First of all, I kind of hope James never has children. So hopefully that is a nonissue.
I definitely agree that a lot of these girls who post on GC "Why did I get cut from rush?" ARE just looking for support. And I don't have a problem with that, as it seems many people are perfectly willing to give it to them. Getting cut from rush is tough, as we know from the stories about girls who attempt suicide because of it. I know I was depressed and questioning my self-worth after getting cut from a couple of my favorites -- I can't imagine how screwed up I would feel after getting cut from every house, even the ones that supposedly "take everybody." For girls like that, all of the "Aww, honey, I don't know how that could have happened to such a sweetheart"s DO make a difference. I don't think most of them are actually looking for answers. I don't think any of them expect us to be able to say, "Oh, well, my Tri Delt sisters at your university tell me that you were a really boring conversationalist" or "Oh, well, the Gamma Phis there said that usually it's not a good idea to sleep with their president's boyfriend the night before rush starts; that usually decreases your chances of getting a bid from them."
I think that the whole "getting cut" process is hard for a lot of IFC boys to understand, simply because that's missing from their rush process. If you strike out with one frat, you go on to your second favorite and chances are they'll take you. If you strike out with them, you move to a third, if you strike out with them then you start to realize that maybe you're just not going to have any luck and you can quit while you're ahead. You don't have to wait for all the 30 other fraternities on campus to reject you too. It's almost impossible for girls to go through NPC rush without experiencing rejection, but most of the guys I know didn't get rejected at all while they were rushing, because of the way their rush is set up. Which is, I think, a strength of their style of rushing, but that's another story . . .
And on the other hand, I think there are plenty of times when technical reasons have been at least part of the problem, and in that case it does make sense for them to ask. Like I said in my post before, there are a lot of rush rules that most GCers know that a lot of rushees don't have a clue about. How many times have we seen a girl post something like, "I got cut from a bunch of houses and I don't know what's wrong. I felt like rush was going great, and I was having all these great conversations, and then none of them invited me back" and then later it was mentioned that she had a 2.2 GPA, or no recs at a competitive Southern school, or was a junior in a competitive rush. Of course, we still don't know that that is the reason she got cut, but in many cases you can make a reasonable inference that it was at least part of the problem.
Of course there are a lot of girls asking this question who DID get cut for reasons related to their personality. But I think what it comes down to, for me, is that no matter how boring or slutty or badly dressed or even snotty that a girl is, getting cut still hurts. And getting cut hard hurts a LOT. No girl deserves to feel like that. And if hearing "Ohhh, you seem like such a sweetie, I can't imagine why any sorority would cut you!" from a bunch of strangers helps, then what can it hurt? Sure, it's sunshine being blown up her @$$, but it's not like she doesn't know it's sunshine being blown up her @$$. She knows, but it makes her feel better anyway, and right after being cut hard that is a necessity for a lot of people.
