Member-only story
Swallowing the goldfish
Why we love the things that hurt us
A friend of mine drank a gallon of milk, ate a live goldfish, got alcohol poisoning, and slept in a basement for a month, all to join a frat—where he then lived in literal squalor for the next academic year.
Nearly thirty years later, he still donates to their alumni fund.
A few years ago, I asked him why he keeps writing checks to an organization that made him sleep on concrete. He got a bit defensive, told me I didn’t understand what Greek life was about—which, true… I didn’t join a fraternity in college.
It was about community and lifelong connections, he said. Which is also true.
The thing is, for many people who don’t join fraternities, college is also a time of community and connections. What was special about this community, these connections?
In fact, there was a weirdly inverse relationship between how much abuse he received at his frat and how loudly he defended the abuse. It was almost as if, the worse they treated him, the more loyal he became.
And that? That’s effort justification, the bias that tricks you into defending your bad decisions.
