The Epitome of Refinement; A Look at Dartmouth's Greek Scene

By Michael G. Gabel | Sunday, October 1, 2006

Editor’s Note: The following narrative is purely fictional, the result of an out-of-body experience brought on by a brush with rare Panamanian parasites on the part of the author who was assigned to update the article in which we typically describe the environment and personalities found in Dartmouth’s various Greek houses. Any resemblance to real events can also be blamed on the parasites.

My new best girlfriends in the whole world and I began our first night at Dartmouth as I suspect all the other ‘10s did: in the dorms taking shots of Bacardi Island Breeze and singing along to “Since You’ve Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson repeating on iTunes. Being our very first official night out, we all clearly had on the cutest outfits we had brought with us and after ten shots with no chasers, which is what everyone here does I think, because they’re hard, we were totally ready to go out. College women on a mission, we charged into the hall with legs like new-born deer and glassy, innocent eyes, made merry with drink. Then it hit us–we hadn’t decided where to go! So back into the room we went to regroup and consider our options while we passed around the bottle of passo-guava, zero-calorie rum and blitzed our trip leaders and the ’07 guys who had been so super nice that they gave us their names as soon as we got back from the Moosilauke.

Some ’10 guys had invited us to pre-game with them in the Choates, but, even though we said we would go, we had already taken care of the pre-gaming. We wanted to go out! Emma, my totally cute roommate, has a friend on the lacrosse team who told us we could easily “get on table” at KDE, the athletic sorority, and finally learn the notorious game of “pong” that so many really super polite guys had offered to teach us, one on one, but we wanted to go somewhere with guys–a frat, for sure. But there are thirteen of them! Thirteen frats, I mean, not thirteen guys! How were we supposed to make up our minds?

Then, like a light bulb clicking on above our merry but really pretty and totally smart heads, we heard the new, but familiar, bong bong of my awesome new iBook’s blitz alert. It was from my trip leader, an ‘07 Theta Delta Chi brother or, as they call themselves, “sweet-a-Delts.” Everything was in caps and his spelling was terrible, but he had the key to all our problems. It was settled; we decided to undertake the challenge of a “Circuit.”

According to the rules of The Circuit, we would go to every fraternity in one night and drink at least one beer or house-drink at each, making Theta Delt our last stop (which isn’t actually a rule, but my trip leader said it was the best way logistically or something, and that it was pretty much like an unwritten rule anyway). We were officially totally cute and hot and smart college girls on a mission and we set out into the crisp Hanover night.

That’s when things started to get a little hazy to say the least. But after sitting in The Hop for an hour this morning while my trip leader ate his daily breakfast of three Workout Specials, I slowly began to piece my night together as I checked blitz, hoping for news of my lost North Face fleece (cute pink, with blue shoulders–if you’ve seen it, blitz me) which had my new hot pink SLVR phone in the pocket. As far as I can tell, it went something like this:

10:34 – The girls and I leave my room in The River, and are thoroughly buzzed and determined to not only complete the circuit, but kick its butt!

10:46 – We make it to Webster Ave. unscathed and realize the party didn’t wait on us to get started. Already teeming with obnoxiously large ‘shmobs, the street resembles more of an awkward circus than a road.

10:48 – We decide we need to make a game plan if we want to survive the night, let alone complete the circuit. And we totally couldn’t leave each other alone anywhere with any guys. We decide to start at the Northeast corner of Webster, work our way down and back up, cut through Novack and get some sugar free Red Bulls (and a bagel for Emma, because she’s a lacrosse player and needs a lot of carbs), make our way down to the two frats by the gymnasium, then up towards Thayer for the last leg and final two stops of the circuit.

10:50 – Our first frat! The line outside Kappa Kappa Kappa’s dance party reminds us all of that movie with Ryan Phillipe about Studio 54. Instead of Steve Rubell, a short Asian brother stands guard at the door, deciding who gets in and who must wait. We quickly get ushered inside ahead of everyone else, because this huge line consists entirely of boys. A few sweaty students stagger out to get some air. Obviously our cute outfits have worked.

10:51 – We get blasted by the heat and moisture flooding from the throbbing dance floor. The pulsing of fluorescent lights and a blown out PA system is overwhelming, so we decide to head downstairs in search of a cold beverage, maybe a Mike’s Hard Ice Tea.

10:53 – The structural stability of the house does little to hide its age—it is the oldest of the local fraternities. Despite the danger of the ceiling collapsing under the sheer force of two hundred dry-humping bodies, the basement is packed. Brothers are playing intense games of pong under ancient legalistic house rules from the Orient and doling out keg cups as fast as they can fill them with foam. We make sure all the girls drink at least one and decide to move on. We had a long night ahead of us.

11:00 – Next stop is Gamma Delta Chi, the archetypal football fraternity. Inside the house, a group of exceptionally large brothers is hovering around an even larger mound of greasy EBA’s steak bombs. We decide to eat a little something so we’ll have enough energy for the rest of the night.

11:02 – The girls and I make a solemn pact not to succumb to the dreaded freshman fifteen (except Emma, who wants to be a starter this year).

11:10 – The sounds from the basement make us wonder if the house is holding a late-night scrimmage, but we all head down anyway. After all, we must pay our dues to every frat. We all notice a massive sunken room as we move down the basement stairs. “I heard it’s a pool,” says Amanda. “No, it’s a racquetball court,” replies Jenny. A massive passing brother yells, “Yeah, that didn’t work. The Pit’s for PONG!!” Mystery solved.

11:12 – Downstairs, we quickly get beers. The brothers are drunk, sweaty, and quick to shed their shirts and high five each other, but they pay little attention to us. Masculine shouts erupt as a push-up contest breaks out. After the contest ends, more high-fiving ensues, followed by gratuitous ass-smacking and reenactments of the beach volleyball scene from Top Gun. We decide to move on when Kristy identifies the strange smell in the basement as raw meat.

11:32 – We ask a swerving awk’ rando’ on the street what the name of the next frat house is. He informs us that it is not a frat, but The Tabard, an eclectic co-ed house popular with singers and tie-dyed ultimate types. He leaves us with the warning: “Don’t knock on any doors on the third floor.” Whatever that means. “Skip it,” we all chime.

11:35 – The next stop on the circuit is Chi Gamma Epsilon, which we assume, from the epileptic nightmare of lights flashing out of the first floor windows, is also hosting a dance party. As we walk down the path to the front door, an older looking female student grabs us and tells us we look like ‘10s. We wonder if that’s a bad thing. “In there it might be…,” she advises as she disappears into the throngs of partygoers on Webster Ave. It can’t be that bad we all agree. After quickly flashing our Dartmouth IDs at the door, we go inside.

11:36 – It’s that bad. Brothers are gyrating and vibrating on the dance floor like defective Brookstone massage chairs.

11:38 – Fending off propositions to dance left and right, we seek refuge in the safety of the basement’s much more chilled out scene. A lot of guys are playing Ship; it looks like pong, but the formation is way different. We want to try it, but it takes literally forever to play one game, so we head to the bar. Regardless of hundreds of ’10 guys promising their first born daughters to any brother who will fill their cups, we promptly receive brimming cups of cold–well–foam from two friendly brothers, although they also accept a number of firstborn daughter offers. We strike up a good conversation with them until Kirsten mistakes cigar smoke for a fire, sending the two guys bolting up the stairs shouting, “Oh no, not again!” Seems like our cue to move on.

12:10 – Giggling like hyenas, we arrive at the back door (we heard that’s how everyone gets in) of the stately looking white house next to Chi Gam. We knock loudly and patiently wait for a Phi Delt to grant us entry.

12:11 – We’re still waiting when the door flings open, sending an unsteady brother flying outside. Covered head-to-toe in what looks like red Kool-aid, he regains his composure and holds the door open for us with a smile. Most of the brothers inside are playing some type of dice game or pong and appear in a similarly disheveled state as that of our greeter. There aren’t many girls, and the ones who are there aren’t really talking to anyone. But our circuit must go on. The “rigs” are in the cases on the floor, we’re told, so we all grab one, crack it open, and drink it. They are lukewarm at best.

12:15 to 12:45 – Completely unintelligible singing breaks out around a trash can full of whatever was on the brother at the door. Since we’d finished our drinks and some guy got dropped on his face during the song, we discreetly leave the rugby-shirt-clad and/or no-shirt-clad scene.

12:48 – We go next door to KDE, which isn’t technically a fraternity, although they pretend to be. We try to learn pong, but keep asking for water cups to wash our balls in and are quickly asked to leave the tables. We’re not in high school any more.

12:50 – ? – Margarita Mondays as Sig Ep. Whatever. There are a lot of brothers. I stopped counting at seventy. Most of them are busy talking to each other, or freshmen guys. They all seemed real nice though, not at all hard or steaky like the GDX guys. Kind of soft, though. There are a few pong tables going, but it’s not normal pong. We’re told that it’s “line,” but are strongly assured that there’s just as much beer.

1:10 – We go into a house called Alpha Chi Alpha, which looks like my family’s totally cute cottage on the Cape that we always spend our summers at since, like, forever. It’s really clean inside and the red walls are much nicer than Phi Delt’s decrepit grimness, which is a word we overheard at Phi Delt before some unshaven guy spat on our feet, and tried to make us apologize for being in his “dipping zone,” whatever that is. Besides the house, there’s not much that distinguished Alpha Chi. It was kind of generic for us.

1:24 – We see this guy “boot and rally,” whatever that means, but it reminds me of my friend Kelly from back home, who wants to be a model.

1:29 – We walk into Sig Nu, the house across the street from Alpha Chi. It’s really cool inside because they let us play our own game of pong with water (line again), even though there’s only one brother down in the basement, and he’s passed out in a corner, under a bench, I think. We left because it seemed like the scene had already ended earlier in the night. Pong there was way fun though.

1:52 – We’re down in the basement of Bones Gate now, I think, but it’s really super hard to see anything through the skunky-smelling smoky haze throughout the house. There are a bunch of brothers drinking out of an oversized soup ladle who try to explain to us that “Bones” and “Gate” aren’t really Greek letters, but the name of a pub in England. They seem nice because they said they left their national frat because the national wouldn’t let minorities in. We can’t make out another word they’re saying, except “whippit,” but we don’t like Devo, so we leave.

2:15 – We go next door, I think to a fraternity, but I’m not sure, because there are guys from our class who are already brothers. I’ve never seen any of them around campus before, or in Food Court (although maybe that’s because I totally only eat at Home Plate or Collis). There’s a portly fellow in a “Ladue Hockey” hat making a sandwich, who tells us we’re in Zeta Psi and offers us sandwiches as well. We refuse, and they let us play pong for a while. We don’t care about the water cups anymore, which is good because they’re completely out of cups. So we leave.

2:30 – We walk through Novack, but it’s closed, except for the sandwich vending machines, and those are gross.

2:45 – We walk up a path to SAE flanked by big lions on either side and Jenny totally rides one, so we take a picture for Facebook! She falls on her face. A brother dressed in the kind of critter shorts that my grandfather wears on Nantucket when he takes us out on our boat answers the door, and tells us that he too owns a boat. He’s drinking champagne and offers us some. Delighted with his suave gesture we go inside, and it’s so totally like my country club back home that I want to just scream! Then another brother, wearing shorts of a different critter (I think some type of crustacean) invites us down to the basement, where their rush chair is blacked out and graciously offers to pull our triggers.

2:51 – We decline; he pulls his own. Twice.

3:00 – We’re out of SAE, but make a note to ourselves to come to their huge beach party in the Winter. They bring in tons of real sand! I think directly from Cape Cod! We head down to this really cool building, which doesn’t have any letters on it, just a big iron door. We knock a bunch of times but nobody comes out, so we try the side door. A brother in a sphinx mask answers and tells us to leave or be part of next week’s “ritual,” whatever that is. He also tells us that “our rules supersede those of the outside world,” and that their members have “always chosen war above all other ordeals.” These guys are like this weird group my great-grandfather was in at Yale, but not as cool.

3:06 – That was really weird, but Emma thinks she recognized the guy as Lucas Macnamara. We keep walking down to Alpha Delta, although I guess we could’ve taken the secret tunnel that connects the two buildings. By this time AD is pretty grim, and the basement smells like an exposed sewer, which it is. There was even a guy peeing next to the wall. That’s sooo gross. But we heard AD is the actual Animal House, so we stay anyway. And the guys are chill, even with the pee.

3:10 – We went to a soccer game last week, and we totally see a lot of the players here. It’s sweet! One guy is dancing on a turned-over pong table in his boxers to “Sandstorm” by Darude and yelling about hippies and defenestration. Whatever.

3:12 – AD is out of cups, so brothers hold keg tubes down our throats. The ones behind the bar are naked and have crazy mustaches that resemble fruit mold, but less thick or well grown-in. The basement dance party was fun, but it got kind of weird when there wasn’t much beer left, so we went next door to Heorot, but said we’ll definitely go back to AD soon.

3:30 – Inside of Chi Heorot there are a lot of big guys throwing trash cans into the walls of their basement; they’re all wearing ice skates and/or jousting with oars. They’ve got a huge basement for pong, and the benches in the back room are packed with really pretty girls, just like me! They said they’re here to hang out with the hockey guys before their pre-season starts. I’m so pumped to go to hockey games!

3:35 – We find a keg behind a life-sized Wayne Gretzky cardboard cutout in the corner, pay our dues to the circuit and then we’re gone, like my new North Face fleece.

3:40 – During the long trek to Psi Upsilon, we dance the red light/green light dance that is S&S drive-bys. Luckily, we heard that S&S only picks up guys (except for Jenny, sorry babe, we’ll come keep you company in Dick’s House in the morning).

3:50 – Psi U is serving “porchcrawlers,” which they swear they don’t pee in. They totally taste exactly like orange Jolly Ranchers. Three separate brothers try to pick us up with the line, “You know who you remind me of? Jenn Sterger.” We tell the brothers were on a mission and that we need to make it to Theta Delt before the night is through. They hang their heads with a look of defeat. The basement smells a lot like AD’s, but kind of like chlorine too.

3:55 – I think there were already pledges there. They all dressed the same, and their faces looked like a little kid I saw on a Save the Children for a Dollar a Day commercial. A lot of them are trying to stay dry for swim season (like, real swimming, not the beach like I do on Nantucket), but not doing well with it.

4:07 – Last frat! As we enter Theta Delt, I see a girl with tussled hair and smeared lipstick walking out with a North Face fleece that looks just like mine. My trip leader is waiting inside with a rack of Keystones that he prepared especially for us. They taste funny, but we gulp them down, because it’s the circuit and we’re totally raging. The place is totally packed, but someone said it’s always like that on weekends at least.

4:08 – Emma likes being here because she says laxers have to stick together. We get tons of attention from a lot of guys, even ones who aren’t brothers. But it looks like there are plenty of girls hanging out too, so I’m fine with it.

4:09 – We stop making new memories.

10:30am – The guy behind the grill at the Hop asks us to please move along. My trip leader grabs a handful of sweet and sour sauce to go with his Workout Specials. Again we are asked to please move along. We find a table far from any natural light source and I go to check blitz. There is no word of my jacket.

The Epitome of Refinement; A Look at Dartmouth's Greek Scene

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