Would You Want To Attend a Fraternity Party?

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I may be missing something here, but yesterday I read about a service geared towards those with autism that seemed totally off key to me. I'm an older Aspie looking at the possibility of services that might allow me some small degree of socializing with other Aspies. For a long time I have known about the Emory autism center near here and took another look at their web page yesterday really hoping to find an email address as opposed to only the phone number I had found earlier since it is always easier to write than to speak (and I did find one this time). While reading that web page, I came across a sentence saying that one fraternity was sponsoring monthly parties for those with autism (about halfway down the page on the following link).

http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/stori ... enter.html

I have no doubt that it is well intended and that the setting is made suitable for autistics (ie no boisterous frat jocks running around shouting at the top of their lungs), but it still impressed me as being totally ludicrous that an organization such as a fraternity would host parties for those with autism. To me it immediately brought back a flood of very nasty memories of all the abuse I have taken over the years (and am still currently taking) at the hands of such frat jocks and I reeled at the thought of it, in between laughs at the absurdity. I thought this might make a good poll, so here it is.

I would rather roll around naked on broken glass

I never realised how interesting driving rusty nails into my eyeballs could be...

LOL.

Really. I LOL'd

Hard to take this seriously. A fraternity inviting autistics? Why go out and look for people to bully when you could have them come to you? Plus you'd get the most gullible ones and have more fun. I'm always glad I'm not as dumb as people wish I was.

I did the frat party thing in college. The alcohol was free.

Not saying it was a good idea but, you know, young and stupid... I definitely paid a price.

I went occasionally when I was in college. But, the college I went to is one of the nerdiest in the nation! So, I'm not sure I got the full experience.

The fact is that most fraternities and sororities have some sort of community service aspect buried deep in their mission statements. Saying that, I realize that it's not particularly evident at most of them. If these guys have hearts in right places, though, let them try. Either it will work or it won't -- probably without a lot of harm being done. Something tells me that this special monthly party is heavily overseen by the school's administration and isn't allowed to turn into what we think of as the typical frat party.

I walked on broken glass before (on purpose)
It was crushed so much you didn't cut yourself
a whole pile of the damn thing.

Frat parties without alcohol aren't frat parties at all. Besides, a fraternity hosting a party for people on the spectrum is like Newt Gingrich hosting a party for immigrants.

A frat party and a party for autistics held by a frat seem like apples and oranges.

If you are interested in going just go, you don't have to stay there for any length of time.

LOL... I went to an art college without frats but we were very close to Drexel University, one of the larger engineering schools in the country. An entire fraternity row full of engineers, not a jock in sight!

This to me doesn't seem like technically a frat party....

More of an outreach event and as another said some frats are supposed to be geared toward outreach, and I would wager some are more so than others.

I think it might be a good event, if you are interested in meeting more people on the spectrum.

I doubt it would be like a frat party.

You should email the person and see how many people usually go.

Maybe this frat does a lot of autism related outreach and has experience with people on the spectrum.

In reponse to a couple of comments to this effect, I will add that these parties (which I never did assume to be regular frat parties) do not interest me at all and I would probably never go to one of them due to the painful memories it would bring back. My real interest is in other services that this center might offer for socializing by Aspies and I just happened to stumble across this item on that web page that seemed to be so out of touch with the general nature of autism. I probably will indeed contact them, although knowing me it might take me a month or two to get around to it.

Does anybody have experience with such autism services for adults? Are they free (for the value of any research they can do on you) or are they "pay-me" services? I probably should have made this a separate post because it is slightly off topic.

Only to bring food or drinks laced with a mega strength laxatives and after I lock all the toilets.

hahahaha...

I'd rather give up my music collection.