyed the scene outside while pretending to smoke a cigarette, and luckily, there wasn't any security whatsoever, and people seemed to be coming in and out without showing an ID at all. So, I jumped in, walked through the security turnstiles, and saw the signs for the frat society upstairs. I went.

I didn't get any looks on the way to the meeting room, and once there, I was relieved to find it wasn't what I thought it was going to be: a lecture hall, but instead, it was a bunch of tables, adorned with various frats emblems, and seated behind it, there were a couple students answering questions. Each table had snacks and what not and everyone seemed to be chatting with representatives at various tables. Easy, enough, I thought.

There had been a lot of discussion prior to my first meeting as to what I should wear to create the illusion that I did, somehow, fit in. First of all, everyone I passed in the student center looked about 15 years old; I felt like a grandparent. But worst of all was my costume. I must admit, some people knew what I was in for, and encouraged me to try a different look, but I vetoed the idea and went with the old-fashioned Animal House style frat look. I looked silly; I think I probably looked like Booger from the Revenge of the Nerds movies; he always looked older too.


Anyways, the point is, I had been warned that the classic frat outfit had changed. What was once light spirited t-shirts, Hawaiian shirts, and dirty baseball caps is now armani exchange T shirts, button downs, and designer sunglasses. If my entrance to that room was a cliche movie trailer, there would have been a record scratching sound effect as I entered. I was off, as a couple people suggested, and now I know the error of my ways.

At this point, I'm still standing in the doors, yelling at myself for not heeding the warnings of some of the younger generation, when a frat boy at the closest table to the door sees me standing there, and tells me to come on in. He was nice, wearing just a coat and tie, which made me feel better, asked if I was here for recruitment week, I nodded, and offered me some cookies. He then asked, "Are you jewish?"

Again, research into my endeavors told me that I'd encounter three things at the NYU frat scene: the asian frat, the jewish frat, and the date rape frat. The research was accurate, but I was here for the date rape frats. I told the guy no, and he said, "Well, you look jewish" and then he went on a 5 minute talk about the great jewish history of Sigma Alpha Halal or something and I just sat there eating cookies.

I started to think that I had already failed in my endeavors, that even though nothing really annoying was happening just yet, that I couldn't keep the facade up any longer. I started thinking that I had already failed at this stupid, moronic project, so I did something really stupid. I wanted to leave doing something memorable, and since it was no longer going to be announcing at the pledge ceremony that I was in fact a 30 year old math professor in disguise as a pledge, decided to opt for a less clever finale: I shoved all the remaining cookies on the plate in my mouth.

I just stared at the guy, waiting for him to call the age police and reveal my true nature, but instead he stopped talking and just stared at me. After a minute of chewing, he said, "Boy, you really like those cookies, to which I replied with, "muhhm..." and managed to keep about six cookies in my mouth at once. He was still very polite, and offered me a Coke, which I took, washed down the cookies, and then he turned to some new kid who entered the room and asked the same thing, "Are you jewish?"

Now, with a soda in my hand, I suddenly felt a lot less awkward, and found myself drifting around the tables. There were what seemed two very jewish frats, two asian frats, as I had been told about, and surprisingly, one Iranian/Persian looking frat, which, humorously, looked like the ones who wore the most Armani clothing, and I could smell their cologne from across the room. There was also a gangsta frat: it had nothing but black and hispanic looking kids and they were dressed up in those large oversized hip hop styled shirts, but they had their frat letters PIA printed on them. I guess this is some new style of frat, but I felt I didn't really fit in.

The remaining frats were the cliche (minus the clothing) frats that everyone has come to hate. They all had either the token asian or black guy, who was always just another white guy in disguise. My plan, as we had prepared, was to visit PKA table. The Pike's: THE date-rate frat at NYU. They got in trouble for hazing last semester,and got kicked off of campus or something recently. It sounded perfect.

I went up to their table. Seated there were two cliche white guys, both wearing PKA t-shirts, with collared shirts underneath. Collars popped, of course. One guy was a ginger boy, and had a real smug look on his face. The other was just some musclely looking guido. I walked up to the table, introduced myself, and with a friendly, yet fiendish smile, told them I had heard about them around campus and was wondering if any of the hazing stories are true. I felt sort of sick to my stomach, but I had planned this line ahead of time and sort of wanted to shoot myself when I heard it come out of my mouth.

Ginger Boy: "Oh, brother man. What did you hear?"
Me: Just that your hazing got you into some trouble? What did you possibly do to get into trouble?

Ginger Boy looks at Guido and they drop some hand signals, that looked like gang signs. To be fair, every table had some stupid gang signals they were dropping at the other tables, and I imagined they were some Greek code for "This guy is cool" or "this guy sucks" or "we totally are in the closet about our homosexual desires." Anyways, the Guido says, "Oh, we don't haze. Nobody does.... " but then him and the Ginger Boy start giggling like crazy. Worse of all, they lean into each other and I swear to god for one second I thought they were going to kiss. After the sexual tension passed over, Ginger Boy explains that they're up to code or shit like that and promises they're all about community service and what not and they have a great image they're trying to hold up around campus. I didn't like the guy, and I really didn't like how he was looking at me, so I just nodded, said thanks, and went to the table next to theirs. They just seemed like such asswipes, I had had enough and I had felt my mission was a failure.

The table next to them were the Zeta Psi's, and as an ice breaker, they had pictures from all their exciting formal parties on the poster behind them. I was looking at the pictures when the token arab member from the photos puts his had on my shoulder and asks me to sit down. He was wearing a black button down with a red tie, (the rest of the guys had respectable suits) and the other guy at the table, a white emo looking kid with a mop swooped on his forehead was sitting there as well. They asked me if I was here for recruitment week, and I answered yes. The arab kid nods and goes on his little spiel, "We know what sort of people we're looking for at Zete, so we have got to ask, "What are you looking for?"

I had my little story sorted out before. In my head, it would take a lot longer to explain outloud, but in person it took about 4 seconds. I took a year off from school to do missionary work, came back to find all my friends were gone, and then just went to the first college that accepted me, San Francisco State, but I absolutely hated it there. My brother, who went to UGA (sorry, Bro), told me that if I needed to make friends, that a frat was a great place to do it, and he was always sad that he never had a chance to rush a frat (sorry again). So, since SFSU was totally "gay", I transferred this year to NYU because I figure that's where all the cool kids go to school and the school is big enough to have a Greek scene.

"Cool, man. Cool. Well, welcome to New York. This city is certainly exciting, and best of all, the Greek scene at NYU is killer! The city belongs to the frats."

After he said frats own the city, the time it took me to swallow my own vomit gave me a second to remind me that this was what I was looking for. This guy wasn't as smug as the PKA kids, but he thought frats were everything and so I totally initiated Plan B: Suck up to the frat kids.

"Fucking awesome. That's fucking awesome. That's certainly something I want to be part of."

We talked about more about the frat, and he promised me that besides the community work they do that it's great place and probably the best frat at NYU. He asked how old I was, and I told him, "21 in two months" which he said, "Right on," and promised me a lot of drinking in my future if I hung out with them. He even said, "Our fraternty is like Animal House on crack." (I replied, "awesome.") I was so happy that nothing more came of my age. Unlike the other tables, where the frat guys offered you forms for email lists (that included a dreadful entry for student ID's, cell phone #s, and dorm) he just pats me on the back again and says, "You'll love New York. We're having a social event for some of the people interested in our fraternity that we've met this week at Karma (bar). You should come by." I agreed, he forgot about the form, which I was happy about, and after introducing myself to the other douchebag at the table, I left, happy I didn't have to fill out anything, and that I had been invited on a second date.