My first year of university I ended up living in a fraternity due to my previous house arrangements falling through (Had a lease in a new building being constructed and they told me it would be finished by end of summer but that was a huge lie, still not finished 2 years later but that is a different story). The Frat house ended up being the only place I could find a private room for relatively cheap on such short notice. Anyway I started hanging out with the fraternity since I was new to town and didn't know anyone yet. I thought I had become friends with a few of them and the one I hung out with the most asked if I was going to pledge. I had never even considered joining a frat before this but they all seemed nice so decided to try. I mean I lived in the house already and everyone was really nice to me so they must not hate me.

Anyway fast forward to the end of pledge week on the day they hand out pledge offers. I am hanging out in the house living room with a few of the other new guys getting to know them when the president comes out with a bunch of envelopes. See us and goes through the stack and hands out an envelope to all the new guys but me and just kind of avoids me and doesn't say anything. I figured that the president just didn't have mine yet. The day goes on and all the new people are at the house hanging out all getting their offers except for me.

Finally not able to stand wondering why I didn't get an offer I go to my friend who had asked if I was pledging to see if he knew why I didn't get an offer. Turns out that he asked if I was going to pledge to see if I was so that he could jump subtle hint for me not to (Looking back were kind of obvious but went right over my head) because a lot of the frat brother hated me or though I was weird. He said some of them would bash me when I wasn't around, he tried to down play it but at that point it was probably more for him then me because he was fraternity brothers with those dicks.

I have never really been hated before or had issues making friends nor had I felt that feeling of rejection so badly before. I had not cried myself to sleep since I was little kid nor since but I did that night. The following months were extremely awkward because I had a lease for 6 months. I mostly stuck to my room and avoided them which is hard considering it is their house. In the end though I am glad they didn't offer. After pledge week it became clear that most of them were putting on a show to attract new members. They had a sort of motto where they would say that they were a different type of frat but after pledge week they were exactly the douchy type of person you expect in a frat. I ended finding friends I like and have moved past that sting of rejection but man will I remember that painful knotting feeling in my stomach and general emotional hurt of being reject by people pretending to be nice to your face while they secretly hated you behind your back.