Board Thread:Season 42/@comment-26725365-20170906182655/@comment-1775521-20170906185644

Hey Cliff, I hope you are feeling at least a little better! :)

In regards to your quote, I definitely think that you proved that as you were scarily good at this game. You adapted, you lead, and you made moves that just showed your character such as giving me and Maya a chance in this game after we had betrayed you.

My quote coming into this season was: What I need to prove to myself is that I can make social connections. Being a member of this community for like, what, two years now? I still only have MAYBE 5 people I would actually consider friends, and even in real life a similar situation follows. I need to potentially get over my anxiety of social situations where I would be standing out, or forcing myself to be thrown into a position where I HAVE to message people, instead of jumping to the conclusion that they aren't going to respond/already dislike me. So yeah, that's what is at stake I guess."

I really do believe that I accomplished doing that this season. You yourself referred to me as "one of the most dominant social players" at the final 10. This was honestly really great to hear from someone else because I felt gratified due to seemingly accomplishing my preseason goal.

From day one I knew that I needed to make sure I made connections and friendships with everyone. Something I kept saying in my confessionals was "Make sure you are in good socially, and the game will move forward from there." What I mean from this is that if I am in good socially with people, it will be easier to avoid being targeted, to make moves, and to generally just have more fun playing in a game where people actually like you. I actively sought out relationships in this game instead of waiting around to be approached. Even though I ended up being targeted regardless, I don't believe that it was because I was insufferable to deal with, and that people still do have a favorable opinion of me. Another thing that I am happy I was able to actually stick to this season was actually speaking to people that were not within my alliance. I had a bad habit in previous seasons where I would kinda shut down from everyone except my allies due to fear of me being seen as duplicitous. I got over that fear and made sure I was cordial to everyone in this game, regardless of if they were voting with me in the game or not. I believe I really did honor this plan, and am proud of the way that I was able to maneuver this game.