Sorority Snooping and Other Things

I wrote ten more pages tonight! So that's twenty pages down, about fifty more to go. I figure I'm more or less 1/3rd of the way finished, especially when I take into consideration that I did a ton of research yesterday for a bunch of sections beyond the two that I was actually working on this week. I still have the trickiest sections yet to write, though, so...eh. I normally like to do the hardest bits first and save the easier stuff for later, but that just hasn't been working for me this time around. I'm finding it hard to fight the writer's block on this project for some reason, so I guess I figure if I can get the easiest parts done with first I'll at least be able to go, "Look, you've already written this much, just finish the crazy thing." At least I'm sticking to my personal schedule so far. I'm proud of myself for that.

In other news, I think my College Ex must be between girls right now because he called me last night and spent forty minutes talking about how incredible and unique I am and how jealous he is of my accomplishments (huh?) and how much I inspire him and how much he loves me (eh). And while you may think that sounds lovely, it's not really. It's flattering, yes. Of course it's flattering. But it's flattering for about three minutes and then I'd like to have an actual conversation about what's going on in my life and what's going on in his life, but no, instead I just have to listen to the endless, rambling litany of praise. It gets old quickly. And although you'd never believe it by reading how much I brag about myself here, listening to someone babble on and on about me just makes me feel incredibly awkward. By the end of the conversation I was keeping a mental tally: Times he's talked about being jealous that I presented at an academic conference-3, times he has mentioned how great it was the last time he came to visit me here-9, times he has talked about how much he loves my family-4, times he has said some variation on, "You're going to get whatever you want from life"-712 million. I tried to change the subject a dozen times, but each time I got about three sentences from him and then he was right back to talking about how wonderful I am. And you might think I'm exaggerating when I say this went on for forty minutes, but no, I'm not. And it was three in the morning. I don't know why I answered the phone, honestly, since I'm sure he was drunk or high or something. I'd forgotten how exhausting it can be to try to have an actual two-sided conversation with him. I can't figure out what's going through his mind when he calls me like that. I guess I mostly get annoyed with it because I don't feel like he's really being sincere, but since I no longer let him sleep with me in any way, shape, or form and he's well aware of that, what's the point of all the flattery if it's not sincere? It also bothers me because it's not at all mutual. As much as we had a good time together in college (we did) and as much as I care about him as a friend (I do) and as much as I don't regret all the time we spent together (I don't-at least not most of it), I don't love him like he claims to love me. From my perspective, our entire relationship was based on sexual chemistry, something I sort of realized but didn't fully acknowledge at the time, even though I was well aware that my favorite thing about him was not the sparkling conversation or the respect he showed me (ha!). The minute the sexual chemistry died, though--and what exactly killed it is still sort of a mystery, but it did die for me, utterly and completely, a little more than a year ago--everything else died, too. Unlike my feelings for Mike, I have no pressing, incessant desire to keep this guy in my life. I value his friendship and am happy to see him when I see him, but it's not a friendship that I feel the need to continue to put a lot of effort into. Talking once or twice a year would be perfectly adequate, as far as I'm concerned. And I certainly don't rehash and analyze our relationship. In my mind, it breaks down like this: I was at a point where I felt like experimenting with a casual relationship, we had a lot of sex and it was good, I tried to convince myself that maybe we could have something more than just sex but knew all along that really I was just in it for the sex, I eventually got tired of just sex and no commitment, I know he's not the sort of guy I want to be committed to, end of relationship. It's so simple. Yet it seems like in his mind it's something different. He has seemingly put me on a pedestal now that it's over, and the fact that he thinks of me like that or even feels the need to pretend to think of me like that when I rarely think of him at all makes me feel a little guilty.
And last night he told me he wants to come down here and visit me again, which...why? I just don't get it what's going through his head, I really don't.

Speaking of guys, Mike is talking to me again. My plan worked. I'm happy about that. Who knows how long the peace will last this time, but I like it better when we're trying to be friends, so that's good. And I'm proud of myself for being so rational and having it actually work in my favor.

Finally, on an entirely unrelated note, I seem to have somehow accidentally ended up on an e-mail list for the Delta Gamma sorority chapter here on campus. I have no idea how this happened, but I have yet to bother to get anyone to correct the error because I am horribly amused by the e-mail I have been getting. It seems to mostly be e-mails from an upperclassman to a group of new members. She types everything with exclamation marks. She also uses a pink font. Every e-mail ends with the phrase "Go out and Do Good!", and so I assume Do Good is a play on DG/Delta Gamma. This week's e-mail was particularly hilarious because first she referred to the "date party" over the weekend (oh man) and then she told everyone that they have to bring a flower representing themselves to this week's meeting (I really hope someone has a sense of humor and shows up with a dead flower or a weed) and then she talked about some "Daddy and Daughter" dinner which, I'm sorry, is that not incredibly creepy? "Father/Daughter" is acceptable, but "Daddy and Daughter" somehow just gets a little too Freudian and weird for my taste. And a little too "I'm sixteen years old and I'm whining because I got the BMW instead of the Jag I really wanted at my outrageously overpriced birthday party which will be featured on MTV". The best part was the part where everyone was reminded to "Dress in a Valentine's theme for the meeting: red, pink, or white shirt, jeans, and cute shoes!"
Why, why, why would any sensible woman in this day and age want to belong to a group that demands she wear "cute shoes!"? I understand--okay, I don't understand--but I could probably be convinced to see some of the positives of sorority life. Like, um...sisterhood (mostly patently false, but I bet you do meet at least a few true friends, as you do in any group of people). And I like traditions so doing something hundreds of other women have done before you, okay, that's cool. And the networking opportunities, okay, fine, I'll buy that, too. But I'm not going to include charitable contributions as a positive because only about 2 girls in any given sorority really want to do the charity work and would do it regardless of their sorority affiliation.
So yeah, I grudgingly admit there are some positives to sororities. But the simple fact is that all of those things--the friendship, the traditions, the networking--can be found in other venues. There are service fraternities, there are religious groups if that's your thing. There are a ton of groups you can join if you're that sort of join-y person that don't involve mandates on the kind of clothes you can wear and don't have philosophies that belong in the 1950s (only a twisted, corrupted 1950s where girls don't even pretend to be classy anymore and instead slut around in their halter tops and cute shoes...I'll bet you half of them got wasted before going to said "date party").
I know I technically am in no position to judge, if only because I haven't experienced it first-hand and how can you judge something if you've never tried it yourself? But I've seen it secondhand, and that's more than enough to leave me wondering why any sensible girl with a reasonable amount of self-esteem would subject herself to that sort of environment.
*Also, I'm fully aware that I make most of these judgments based on the view of sorority life I got living on campus at TCU and living with Katy [who dropped out of her sorority eventually, incidentally] I've been told by people at other schools that their sororities "aren't like that" and that TCU is an extreme case...but from what I've seen they're exactly the same here and at UT as they were there, so I think it's safe to assume that Texas at least is kind of screwy about this sorority stuff.
**Also, please don't take this as an assumption that I dislike sorority girls. Individually, I like almost all of the sorority girls I got to know personally in college. I love Katy, and she started out as the ultimate sorority girl. It's the philosophy of sororities that I'm railing against, not the people that subscribe to that philosophy.