The Art Of Being An Immature Prick

WJ Cope9 years ago

Oh, the folly of youth. It’s typical to be pretty gung-ho when you’re a younger member of your house, but along with age comes a jaded, dickish attitude toward the rest of the members, as well as a few other groups. As an older member of my chapter, I’ve taken it upon myself to put together a few ways in which you can optimize your rotten behavior. After all, what’s a victory lap if you don’t use your baton to bitch-slap a few other runners along the way?

Your Whole Chapter

I’m not saying you need to be a shitty member in any way, shape, or form. However, you can still be an upstanding member of your chapter while being a complete dick about it. Take chapter meeting, for example. One way to do this is to offer a quick “C’mon, can’t we speed this up?” to an officer while they’re making an announcement. Bonus points if you do this within the first five minutes of chapter, and even more bonus points if the brother you’re interrupting has an office that is much more important than yours. Such an exchange may play out like this:

Spencer (Philanthropy Chair): “So Kappa is doing their philanthropy this afternoon and they asked me if some of us could go over beforehand and help set up chairs and all that.”

You: “SNORE! Nobody cares, Spencer. Your announcement just gave me AIDS. Next.”

Or…

Jay (Risk Management Chair): “Okay, guys. I feel like I really need to address the rampant drug use in our chapter. This is a fraternity, not an EDM festival. I’m proposing that we ban all hard drugs in the house.”

You: “I really think that this is an issue of prescription drugs. Specifically, the ones you need to heal your broken vagina, Jay. What would you do if we banned those?”

Don’t be too hard on yourself, either. Chapter meeting is always going to be an abysmal slog of bylaws and proposals. You aren’t making it that much worse.

Your Treasurer

Yes, I am literally giving you pointers on how to be an asshole to the person that has one of the most difficult jobs in your whole chapter. The thing with treasurers is that they are never thinking straight due to being stressed out all the time. Because of this, you’ll often find that certain remarks can send them straight off the deep end.

For instance:

You: “Yo, so how much are dues this month?”

Treasurer: “Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve been in this house longer than most of us; you can’t be serious about this shit. Dues were fucking 155 last month. They are fucking 155 this month. They will be fucking 155 next month. They will continue to be 155 until you graduate, which will probably be never. Now that I think of it, you’re two months behind. How in the shit are you behind? Don’t you make like 40 grand a year?”

You: “I was kidding. I know how much dues are. Speaking of which, it’ll probably be another month until I can get up to date on my balance. Times are tough, man.”

Treasurer: “You are worse than cancer.”

Other Fraternities

From what I’ve seen, people tend to go through distinct phases in regard to their attitudes toward other houses. Around the time that they first get activated, they typically have a “no new friends” attitude and get caught up in rivalries with other fraternities. As they get older, they tend to relax on this a little bit, forming friendships and becoming closer with other houses. When you’re approaching your fourth or fifth year, it can be very entertaining to revert back to that “fuck everyone else” mentality. I’ve outlined two of my favorite ways to do this:

Powerboxing: This is when you fuck with the fuse box of another house, temporarily shutting off their electricity. Once you do this, you have around ten seconds to evacuate the premises, or it’s likely that you’ll be found out and a brawl will ensue. Hell, maybe that’s what you want.

Challenging: When hanging out with a member of another fraternity in a party setting, challenge them to a shotgun or boat race. If you win, reassure him: “It’s cool, man. I remember my first beer.”

Nationals

You’ll want to tread somewhat lightly here. One false move and you can easily find yourself in a world of shit with these guys. Say, however, you haven’t been on your best behavior lately. Looks like you need to talk your way out of a bad spot with nationals. Such an exchange could play out like this:

Nationals: “Good morning. It’s come to my attention that you and several other members were involved in an incident in which you blared the song “Better With The Lights Off” when a group of sorority women walked by. What can you tell me about this?”

You: “It’s just a song. What gives?”

Nationals: “I might be inclined to believe that, but you were also observed playing “Fuck Tha Police” as a campus security vehicle went by. This sure doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

You: “I mean, it would be a stretch to call them police. They’re basically glorified mall cops.”

Nationals: “Not my point. My real concern is that you were allegedly drinking beers on your porch during this timeframe. This is against your university’s policies. Tell me a little bit about that.”

You: “You’ve got to check out these new diet coke cans. They look just like Coors Light.”

Nationals: “So you drank twelve cans of diet soda?”

You: “Uh… yeah. I have a major problem with artificial sweeteners. It’s a sensitive subject. I’d prefer if we didn’t talk about it. Listen, it’s been great, but I’ve gotta bounce.”

The trick with all of this is to toe the line between being kind of a dick and actually being an awful brother. You shouldn’t have any problem figuring this out, though. After all, you’ve been a great brother for years. You’ve earned the right to be a bit insufferable every once in a while..