Same college, same sorority, many of my prettiest sorority sisters did not marry well. Who did?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There were about 160 sisters in my sorority over 20 years ago. Looking back, while some of the prettiest classic beauty sisters married well, frankly, many of them did not. They frequently complain about finances, many are on second marriages, and some are single divorcees dating much older men. A handful never married and have no children – they seem to have successful careers. With the benefit of hindsight, who seems to have married the best? As crazy as this probably sounds, I double-checked this on Facebook last night and literally all of my sisters who went to ritzy private day schools and boarding schools married well. Literally 100%. All of them are married to either successful MDs, law partners, business executives, or entrepreneurs. No divorces. All of them have children. They live in elegant homes, especially for our age range, in premier neighborhoods. And for the sake of total honestly, these sisters were and are largely average appearance-wise. I am not saying that to be cruel or out of jealously, I was also average if not below average for our chapter, and I went to public school.

Is there something to this?

Yes, their families had enough money to send them to private schools and boarding schools, and their potential boyfriends were interested in women with family money or a certain background. Doesn't apply if you are a scholarship or financial aid student at those schools though, or if your parents pay full tuition and have to sacrifice to do so.

A story: I attended a private school but my family scrimped and saved to send me there and it was obvious; never was able to date anyone at my private school, the guys just weren't interested, even though we were friends so I assumed I was not attractive to them or too shy and studious. Attended a decent college on scholarship, lost contact, and then was accepted to a masters degree program at a much more prestigious university, of which my female private school friends were aware.

*One month* after attending the name brand U, I was getting contacted by all three guys I had crushes on in high school. Went out once with two, and it became apparent that *prestigious U* was the reason I was now considered dateable, and took precedence over my more humble family origins. By that point, I had no interest in either of these guys. I have been happily married to my dh for 20 years and he is also from lower middle class family, successful, and we met at work.

OP, many guys are in this for the money or prestige (or their parents want them to be) and it doesn't matter so much how pretty you are, sometimes your background matters more to certain people.

This is cynical and really unhealthy retrospect. The trio of boys circling back was almost certainly because you were around mid 20s and peers were getting serious about marriage and the dating pool was hyper-competitive and getting shallow. Hearing you got into grad school made you top of mind and whichever private school alumnus told them the news likely also shared you were single. I bet they even shared you were still fit! They wanted to marry a girl from their high school. That is charming, not conniving! You have a serious chip on your shoulder to take that the wrong way decades (?) later.

You missed the part where PP said she’d been married for 20 years.

I did not miss it, see "decades (?) later." All these years later and she still can not see this was totally normal communication?

I am the pp. I did not take it the wrong way "decades later" I took it the right way 20 years ago: it was not "normal." These guys basically burned through the girls they were dating and did not even consider reaching out to me until they heard through the grapevine I had achieved a certain amount of "status" in my grad school admission. All our mutual female friends were still single as well, so it wasn't like I was the only one.

You all are missing the point: even though I was attractive, I wasn't even dating material until I or my family achieved a certain amount of success. Doesn't matter how "pretty" you are, what matters is the amount of actual money or social capital you or your family have -- to a certain segment of private school guys. OP was asking why the guys were marrying their private / boarding school counterparts and I am providing you with my theory.

It hurt as a teenager, but once I realized what was going on in my early 20s I dropped contact with these guys as fast as possible. Really also made me feel better about myself--I thought I was just unlovable and undatable as a teen until I got away from that whole private school environment. Turns out, my family just did not have enough money or status.

Attractiveness does not always compete with money and social stains, as I found out and as these pretty sorority girls are finding out. Thing is, once they learn this, they may be very happy they dodged a bullet.

Have been happily married for two decades, and haven't thought of these guys in almost three decades. This post just brought the memories back up.

And those two guys from way back in high school? They did end up marrying women who were not as attractive as pretty sorority girls but graduated from different private school "high status" families.

Your theory is totally wrong. It has nothing to do with your fancy grad school. You probably were attractive in grad school but not the “right kind” of attractive or you lacked self confidence. I had a beautiful college classmate who got no attention when she was in high school. She’s more salma Hayek than Jennifer Anniston. But once she went to college and the world opened so to speak suddenly she was getting plenty of reach out from high school. I am pretty sure your theory is wrong. You got a glow up and you didn’t notice. And from the way you speak about yourself you lacked confidence in high school - people notice this.

+1. Glow up + grad school news teed up hearing she was single. Nothing more than mid 20s men in her high school alumni network eager to find a nice spouse. This exact thing happens ALL THE TIME and regularly leads to marriage of two reconnected classmates.

Lol yeah it’s laughable she thinks men got hard because she got into some lame Masters’ program.

Also could have been related to logistics. If her master’s program was in Boston or New York City, it’s obviously perfectly natural for single male alumni from her private school to want to re-connect if they live there too. Maybe she’ll return after reading this and admit the mea culpa. Could be cathartic to admit she was wrong and had this silly animosity stewing for all these years about something so natural and common.

Shhh… let her be proud of her degree mill master’s degree from Harvard or Columbia

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What I will say as a working-class public school kid is that (elite) private school kids very obviously engage differently in college seminars. In general, they seem much better prepared for a rigorous liberal arts structure in terms of critical reasoning and engaging with instructors. Might have something to do with small classes and being used a similar dynamic with their high school teachers- I found it such a clear differentiator (and quite intimidating) as a freshman at a middle Ivy.

Maybe I lucked out but my public school had great teachers, especially in English and History, who spent tons of extra time and one-on-one time with us.

How do you know they were great? Compared to what? This is what people mean when they say public school alumni are sort of clueless about how public and private school shape us so differently. And those differences are with you for life. OP thinks on paper she’s the same as her sorority sisters—even raised in the same towns. And you think your public teachers were “great” and you received private-tier instruction. Yet people in the know quickly detect you nor OP were private school lifers. While OP’s frumpy prep school sorority sisters had no shortage of ambitious young doctors and other boys from proper backgrounds eager to marry them.

Wow, you really have a chip on your shoulder, don’t you? Honey, doctors didn’t want you because you weren’t pretty or personable enough. But doctors mostly went to publics and aren’t going to reject a pretty, educated, nice girl who went to Langley and UVA.

[Anonymous]

Back to the op’s point, I think the prettiest, flashiest girls are more likely to end up with players and with bad boys. Those men value physical beauty and while they might not be super successful, they know how to manipulate and charm women so they target and can successfully match up with the pretty women. It’s why so many supermodels and actresses end up with bad boy types or men with major issues like addiction etc. For the less conventionally beautiful women, they are less likely to be targeted by these men.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think the most beautiful women have been proven to be the choosiest and how they reproduce with. Men are less choosy, and tend to find most women attractive, so theyre often fine with settling down a slightly less attractive woman as long as she makes their life easier. I also think truly beautiful women intimidate men- men assume she's already got a boyfriend, would never date them, would use them for their money, etc

I’m from Los Angeles, so this may be regional but the truly beautiful women there tend to be messed up in relationships (and some other aspects of their lives) because they try to make it in the entertainment business, which is extremely messed up and chews up people mentally.

I think a lot of it is just attractive women tend to have higher standards for attractiveness in their partner. They know how good looking they are, they want a male equivalent. But men tend to be more easily pleased and are happy to get married so long as a mediocrely attractive woman will be nice and dote on him, and give him nightly blowjobs and feed him. So the super attractive men arent really holding out for the super attractive women. I find most of the TRULY STUNNING couples I know got together in their teens or very early 20s because of that reason

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think the most beautiful women have been proven to be the choosiest and how they reproduce with. Men are less choosy, and tend to find most women attractive, so theyre often fine with settling down a slightly less attractive woman as long as she makes their life easier. I also think truly beautiful women intimidate men- men assume she's already got a boyfriend, would never date them, would use them for their money, etc

I’m from Los Angeles, so this may be regional but the truly beautiful women there tend to be messed up in relationships (and some other aspects of their lives) because they try to make it in the entertainment business, which is extremely messed up and chews up people mentally.

I think a lot of it is just attractive women tend to have higher standards for attractiveness in their partner. They know how good looking they are, they want a male equivalent. But men tend to be more easily pleased and are happy to get married so long as a mediocrely attractive woman will be nice and dote on him, and give him nightly blowjobs and feed him. So the super attractive men arent really holding out for the super attractive women. I find most of the TRULY STUNNING couples I know got together in their teens or very early 20s because of that reason

A lot can change though between your teens and 30s and 40s. Some of the really beautiful couples—one half aged many times better than the other half. And if the better aging half is a superficial person, there’s resentment ( they “let themselves go”).

[Anonymous]

Private school mom and sorority member 20+ years ago. Literally I tell my daughters to marry someone who shares the same values....

Extrapolate away and judge.... it's what DCUM does best.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry, I didn't realize the purpose of sororities was to ensure its members married well. What millenia are we in?

That is and always has been the entire purpose of sororities.

My purpose in joining a sorority was to develop strong friendships, because I had always wished for sisters.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What I will say as a working-class public school kid is that (elite) private school kids very obviously engage differently in college seminars. In general, they seem much better prepared for a rigorous liberal arts structure in terms of critical reasoning and engaging with instructors. Might have something to do with small classes and being used a similar dynamic with their high school teachers- I found it such a clear differentiator (and quite intimidating) as a freshman at a middle Ivy.

Maybe I lucked out but my public school had great teachers, especially in English and History, who spent tons of extra time and one-on-one time with us.

How do you know they were great? Compared to what? This is what people mean when they say public school alumni are sort of clueless about how public and private school shape us so differently. And those differences are with you for life. OP thinks on paper she’s the same as her sorority sisters—even raised in the same towns. And you think your public teachers were “great” and you received private-tier instruction. Yet people in the know quickly detect you nor OP were private school lifers. While OP’s frumpy prep school sorority sisters had no shortage of ambitious young doctors and other boys from proper backgrounds eager to marry them.

Wow, you really have a chip on your shoulder, don’t you? Honey, doctors didn’t want you because you weren’t pretty or personable enough. But doctors mostly went to publics and aren’t going to reject a pretty, educated, nice girl who went to Langley and UVA.

That’s not the point you think it is. Most [everything] went to public school - including the prison population.

[Anonymous]

"Not divorced" is not really a benchmark of success. Are they happily married? Are they faithful to each other? Is he cheating and she turns a blind eye because she's afraid of losing the comforts of marriage and family with a wealthy man? Is he an alcoholic and she puts up with it? Because there is PLENTY of bad shit that happens behind closed doors. Or couples who just kind of tolerate each other.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How many first kids (presidential) are doing nearly as well as their fathers? Did you see any work of significance?

Beau Biden had accomplishments, and Barbara Bush seems to be doing good things in public health

George Bush's dad was a single term president, while he was a 2 term president.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You are surprised that people with money marry people with money?

+1. Is this really the first time you've noticed this, OP?

None of my public school sorority sisters grew up deprived. Public or prep high school, all of us were more or less from the same cluster of affluent towns. Of course if you force me to think, I guess I understand the richest tend to marry rich, but I've never seen such a close controlled data set where it's literally 100% of the private/prep school women married well and it's so hit and miss with their prettier public school peers. I was shocked last night as I was clicking through Facebook friends, so I thought I'd share. I did not know this was so obvious and common.

It is the same in France/ Paris where I am from. You think you are part of the same network in undergrad/ grad school but in reality you are not, there is this parallel network of earlier private school connection, or In our case “rally” which connects young people of selected upper class families who host Saturday evening parties for their kids (starts as young teens).

So for ex, I went to a fancy public high school where I met a lot of upper class people (I was on a merit transfer inbound from my poorer neighborhood), I did get a lot of friends there but I was not part of any “rally”, so I never got really friend with the upper crust. Same later in the fancy undergrad I went too, an equivalent of Ivy League, lots of my friends were UMC or very wealthy, but they had that parallel network outside of our college connection. And looking at who married who, even if we are one happy group of friends and dated each other, we end up married to people from same backgrounds.. I married my brilliant and successful husband who is like me the child of public school teachers, and our friends from upper crust backgrounds married each other.. and this had nothing to do with who was good looking, who was charismatic etc..

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Thai is literally the reason people send their kids to private schools op to mingle with other rich kids.

Only a handful are married to men they went to high school with.

You don’t get it. I went to a private school in DC. We hung out with kids from other DC private schools. I cannot think of one public school kid we hung out with with the exception of summer swim team. So you meet other private school friends, visit them in college, meet their private school college friends, go to the same county clubs and beaches, and ski resorts, etc.

I see. So it's not just the immediate alumni network of the prep school, it's also friends of friends from that alumni network paying dating, social and even career dividends?

Yes. Also knowing the right things - knowing what to eat, how to dress, what to listen to, where to eat in Paris or wherever, etc. Cultivating the right taste (not hoity toity Emily Gilmore taste but young rich person taste), etc. Knowing how to fit in.

What is the right taste? I see soooo many people on here and IRL trying to cultivate it, but no one's ever been able to say what specifically it is, unless they're strivers and are 10+ years behind.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry, I didn't realize the purpose of sororities was to ensure its members married well. What millenia are we in?

Hi, OP here. I didn't say that there was a purpose? I rushed just to have fun and because everyone in my dorms seemed to be rushing (my parents were not ever involved in it or anything). In retrospect it just provides a data set of 160 close peers to compare to over 20 years later.

So where do you fit in.... no, wait, let me guess....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Not divorced" is not really a benchmark of success. Are they happily married? Are they faithful to each other? Is he cheating and she turns a blind eye because she's afraid of losing the comforts of marriage and family with a wealthy man? Is he an alcoholic and she puts up with it? Because there is PLENTY of bad shit that happens behind closed doors. Or couples who just kind of tolerate each other.

+100

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m curious to what incomes and net worths are considered rich to these people who are marrying one another.

I’m a public school who went to an ivy. I met my DH in grad school. He also went to an ivy. I think more people meet and marry from college, grad school and meet during their young professional lives.

I wasn’t in a sorority. It seems really strange that OP is keeping tabs of these people from her sorority and she is trying to rank them. How would she even know how well they all married? Just from social media?

We live very well. I don’t post. I don’t think my old childhood friends could tell I married well from my social media.

It is not about family net worth or trust funds. That is just a cope. Private school molds you in unique ways which can not be replicated or faked. And boarding school alumni are even more unique than local prep day school alumni. There was a thread on dcum years ago about private school kids having a je ne se quoi. A certain something. It is hard to explain but you know it when you see it. This goes over the head of most public school alumni, ex. OP naively thinks all of her sisters were the same because on paper they were at the same college, in the same sorority, and studying the same majors. They were not the same. The private and boarding school educated women were unique in ways very attractive to the most desirable bachelors.

I dunno about this. Believing that Bullis or Flint Hill students or kids from some random podunk private school are charismatic beasts is trying to justify an inflated price paid for their education, aka cope. I know (gasp!) unattractive, fake, and striver boarding school alumni who are most definitely not pulling the most desirable men. It's like people on here idolize a certain set of kids and seem to think they all follow the same golden path. They don't.