Douchebaggery

No, I didn't make up that word. The honor goes to my nephew, Erik, whose coining of it made such an impression that I promised to post about it. He just turned 20 and will start his junior year at UCLA this fall. Although he started out in a dorm for his freshman year, he also did something that surprised everyone in the family except his father: he pledged at a fraternity. We skeptics shook our heads in disbelief. Did he understand what he was getting into? Would he have to swallow live goldfish? Would he be irreparably influenced by materialistic beer-guzzling phonies?

And what about the more serious pranks? A fraternity man I knew at Berkeley claimed to have taken the grand piano from the Claremont Hotel. The prank apparently placed him at the top of the manly heap at Delta Upsilon. But what if he'd been busted? Well, he would still have inherited his father's multi-million dollar business so the silver spoon wouldn't have suffered many scratches. I'm afraid Erik isn't in that silver-lined position.

I guess what surprised us most is that Erik has never seemed like a conformist, which would be my basic stereotype of a frat boy. Erik is a sharp, thoughtful, and creative spirit who appreciates alternative music and whose best friend in Savannah Georgia is a Deadhead. It didn't seem like a fraternity would exactly be his scene. But maybe he wanted an instant social network, kindred spirits or not, and figured he could swallow the goldfish.

By his sophomore year, was had moved into the fraternity house, a once-proud colonial replica with green shutters and white columns, now shabby and faded. I never had the courage to go inside, but on occasions when I picked Erik up, I noticed that someone had painted a green shutter back onto the house to make up for the fact that the real one had somehow gone missing or been destroyed.

Somehwere along the way, Erik was turned off to the whole scene. I didn't know how bad it was until I learned he'd made arrangements to share an apartment with two other students. Since my nephew isn't particularly forthcoming, I hadn't gotten any of the backstory. But I did get a smattering of info while driving him home with my mom after lunch at CPK in Westwood earlier this summer.

ERIK: (Silence)

CATHERINE: (Driving, trying to make conversation) You must be excited about moving into your first apartment.

ERIK: Yeah.

CATHERINE: You really don't like your fraternity, do you?

ERIK: I fucking hate it.

GRANDMOTHER: (Gasp of horror from backseat due to Erik's use of f-word)

CATHERINE: Wow! It must really be bad. I've never heard you use the f-word before.

ERIK: They're a bunch of douche bags.

CATHERINE: I'm not surprised to hear that. But in what way, exactly, are they douche bags? If you don't mind saying.

ERIK: They just are.

GRANDMOTHER: If you knew they were douche bags, why did you sign up in the first place?

ERIK: Because the douchebaggery was masked. They weren't up front about what they were when I signed up.

And there you have it. The discrepancy between appearance and reality. It was one of my first painful lessons in college, too. "The douchebaggery was masked." How sadly true. The phoniness of human beings still surprises me after all these years. And in large groups like fraternities where social politics conquer and divide, I think the worst of it flourishes. I'll be tempted to press my laconic nephew for more details in the future, but I doubt he'll reveal much. I'm sure he swore some secret oath not to reveal the deep dark secrets of fraternity douchebaggery. It doesn't matter. I'd love him anyway, but I love him even more for his authenticity and integrity. That's him below with my sister's dog Rufus after spending the night at the family compound before moving into his apartment.