Maintaining Perspective on the Club System

Every time I've run into a friend in the last month, we've talked about eating clubs and other options. I've found that many people don't really want to deal with the decision at all, or at least feel like it's too much of a hassle right now.

Consider the reactions of two people I know when they got into clubs they had signed into. One ran away when she heard _____'s pickup group approaching her building saying, "I don't want to go to _____, I have to go to the 'Prince!'" (no, it wasn't me). Another retreated to the basement music room while she waited for a different eating club to leave because she "would rather watch anime." They don't hate eating clubs, but they are starting to realize that it's just taking up too much time and energy. Yet, I'd say this is the least of the problems with the eating club system.

I never thought choosing where to eat could be such a time-consuming, even angsty issue. I'd heard about the eating clubs before I got to Princeton, and I still remember the woman who conducted my Princeton interview cringing when I asked what she thought about the system. Her first response was, "Why do you ask that?" She was that sensitive about it, even as an alumna ten years removed from old Nassau.

I'm starting to get sensitive about the topic myself. At the beginning of freshman year, my OA leader took some of my group to _____ the first night back, mostly so we could check our email and see his room. He loved _____ and told us, "I don't go to Princeton; I go to _____." So for the first week or two, I was gung-ho _____.

My attitude has changed a lot since then. My feelings about eating clubs are mostly of frustration that such a stupid thing, like where to eat, causes so much stress for so many people. In the last few weeks, I've seen too many people anxious about choosing an eating club, worrying about straining friendships, or, less common, thinking about the hazards of independence or a coop. Luckily for me, two circumstances in the last two weeks have put the whole situation in a larger perspective.

First, was a visit to Yale, a lesser institution by all worthwhile accounts (though sometimes I wonder . . .). I walked around the campus quite a bit and looked at posters, as well as passing one of the famed, "secret society" houses. Sure, Yale has frats and secret societies. Maybe Yale hazing is even worse than what goes on at the Street (would you really want me to try to verify any of the gruesome stories everyone likes to tell about bicker/initiation at fill-in-your-favorite-club-here?). Yet at Yale, student message boards were plastered primarily with political fliers rather than advertisements for Hawaiian Night, a description not always true of Princeton.

The antiwar protests that take place weekly in Palmer Square (you didn't know about those, did you?) seldom boast a dozen people, yet how many are willing to turn out every night this week to ensure selection into a chosen eating club? Call me a skeptic, but I can't imagine as heated a political discussion around any table at _____, the way you can see them in Yale's dining halls. Even if you want to defend political apathy, how often do you see people intensely interested in discussions about anything not immediately related to Princeton University's social scene?

A second happening was dinner last night, when my friend shared a perspective hardly ever verbalized at Princeton. Two students spoke about their experiences abroad and how "weird" it was returning to Princeton, either from home or abroad. One said that returning after study abroad made her appreciate how lucky she was. However, another student who had studied in Latin American said he wasn't sure that "lucky" was the correct word. He'd come back from spring study abroad the night before house parties and emphasized the world of difference between the two settings. The juxtaposition of people struggling to make ends meet because of a depressed economy and girls decked out in $800 evening gowns was a powerful one. In the bubble, though, it's something rarely pointed out because people don't want to make others uncomfortable or because they don't even question such differences.

Many students will shrug their shoulders and say that they're they just doing what everyone else is. I might too. No one can change the world overnight, and it's usually easier to go along with the system rather than fight it only to get a million and one nasty emails. For most students, _____ 's a way to get a meal, have some fun on the weekends, but more importantly see good friends as much as possible. "Isn't that enough," is what we'd like to say.

Just don't lose track of the fact that the importance we invest the whole mess is at least a little bizarre from anything but a Princeton perspective.

Aileen Nielsen is a sophomore from Brooklyn, N.Y.