When I was rushing my sorority, the girl I knew I was going to choose as my big was everything I wanted to be.
She was the classic “big sister” figure in my eyes: she was cool, she was fun, she had a great group of friends that I looked up to. Not to mention, she was basically the hottest girl I had ever seen in my life. She still is. And she was about to be my best friend for the rest of my life, right?
Wrong.
As I was going through rush, I saw hundreds of videos of girls running into the arms of their bigs and sobbing. They were definitely long-lost soulmates who were going to be inseparable forever.
But as Big/Little reveal got closer and closer, the girls in my pledge class started nervously talking about how none of the older girls had even talked to them. How were they supposed to choose their “Big Sister” and be soulmates forever if they haven’t even had a conversation yet?
I couldn’t relate. Luckily for me, my big was fun. She invited me to go out with her and her friends, she went to our sorority’s events with me, and we texted all the time.
The night before reveal, though, our pledge leader warned us that we might not be immediate best friends with our big, but we needed to give it time. She encouraged us to make an effort to build a friendship and trust that we were paired together for a reason.
I heard this warning and assumed it applied to everyone else, but not me. My big was perfect and we were already great friends. Being Big and Little was going to make us stronger. We were going to be best friends forever!
Except the second we had our reveal and she was announced as my big, I immediately never wanted to see her again. Not because she wasn’t gorgeous, fun, and a perfect human being, but because we were suddenly official.
We had a title, and with a title comes pressure. What if I ever disappointed her? What if she stopped loving me as much? What if one day she met another girl that she’d rather have as a little, but she was stuck with me?
Big/Little reveal is a lot like determining the relationship. When you’re talking to a guy, everything leading up to the big “What are we?” is great. You’re super into each other, you want to know everything about each other, everything is fun and new. There’s no pressure!
With no title comes no responsibility not to disappoint each other. Big/Little is the exact same way. Title = pressure. So I ghosted her.
Flash forward to my sophomore year, I met two of the funniest girls I had met in my entire life. They were both fun, cute, and most importantly, chaotic. We went out together every weekend and everything they did made me laugh.
So when I found out they both put me down as their bigs, I was terrified. Twins?! That meant two girls I loved, but would have to ghost. I knew the second we had Big/Little reveal – AKA, time for us to DTR — they would never want to see me again.
That’s when I realized … maybe I was the problem. If I liked them, why would I ghost them? I just didn’t want them to feel like we had to immediately be soulmates and like, move in together or something.
So I decided to force myself to consistently make an effort, and guess what, it worked. We continued to go out together every weekend and kept hanging out all the time. And guess what else! I even ended up legitimately moving in with one. We lived together for a year!
I think we can all admit the concept of Big/Little is a little weird, though. The idea on paper is great. But the permanent and official aspect of it can be pretty scary, am I right?
Okay, maybe I’m the toxic one. Luckily for me, I’m still great friends with both of my littles to this day. Probably because I focused less on the whole Big/Little thing and focused more on being actual friends. Shoutout to you, Hannah and Carlee. I’m glad the whole “What are we?” thing didn’t make it too weird between us.
And to my perfect big that I ghosted? Let’s just say I think of her every time I hear Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away”.
