When AJ Lamarque went to California on university exchange, the last thing he expected was to join a fraternity.
This crash course in male friendship, in the strangest of settings, taught him a great lesson — one that led to a new life in Australia.I lived in a housing estate, and essentially anywhere you walked around, everyone looked different. It was truly a melting pot of people, which also kind of reflected my family. My mum is English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh … I think that's called the Union jackpot! But my dad is mixed race.When I did make friends, it wasn't with boys.
On the roofs of these multi-storey buildings, people would get a hose and funnel beer down to someone else at the ground to drink, or someone would be doing a keg stand. It was so cliche it hurts.They took me to a jello stripper night.
We are asked to stand up one by one and go and write our names and pledge ourselves to the fraternity. It was nice in some part of my mind that that part of that identity was allowed to kind of exist, even if it was in the digital sphere.Taylor Swift's Love Story has become a popular song for proposals during her Eras Tour. The song is a loose retelling of Romeo and Juliet, which was especially fitting for this couple who became engaged during the Australian tour.Back at the fraternity, there was a time I jokingly wore a British flag as a dress and the guys said: "That's so weird.