Being gay in a fraternity has not been the easiest experience. I joined Alpha Epsilon Pi as a wandering, socially inept freshman. I was at lunch at Hillel and one of the brothers of the fraternity, a fellow psychology major, took an interest in me. He brought me out to a party, and after meeting and liking several of the brothers, I decided on Alpha Epsilon Pi.
Pledging was a tough experience. As a pledge, you’re already at the bottom of the totem pole. Being as socially awkward as I was made things even more difficult. Eventually, I made it into the fraternity. I lived in my sophomore year, but it was a tough time for me. There was a lot about the fraternity that I didn’t like: the culture of masculinity, excessive drinking, and the elevation of the hook-up culture. As an insecure sophomore, I felt a lot of pressure to conform to expectations.
At that point, I was unsure of my sexuality. I drunkenly hooked-up with a half-dozen girls and it didn’t feel great. I assumed that that was because drunken hook-ups weren’t as good as people said they were. I joined a group for queer Jews on campus called Hineini, but I couldn’t relate to the politically active queer folks there. I decided that I needed to get away from the “fratmosphere,” so I embarked on a year-long trip to Madrid to study abroad.
It was rough at first. I dealt with unrequited love, communication difficulties, hardships making friends, and an over-reliance on technology to soothe my discomfort. I went to Paris for New Year’s, saw the nude male statues at the Louvre, and realized that I’m gay. The rest of my time there was about understanding that and growing to accept myself. I made friends with other gay men and learned how to relate to them platonically. I met older gay men who were comfortable with their sexuality. I spent countless hours in my room researching the dynamics of gay culture. I had an unfortunate experience with another man.
I returned home from Madrid. Once back home, I was more insecure than I had ever been. I came out to my friends and the message was received well. The problem was that my sensibilities weren’t understood by most brothers. They didn’t understand why I wanted to tuck brothers into bed at night or why I said “aww” so much. If my first quarter was about climbing out of the depths I was in after I returned from my year in Spain, the second quarter was about branching out beyond the “CoHo” (Coffee House) and the Jewish fraternity and continuing to become comfortable interacting with people and developing relationships.
My job at the Coffee House had me constantly interacting with my peers while learning how to relate to them confidently. I went to various communities – the LGBT community, Hillel, Chabad, Sick Spits spoken word poetry, the Turtle House, the Domes, people from classes, yoga classes, Active Minds (a mental health advocacy club), and other places. Slowly, I came to understand what it was like to “vibe with people,” when a relationship is worth pursuing, and how to cope with rejection. As a sensitive person who craves intellectual, philosophical, emotional, psychological, and other types of intimacy, I need to have a genuine connection with people, and that requires a personal, one-on-one, meaningful face-to-face interaction. I came to understand that compatibility is not just about shared interests.
I’ll be graduating soon. I have made so much progress and have gone through so many growing pains in my last year alone to know that I have earned my psychology degree. I want to take everything I’ve learned here and help people on a personal level as a psychologist or a therapist. I look forward to the real word because it’s real –not some bubble. Don’t get me wrong—college is a great learning environment where I have enough time to make mistakes, learn, and have 30-minute intellectual conversations with random professors, and I’m going to miss this open environment. But the real world will definitely have a better gay dating scene, and I’m going to meet a lot of like-minded people in graduate school. Still, I want to make the most of my last quarter here.
I want to continue to be a role model for the younger brothers in the fraternity. Being gay has allowed me to distance myself from the culture of objectifying women, and I try to spread consciousness about that issue all of the time. I provide an empathic listener role to many in the fraternity. There are people from other cliques who come to me because they cannot be emotionally available with their friends, and I lend a patient ear to them. My sensibilities make it tough to live in the fraternity house sometimes, as it’s a loud, drunken environment, and I prefer quieter, more sober surroundings, but I have been able to bond with the more sensitive people in the house, like “ATP,” a self-proclaimed empath with a cat, a girlfriend, French sensibilities, keen observational skills, and the desire for intimate conversations with others.
Ultimately, being in the fraternity has taught me about respecting myself enough not to engage in activities that I’m not interested in and not to try too hard to connect with people who are predisposed towards not liking me. It’s all about being myself in various environments and seeing who gravitates towards me and vice-versa. Understanding my sexuality has been key in that, as it has allowed me to become more comfortable with myself and that has, in turn, made people more comfortable around me. I’m slowly learning how I relate to people, and where I fit in in this giant campus. Even though I’m sad to be leaving, I will be bringing myself, with all of the things that I have learned, to the real world.
Oh, one last thing—Jewish boys are the best.
The author has requested anonymity.
