This incident took place back in 2008. I was about halfway through my first year of college and decided that pledging a fraternity would be a good way to meet new people. Turns out I was right, the kids I met during this time are still my best friends today and actually stood in my wedding. But, this story isn’t about them. It is about an alumni that frequented many of our closed initiations during pledging and lived in the college town since graduating four years earlier.
As a little background, I grew up in small private schools (graduating class of 18) and had VERY few friends throughout high school. In general, I was and still am rather shy. I was raised to give people the benefit of the doubt, trust people until they give you a reason not to, never underestimate the kindness of strangers, etc. Basically, I have been taken advantage from time to time because I am overly trusting of others.
Now, pledging is different at every college/university and there are different thresholds of what you can can’t get away with. Going to a small school and not being a national chapter, we were able to do just about anything we wanted. I don’t necessarily condone a lot of it and I was fortunate to pledge a fraternity that cared more about bringing the people closer together than making them puke from doing sit-ups and beer bongs.
The night of which this story takes place was one of the more mentally challenging nights. We were blindfolded at 4PM and made to stand in a small room in our fraternity house for hours with a particularly unpleasant song playing on a loop and offset multiple times by multiple speakers. One by one we would get pulled out of the group and grilled for about a half hour and sent back to wallow in shame for not knowing things like the middle name of a fraternity member who graduated in 1986. A little ridiculous looking back on it, but it was really important back then and it really brought us together as silly as that sounds.
I was one of the last to go and finished around 2:30AM. Before the night began I had told my pledge master that I needed to leave before the night was over because I was volunteering for a charity event early the next morning. As this was taking place in the basement of a small dingy fraternity house, I was being led back up the stairs from where I came, but instead of being led back to my group I was pulled in a direction that led outside as I could tell from the cold night air.
I still have my blindfold on and am waiting for something to happen when my pledge master rips it off of me and continues the verbal dismantling. Standing behind him is one of the other assistant pledge masters and an alumni who I only know as Dave. As I mentioned, Dave graduated a few years before (about 25/26 years old) and never really left the area to find work. He showed up back at the fraternity house during events like the one I am describing and had an uneasy way of overstaying his welcome. Outside of this, I really did not know him and had no reason to cast him in a negative light for being awkward at times and not wanting to give up on his glory days. Once my pledge master ran out of things to berate me for, he told me to get going so I could get some sleep before my volunteering. As the event was still going on in the house, the pledge master and assistant pledge master returned to the house and I was left to stand outside with Dave feeling pretty low.
“Hey man, try not to worry about it too much. Everyone has trouble with these nights”. Dave said.
I told him I wasn’t too beaten up by it and I understand most of it is for show.
“So what this thing you got going on tomorrow?” Dave asked trying to move on from the night.
“Oh, nothing crazy, just a school sponsored charity event. My mom has the disease so it’s been something I’ve done for years”. I told him thinking he was just trying to make small talk.
“That’s taking place right next to the activity center on the west side of campus right? I live right across the street.” Dave says.
This is where my ignorance and trusting behavior got me into trouble.
“You only have a couple hours until it starts, why don’t you just crash at my place and I’ll wake you up when you need to go?” Dave insists while motioning to his car at the end of the driveway. Now, in my mind, my pledge master knows this guy, trusts this guy at our very private events and trusts him enough to leave me with him. Why the heck shouldn’t he? We were all fraternity brothers and part of that bond is helping one another in times of need. Or at least that’s what I’m thinking.
I hesitantly agree for two reasons:
My apartment was about a 25 minute walk away and he had a car.
The activity center was about another 15 min walk away from my apartment.
This would save me a lot of time and energy after a pretty tiring night.
He begins leading me to his car making small talk about what he experienced during pledging and how it’s not easy on anyone. After a short five minute car ride we pull up to a small ranch house that is literally across the street from the activity center. He wasn’t lying, this is working out great and I even have time to get some shut eye.
Again, in my mind, this dude is looking out for a future bro and just being nice to someone in need. See how trusting I am of strangers? He opens his front door and it is incredibly dark. We walk into his family/living room and I notice he only has a couple of La-Z-Boy type of chairs in front of an old box tv. O.K. guess I’m not sleeping on a couch.
He continues to lead me through the living area, past the small kitchen and mentions that this is a two bedroom house so I can sleep in the guest. Perfect.
We get to the room and he slowly opens the door and flips on the light. As I walk around him and begin to enter the room, I see something that makes me questions what I just got myself into. On the small twin bed in the middle of the room are a small pair of shorts and a small t-shirt laid out like you would for a child getting dressed in the morning. They were old high school wrestling gym clothes. Clearly worn and neatly displayed on the bed.
“I got some clothes laid out for you to wear so you can get out of your pledging stuff” He says without skipping a beat. It had a tone that made it sound like it was meant to cover up the uncomfortable situation, but was made as more of a demand than an offer.
I said, “sure thing” and closed the door behind me. Of course there is no lock, because why would there be in a creepy house with a creepy guy who wants me to wear his old clothes that are way too small for me.
For about 2-3 minutes I just stand there staring at the clothes thinking, why would these already be put out if he didn’t know I (or anyone) was going to be needing a place to sleep? Why was he still at the pledging event when no other alumni stayed past midnight and opted for the bars instead?
Just as I am slowly beginning to freak out, I realize I have my phone on my again. During pledging we have to hand in our phones and during this time I rarely had it on me. I powered it back up and before the screen is even warmed up, “BUZZ”…. “BUZZ”…. “BUZZ”…. “BUZZ”…. “BUZZ”….
I have about 10 text messages from my pledge master, both assistant pledge masters and some of my fraternity members along with a few missed calls peppered in.
In chronological order as best as I can remember:
“Hey, where are you? Did you already leave?” – Pledge Master (PM)
“Did you leave with Dave? – Assistant Pledge Master 1
“You’re not with Dave are you?” – Assistant Pledge Master 2
“Text me or call me ASAP” – PM
“If you’re with Dave you need to get the fuck out of there” – PM
So here I am, in a man’s guest bedroom, staring at his old childhood clothes he wants me to wear behind a door that doesn’t lock with my phone blowing up with people telling me to get away from this guy who I willingly let take me to his house.
I stood there for a few minutes waiting for my heart to stop pounding and figure out my next move. I don’t know if this was the smartest, or best move, but I decided to exit as quickly and nonchalantly as possible.
Opening the door, I would have to walk past the kitchen and family room to get to the front. What I noticed was again, there was no light on in the house. Not even coming from the other bedroom where I would have assumed he would be. I began walking passed the kitchen when I saw him out of the corner of my eye.
I think I startled him as much as he startled me. He was leaning up against the refrigerator that was facing away from the hallway I was walking down. He didn’t have anything in his hands that would make sense to be in the kitchen and didn’t look like he was doing anything other than waiting in that spot. Before he could get a word out, I flipped my phone open (yes a flip phone, it was 2008) and in stride said, “ya know what? I forgot, I need some paperwork for tomorrow morning that is still at my apartment. I appreciate your help though.” And powerwalked/jogged out of the house. It all happened so quickly I don’t think I even gave him a chance to react after initially alarming him. In the next four years I never saw him return to the fraternity house or any function. However, this isn’t to say we didn’t hear from him again.
It turns out he is more unstable than I initially thought and was arrested multiple times for cornering women in public and exposing himself. After my incident with him, I was told numerous stories from other older fraternity members that eluded to him being predatory by nature. Never with a younger fraternity member, but has enough of a history that he had eyes kept on him at all times when he was around fraternity functions.
I still like to believe people are genuinely good in this world and I have no problem underestimating the kindness of strangers, but because of this little life lesson I am much more critical in these situations.
Submitted October 10, 2017 at 01:24AM by free_n_easy_06 http://ift.tt/2yaafLo LetsNotMeet
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