Pledges soon learn that parties and "having fun" are not merely occasional distractions at the House; they are hallowed institutions you learn to love if you plan to stay. "You must be happy in the House," says Smilin' John. "We make a special effort to keep everyone satisfied. At times, if a pledge is having trouble, we'll make a big push to get him a date, or something."
The Brothers are so thrilled to be living under the same roof that they have trouble expressing their bliss in mere words. Everything works out right at Phi Kappa Sigma. Everyone is smiling. How can this be? These guys go to MIT, don't they?
"There's a love/hate relationship with MIT that affects most people, and often we just want to forget it," says Dave, who says he came to college "concerned about intellectual things," but now sees the value of "mindless activity." An unwritten rule forbids Brothers to discuss classes at the dining table and "it is definitely sacreligious to tool on a Friday afternoon or evening." Dave now dates "without worrying about whether she and I match up intellectually. I just don't seem to want to go to art museums or the symphony anymore when I go out." He adds, "I'm not sure if the frat itself doesn't have something to do with it."
A majority of the Brothers socialize with women from Simmons and Wellesley, upholding a symbiotic relationship between the three schools that has existed as long as most House alumni can remember. Everyone talks about THE stat: 50 per cent of all Simmons women marry MIT men. Even if it is an exaggeration, and most insist it is, MIT frat members are prone to long-standing romances with the women from Brookline Avenue, and it is not at all unusual to hear nuptials discussed over milk and cookies.
Tex on MIT-Simmons/Wellsley relationships:
"Most people who come to MIT didn't do a hell of a lot of socializing outside of high school. They arrive, well, inexperienced. Extreme excellence is abnormal in most high schools; you get excluded. So when they get a girlfriend, hey, they want to hold on and tell everybody. It becomes kind of a habit. I guess things are freer at a liberal arts school in general, and that would go hand-in-hand with the social atmosphere."
"Very bright people go out, not with imbiciles, but with women who certainly are not as bright," says Dave. MIT women are generally left to the schlumps who live in the dorms across the river, dismissed as "weird," "too different," or just "too damned ugly."
"What are you going to do? You're at MIT; it's just not a normal place," says Smilin' John, shrugging off a question about the calculated joy of fraternal living. "You've got to do these things to stick with it."
No one will force you to go to a party, or to attend a late night shots 'n' brews study break at the House, but they might come to your room and "remind you that you're doing a little too much power-tooling...you really get shit from a few guys if you don't come out and have fun," Dave admits, adding, "At times, the anti-intellectualism around here is undeniable."
***
The Brothers fear that like some sort of ghoulish Star Trek villain MIT will snatch them from behind and suck all of the life juices from their bodies. If they don't stay armed, beer mug in one hand, Simmons woman in the other, and stick together, they might be picked off one by one, left to rot in nurd purgatory. So they help each other out, getting the pledges dates, reminding a careless eager beaver that he's spending too much time under the high-intensity bulb with his organic chem models, and generally by being unnaturally cheerful.
Unfortunately, as one of their number notes, there is noticeable pressure not to over-achieve, not to push yourself mentally beyond the limits you have already discovered. "That's certainly a shame, since we are at MIT, and we're supposed to be testing ourselves."