Why Disaffliation/Deactivating from My Chapter Was the Best Decision I Made

Have you ever walked in a room full of 40-50 people you know and yet feel like you have no friends?

That's how I felt regularly as I sit in chapter every week. After thinking about it for awhile I have decided to disaffiliating and here are my reasons:

• Chapter
• Being in a sorority is a time commitment. We have chapter at 6pm every Sunday and that lasts until at least 8. When we used to have it at our house I would need to leave 45 min before hand to get there. I always get there early because I don't like to be late. Even though it probably takes me a half hour to get back. When I add up the time thats more than an hour of traveling time.
• It takes me a long time to get to the house, because of my classes it was more convenient for me to live on the other side of campus. I was never close enough with any of the sisters on northside to walk together to chapter. I never minded walking to chapter on good sunny days but there were times when the weather wasn't so good. I remember when I had walk in the cold day when the air was freezing and the ground was slippery.
• Even though chapter changed location this past year, it's still on the other side of campus and takes me 25 minutes to get there. 
• I feel like the mandatory recrutiment clinics are the most useless things ever. Why do I need to learn how to talk to someone? I remember that when I interviewed with a bank, the CFO told be that technical skills you can learn but it's those soft skills that you can't have no matter what you do.  
• Sisterhood
• There's two instances where I'll always remember.
• Last year I wasn't feeling well at all on a Sunday. I emailed the secretary at that time and she told me that it would not count as a valid excuse unless I can't physically get out of my bed. 
• The other incident happened last semester during our retreat before classes began. I can't express enough that I hated cabin camping especially since we did it in a children's camp and the beds were really tiny. I like the outdoors but just not sleeping overnight. I couldn't sleep at the night and it was hot and I felt awful but that was beside the point. We were paired up with another sister, During dinner time I don't exactly what we were talking about but this particular sister told me that I should drop out of college. 
• Both of these girls had already graduated but it made me think that do I really want to spend time with people similar to them?
• Friends
• I was having a meeting with the president of one of the organizations I in today and what he said to me about greek life was so insightful. When you join a large organization it's very easy to say that everyone is your "friends" but in truth are they really? Spending a lot of time together doesn't equal friendship but that doesn't mean that you don't eventually make friends. What he said really applied to me. I only have a couple of my sister phone number and the ones I text I can count on my two fingers. I never hang out with any of my sisters outside of chapter. Maybe its because I'm difficult to be close with or my personality isn't compatible with the girls in my sorority. I believe myself to be an extrovert not because I'm very vocal or talkative it's because being around people energizes me. If I'm around people who are very talkative then I become very talkative also but when I hang with people who don't then I don't talk as much either.
• The girls in the sorority are pretty negative people and complain constantly. After awhile that gets really tiring. 
• Sorority
• What does my sorority mean to me? I ponder about that often. It was kinda nice in the beginning but then it slowly became more and more just going to regular meetings. I already have at least 5 meetings per week for the other orgs I'm in. Everything we isn't special anymore and just blends.
• I pay $450 a semester for dues whereas I pay around $100 for my business fraternity and zero for RHA. 
• The Greek Life here is greatly regulated because of bad publicity. There's a lot of rules and restriction. 

In the end I never cared for the chapter and the chapter never cared about me. Greek life wasn't worth the time and money and finally but most importantly not for me. As more time passed it confirms that my decision was correct. I now have flexibility in my schedule that allows me to go to things that I don't have to and have my weekends back. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramble!

XOXO,

M