I got hosed and I still like Bicker

I got hosed. I still like Bicker.

It’s not that I like the annual humiliation of a quarter of the sophomore class. It’s not that I necessarily believe that the current Bicker processes are perfect. It’s just that, as a solution to the problem of matching people to the right club, I prefer a social meritocracy deciding my dining options over a computer algorithm doing the same task. And right now, Bicker needs a little defending.

Bicker has been around for more than a century as a solution to a very simple and common problem: matching individuals to groups of limited size. This year, 219 people bickered Tower Club, 160 Cap & Gown Club, 130 Ivy Club, 120 Tiger Inn and 115 Cottage Club, for a total of 744 people. All those clubs filled to capacity, forcing 337 sophomores to make other dining choices. Tell me: Does that sound like humiliation? With those numbers, getting hosed sounds pretty normal.

Think about Bicker this way: I was rejected by Harvard and Yale but was accepted at Princeton. Should I be humiliated that I was deemed unworthy of the color Crimson but was correctly identified as a true Tiger? Of course not! This says nothing about me except that some universities considered me to be part of their top 10 percent of applicants and others did not. It’s nothing personal; I’m just a better fit in some places than others, which my interviewers probably picked up on from my favorite Tiger of Sweden belt.

Much like my rejections from Harvard and Yale, my hosing was based on who I am, not random chance, and that’s how I like being chosen. I would much rather have my social compatibility decide my social life’s future. I’m okay with not being in a relationship, so long as it’s because I’m not currently mutually attracted to any girl. I wouldn’t be comfortable with Facebook using an algorithm to assign me a girlfriend.

When institutions are only able to offer their top 55 percent of choices a spot, that selectivity does not imply anything about the remaining 45 percent. For those who know exactly what personal vendetta or slights got them hosed, I am truly sorry and I wish that didn’t happen. But based on a casual survey of people I know, personal vendettas accounted for a very small fraction of hosing. The majority were deemed great people by the club, just not above average. It’s nothing personal; it’s just that the club wanted a certain type of person that some sophomores fitted better than others.

This brings me back to the matching problem that eating clubs pose. In an ideal world, the number of sophomores wanting to join would exactly equal the number of spaces a club has. But we do not live in a perfect world. Tower’s Bicker class this semester was five-and-a-half times the number of those who signed in to Colonial Club. With Bicker, potential members are forced to ponder how they relate to the club. It’s an investment of time and energy that discourages people from joining for the sake of joining. Sophomores join because they really want to, not because they can. It creates groups that want to be together. Bicker is a system that works best when there is an abundance of sophomores wanting to get in. Otherwise, Bicker would simply be too time-consuming to be worth the effort.

Obviously Bicker can be improved, as can any system. Non-negative Bicker, more time to meet members and the ability to bicker several clubs would reduce the pressure during those very intense few days. But Bicker will always require that upperclassmen be free to choose the members who will make them happiest. If upperclassmen ultimately don’t “get” you or don’t value you in the same way that your friends do, that’s completely okay. If you like who you are, why should it matter what other people think? But we still should want to create groups of people that fit each other. If you aren’t friends with the members, have you considered that you could fit in better elsewhere?

As of now, I’m on the waiting list for Charter Club and proud of it. Yes, I got hosed, and I know it’s nothing personal. Honestly, the people I know who didn’t get hosed were much better fits for the clubs they got into than I ever would have been. There is no hierarchy of clubs: They are equal but different. We should be willing to accept that some clubs need Bicker while others are better off with the much simpler process of signing in. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to selecting members.

Christopher Troein is a sophomore from Windsor, England. He can be reached at ctroein@princeton.edu.