I was in a sorority. This comes as a shock to some. Is it my lack of pink clothing or the fact that I’m gay or maybe it’s my almost-What-Not-To-Wear-worthy wardrobe? Whatever it is, it’s almost always shocking.

Curiously enough, I always wanted to be in a sorority. It’s not that my childhood idol (what up Joey on Dawson’s Creek) was in a sorority. It’s also not that I get along with women best. I would say before college, most of my friends were men. It definitely wasn’t because I was gay looking to score. First, I wasn’t that self aware as a freshmen in college – I didn’t come out till halfway through my junior year. Secondly, a sorority is the worst place to try to find other actual lesbians. Duh. So, really, I have no idea why I wanted to be in one. I guess I was always a little bit of a frat boy at heart (fun fact: I also didn’t drink at all until a couple weeks into college).

So what were my sorority years like? They were awesome. They only tried to kick me out once (Ha!) and the rest of the time, it was a non-stop train wreck of fun.

I’m 25 now. I graduated over three years ago. Yet, I got an e-mail from the current social chair asking me for advice on party planning. It took me a while to remember all the awesome functions we planned but I wrote down my extensive knowledge of themed parties and I will share it with you here:

 

 

Monopoly party: There were different rooms in the frat house themed to different spots on the board. Community Chest was a social room. Chance you drew a card that told you something to do. Railroad (or in this case Bus) stations people would play ride the bus – this is a card game that follows up the river, down the river. I can explain further if you don’t know it. A room with themed shots is always fun. I know one room was very “truth or dare” but I don’t know which monopoly space that correlated to. Sometimes you have to fake it till you make it.

 

Power Hour: This is the sort of party you couldn’t let the school administration hear about. Mainly because they are no fun and also it promotes very heavy drinking. 60 shots of beer, 1 per minute over an hour. We did this with the a frat way back in my day. You get washable markers so that people can keep a tally of how many shots they’ve taken. There are several apps out there that will change the song on a playlist every minute. This is also really cool if you can have people contribute songs and then they can guess who submitted which song while playing and drinking (smaller party). You can also pick a theme and pick songs that relate to that theme (colors, sentimental, Jay-z/beyonce, etc… I’ve had a lot of power hours so I’m not short on themes. If you really want to impress – Inception power hour has “levels” and you go from 2 minutes per song down to 15 seconds per song and then back up again. This took a really long time to A. Do the math because it still had to be 60 shots in 60 minutes and B. manually set every single song.)

 

Jurassic Park: This was the most successful party of my post-college years and it was fairly simple. Dress up like a dinosaur or a character from the movies. You can make green jello shots and put them in easter eggs. Or whatever.

 

______ is my new BFF: Based off the TV show “Paris Hilton is my new BFF,” this would be a great sorority bonding party. I did this in my post-college years and the party went like this: The contestants arrived to meet me and the host and were told they’d be given points for each activity. First I had them parallel park (pre drinking) because my BFF would need to be able to drive me around and park close to our destination. Then there was a Beirut tournament among them. Flip cup. Food challenge where they had to make food and I picked the winner but we all had snack time. We also had the mimosa challenge at the same time. I picked one mimosa and everyone else had to drink the one they had made for me (the person who put vodka in it was really screwed). Shot challenge was just taking a shot. There was a dance off where I put on a Beyonce video and we all tried to copy her moves. Kim Wetter trivia and Pop Culture trivia to end it. Good stuff. You could pick a girl in your sorority who is awesome and then get a host. Tada!

 

Karaoke: This has never been done (to my knowledge) at our school but would be awesome. Seriously, do this.

 

Keg Races: We did this sophomore year and got put on social probation, so it should only be done near the end of the semester so that probation wouldn’t be that long. Keep it a secret secret secret. No listserves. Nothing. But do it because it’s fun. 4 kegs, 4 campus houses, 1 frat base. Everyone starts at the frat then each class is assigned a house (seniors normally get the closest house, freshmen the furthest) then the whistle blows and everyone takes off to drink their keg as fast as possible and return to the frat base with their empty shell to claim victory. The year we did it, the seniors only had 13 people and they stayed at their house until the keg was killed. It was admirable.

 

Ugly Sweater party: This is difficult when it isn’t holiday time but it’s always fun. Mainly because I like holiday sweaters and spiking hot chocolate. If you do it not around the holidays, we did it with a frat and we played old board games like Connect 4, Life, etc.

 

Monday Night Football: Attendance is low for this but we did it with a frat and it was fun. You will always have the sporty types, like me, show up and it’s a great way to bond with some guys.

 

Survivor Party: This is why my college now has diversity symposiums once a year. We made a quad that was Survivor themed and we had survivor flip cup and a couple of guys showed up in blackface. No joke. A fun party that was totally ruined by their idiocy and offensiveness. People probably have forgotten the blackface incident by now so you can bring it back as a party. Just don’t invite any jackasses.

 

Animal House / Revenge of the Nerds: This can encompass anyone slash could be 80s themed slash was awesome when we did it.

 

Disney Party: This was thrown by a non-greek house when I went to college and it was fun. Imagine coming up with Disney themed drinks! You really can’t go wrong!

 

Jersey Shore function: Really, you can do a function about whatever pop culture thing people are obsessed with on campus and they will come.

 

My-Tie with the sororities: I don’t know if they still do this. We got a frat house to host it for us. Girls often have a hard time getting together money for booze, which is the biggest problem you’ll have to overcome. The last year I did it, one sorority out of three didn’t pay at all and claimed they would bring their own booze. Me and the other social chair had to guard the beer all night and it became impossible because one sorority’s dates were indistinguishable (most times) from the other sororities’ dates, meaning we were supplying the whole party despite the fact that only two had paid. It was terrible and I would never suggest doing it unless all groups pitch in. If you do it, it’s a fairly simple concept. Girls from the sorority go ask out boys for the friends anonymously. So, the girl is given a random tie and the guy must find his tie at the dance to find his date. It is an awesome way to play matchmaker.

 

Also, it’s really great to have themed drinks, but it’s better to have activities. I think that’s why the BFF party works so well – there’s a schedule and a structure that keeps people around and interested. Monopoly works well for that too.

 

Having a sorority lock-in is a good idea. We did one  sophomore year and it was lingerie themed and some girl in my class put the pictures on Facebook. We had them down within the hour but I’m sure a couple of frat boys have digital copies somewhere. Not our finest moment.

 

Don’t be afraid to get creative and really go all out in the planning. Some fraternities are willing to just buy and set up the alcohol and leave the rest of the actual set up to you. It’s a good idea to have a team of people willing to help (or as I called them “My friends who lived with me”). It’s also helpful to remember that we might go out drinking a lot more than girls. A packed social calendar could overwhelm a certain group of girls, especially in the one I was apart of. It is always going to be better to have fewer well-attended functions than more mostly-empty functions.

 

 

So that’s my advice. I swear this post is going to get someone or something in trouble. Maybe they’ll try to kick me out of my sorority again. I tried to edit it for appropriateness but you really never know. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about parties – everyone does stupid things and it doesn’t really matter if you are in a sorority or fraternity. Also, I went to a very small college and my experience was probably completely different from the norm. Let’s keep that in mind.