The Fun and Mystery of Fraternity and Sorority Crush Parties

November 4, 2026 by Shawn Collins

One of the main reasons I pledged a fraternity was the social life. We had regular parties with other fraternities and sororities, tailgates, formals, and dated parties, but I especially loved the crush parties.

If a sorority hosted them, crush parties were typically in a bar; if a fraternity hosted them, they were in the house. Each member would get a few invites to send anonymously to people you had a romantic or platonic crush on.

When a batch of crush party invites was dropped at our fraternity house door, the guys would scramble to see if they were invited. For guys with a girlfriend from the sorority hosting a crush party, it was clear who invited them, but it was fun to guess who invited the others.

The whole surprise was fun, and we hoped we knew who invited us, but we didn’t always know for sure, even after the party happened.

One crush party I remember our Pi Kappa Alpha chapter hosted was in spring 1989, I think, and the invites were sent as a can of Orange Crush soda with a sticker on it that had the name of the person invited.

This was around the time R.E.M.’s song “Orange Crush” came out, so it was fun to tie the invite to the song.

In some cases, when it was a platonic invite, it was still fun to go hang out with someone you knew from classes, work, or whatever, and the free drinks were a nice perk.

I had a couple of long-term girlfriends in college, so there were brief windows when I could invite crushes who didn’t necessarily know I’d invited them. One problem was that invitees might not come, but having a few invites to use generally meant at least one or two crushes per person would turn up.

Crush parties often had awkward moments, since some people hoped they were invited by one person but were invited by someone else. There wasn’t really any big reveal to tell guests who had invited them, so navigating mixed signals could be tricky.

And sometimes a couple or more guys would invite the same person. This could lead to embarrassment and grudges. Overall, these were fun events, and it was awesome to see your name on an invite.

Related