No Homo | zaylor ✓

don't threaten me with a good time

By the time the first weekend of the first semester rolled around, it was already time for fraternity rushing to begin. The closest thing to friends Taylor had at the time was the friendships he shared with Zac and Hayley. But still, he barely knew Hayley and even though Zac was a cool guy, he wanted to befriend more guys.

"Are you sure you don't want to rush with me? There's free food at the event," Taylor said to his roommate in an attempt to persuade him. He didn't want to be all alone.

"It's fine," Zac said, not taking his eyes off of the screen of his phone. "I considered rushing but there's only one frat I wanted to join. But considering it's not guaranteed I would even make it into it, I'll pass."

"Oh yeah? Which frat?" Taylor asked, buttoning the last button of his dark shirt as he looked in the mirror.

"Uh, I think it was called Delta Lambda Phi. All those frats have such stupid names, it's very discouraging."

Taylor turned around with raised brows. He let out a small laugh. "Isn't that the gay frat? It would be weird for you to join."

That was the only reason Zac was interested in joining.

He let out an awkward laugh and looked at Taylor. "What? Since when? That's crazy. So glad I decided not to try to join it, thanks for letting me know."

Taylor was oblivious.

"Alright, I'll see you tonight. I'm not sure how late I'll be getting back."

The rest of that day was spent meeting various members of various fraternities. It was terrifying. Taylor did his best to not isolate himself, but social anxiety doesn't stop for anybody.

Based on how the members of some of the top frats acted towards him, he thought the night was going pretty well. Part of why he was as nervous as he was is because he knew that if he made it into any of the frats, it wasn't just immediate acceptance. To be officially accepted, the fraternity members would find something crazy that Taylor and the frat's other new members would be forced to do to prove their allegiance to the fraternity.

Sounded more like a cult once he thought about it.

There were a few fraternities that Taylor was interested in. The only thing that wasn't ideal, and partially turned Taylor away from the entire idea of rushing, was the Greek names. Not that anything was wrong with Greek, just that there was probably nobody in any of his school's fraternities that was actually of Greek descent.

By the time Taylor returned to his dorm, it was nearly midnight. Zac was fast asleep and Taylor couldn't wait to fall asleep as well.

The following weekend, the rushing experience continued. But this time, it would be decided who made it into the frats and who would be sent home. The best way Taylor could describe it was by comparing it to an episode of American Idol. Except the reward of making it into a frat involved the consumption of ridiculous amounts of alcohol and not fame (at least, not for any good reasons). And instead of being sent home they would be sent back to a gross dorm room to drown their sorrows away with the same amount of booze they would consume if they had made it into the frat.

The fraternity that Taylor felt his interview with had gone the best and he had chosen as his first preference out of all of the frats — which went by the ridiculous name of Zeta Psi — requested a second interview with him. It was more intimate, less professional than the previous one had been. (Even though the previous one hadn't been all too "professional" anyway. None of the interviews were).

This second interview involved questions about how often he liked to party, his favorite drinks, and various other questions that the frat seemed to care about more than any questions asked during the first interview.

He spoke to other fraternities for a second interview, but he had no doubt that the one that had spoken to him first was still his top pick.

By eleven o'clock that night, it was decided who made it into which frat. Then came a confusing process that was mainly for guys who had made it into multiple frats — which Taylor could not believe he did. Three fraternities wanted him, but he had to let two of them down to say that he had chosen to accept the bid from Zeta Psi.

He could put up with the ridiculous name. It would be worth it.