Ask your friend what they’ve heard about fraternities and sororities, and you’ll likely be entertained by a fiery kind of rhetoric that screams of Jerry Springer trash-talk and The Gospel Truth. Listen and learn as they share stories of decadence, drunkenness and fornication that would put the best Roman orgy to shame.

Or, if that’s not to your liking, sit down with a different knowledgeable soul, and revel in the glory of the one party they went to that seemed to last all week and how it left your friend dumbstruck and numb with satisfaction. True, there are those out there who could care less about the Greeks, but they are lazy, sloth-like beasts who lack the motivation to go out and dig up the dirt. Pay no attention to their kind.

Now ask your friend what they actually know about fraternities and sororities, and you’ll get some regurgitated version of what they’ve heard spat back at you. I use the Greeks as an example because they are of local interest to us, but replace them with anything or anyone that interests you and the story’s still the same: We love our gossip.

More than that, we worship it like some great golden god. How often have you found yourself tuning in to tabloid TV shows like Extra and Access Hollywood or buying papers like The National Inquirer or The Globe? It’s disgusting how we take rumors or speculations for the way things really are. I’m starting to think on too large a scale here; time to fall back and stick to my Greek example.

I remember toying with the idea of joining a fraternity my freshman year, and no, it wasn’t to buy my friends, as we’re often told is the reason for making such a decision. I just wanted something to do and figured a fraternity would provide that opportunity. So I called my girlfriend at the time and told her what I was up to, asking what she thought of my intentions.

Big. Mistake.

For, you see, even in high school she had heard the stories: initiations that had all the subtlety of pagan rituals, houses of guys who exemplified the worst in human evolution and girls your mom not only warned you about but threatened to shoot on sight.

It’s not that my girlfriend didn’t trust me to do the right thing, she just didn’t trust the Greek system. And from what she’d heard, I wouldn’t blame her. Gossip is dangerous because it has such a strong impact on how we perceive things. When it comes to the Greeks, we tossed objectivity out the window a long time ago.

Which, quite frankly, sucks for the Greeks, because there’s a side of them we never hear about, a side that casts them in a different light. If you read Monday’s edition of The Northern Star, maybe you saw the front page article covering Delta Gamma’s annual Anchor Splash event. All proceeds from their week-long extravaganza of competitions and assorted craziness went to Service for Sight, an organization that provides aid to the blind. The ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha held a book club meeting yesterday in Douglas Hall, and the Pikes’ annual tugs event has been a popular tradition for Greeks and non-Greeks alike.

The Greeks are doing philanthropy events like this all year, but do you hear people talking about that at parties? Of course not, because who wants to listen to what a person does when you can hear who they do instead?

Gossip is, by nature, sexy and sensational and even a bit scandalous. Through gossip, we become passive participants in a world we’d otherwise have nothing to do with. “No one cares” about the good things fraternities and sororities are doing on campus and in the community because the bad things are oh so much more enticing. We delight in the infamy of others and sleep soundly at night, snug in the knowledge that there’s at least one person out there that we’re better than. Sick.

The Greeks are out there trying to do some good for our community, and their efforts should be recognized, but we’ll never care because gossip is news and truth is obsolete.

And we wouldn’t have it any other way.