Board Thread:Season 45 - Molise/@comment-28340190-20180222031416/@comment-33629256-20180222182419

My question to you, is was any of our relationship real?

I wrote a really long response to this but I’ve deleted it because it did not verbalise what I meant to say correctly. I’m sorry if this is incoherent but for some reason I’m finding it really difficult to actually say what I mean. This is a lot more succinct but also more genuine and gives a better view of what I think and feel. If you vote me or don’t vote me I hope that this game has not ruined any chance of us being friends and if it has I’m sorry that I’ve caused that. I just hope you’re not too mad that it’s wrecked out friendship.

Our friendship was real and I want to be friends with you after the game ends. I loved speaking to you on Facebook video chat and a thing that made me feel so guilty about voting you was how you gave a really cheery wave as we were ending the chats, I felt awful voting someone who was funny, kind and genuinely someone I wanted to be friends with and be more like as a person.

For me, I tried to separate that from my strategic gameplay. I did not want to play emotionally, I thought playing emotionally would weaken me and blind me to the better moves that could be made. So while our friendship was real, I separated that friendship from our alliance to give myself a clearer view of the game. As a result of that, I voted for you from a strategic point of view while still feeling bad on an emotional level.

This was a flaw in my gameplay for sure. I thought people would feel the same way, it’s a game made up of people that are clearly fans of the show or else they wouldn’t apply ya know. I thought that other players would do the same because that’s how I play the game and I mean obviously that’s not the case. I actually think that’s probably the biggest flaw in my whole gameplay and it might cost me the win if enough people feel the same way as you and Trey.

Looking back at our chats I kept trying to verbalise that. When it boils down to the basics, my friendships with everybody in the cast were genuine but I did not view friendships as the same as alliances or strategic relationships. I felt guilt over ending people’s time in the game because of the friendships, but from a strategic point of view I did what I felt was the best move and I let that prevail. I signed up to this game to win and it reached a point where it was, in my mind, vote out friends or put their strategic game before mine and accept a loss.

'''We plan a huge Nat blindside only for me to hear I was just the backup plan and you tried to warn Nat. Was I real ally to you or was I just a pawn to get you to the end?'''

You were as real an ally as I let allies become in the game. In the end my only alliance was to myself, it’s a cliche but accurate nonetheless. At that point, I really was not sure which direction I was going to go in and wanted to go far with both of you. However I was also limiting how close we appeared, so on the off chance that Nat stayed, I told her that I had formed close connections with you that I was planning on exploring after she had left. I think that’s the comment you’re referring to.

However I viewed the game as separate from actual life. During my conversations, a lot of the genuine me was apparent but some of it, especially the strategy talks (which ended up dominating our conversations past final 7 with the hunt for the idol), was for the sake of gameplay. We initially worked together because we had a social bond, and that was entirely my genuine self.

To some extent though, you were a pawn to get me to the end. I don’t mean that in a personal way, but if by an “ally” you mean somebody that was your ride or die and totally loyal to you until the end, that was not me. Nor do I think that’s good gameplay. We all applied for this on the basis that it was a game, people would be blindsided and people would get hurt. You were a close friend to me in the game and someone I considered to be an ally. But to say I did not use your loyalty to advance myself would be a lie.

'''To all three of you, is this the final 3 you imagined? When you started looking towards the end game, is this how you wanted it to be? How was it similar to your plans and how did it vary. I want to know how you saw yourself getting to the end and how it worked out in your favour.'''

At the beginning, I saw myself with Mai and Aaron, and then when Mai left, Jason and Aaron. However, when I started looking towards the end game, I wanted my final 3 to be Jason and Harrison. Only at final 4 did that really change, which was in no part down to Marty and arguably the luckiest thing that happened to him in the entire game. I had noticed that Jason may have had some support on the jury but I thought that in the end, I would have more. However, Jason told me that he thought I had played a great game and would support me on the jury, so I seized the opportunity to get extra jury support (which it appears I needed!!). I saw myself getting to the end with a mix of generally lower-tier threats like Harrison, Marty and Jason. Players, but not “in-your-face” players like Elias or Nat. It worked out in my favour because I got to be the one to decide, not Harrison or Marty. Like I said, Marty would have been eliminated last round if it wasn’t for Jason. But it also worked out in my favour because I can genuinely argue that I believe, in my heart, I played the best game and deserve to win.

I want to end this speech by apologising for hurting you and anybody else I did in the game. I sincerely did not mean to. Looking back I feel horrible because it was not my intention to hurt anyone but I can see why I did. It may have been, in my opinion good gameplay to create strong bonds with people, but these bonds could have been made as easily after the game as they were during and then I could have definitely preserved the friendships. But in intertwining friendships and gameplay I’ve created a problem for myself where any line drawn appears arbitrary and like I was abusing friendships for gameplay when I didn’t view it that way. Like I said in my speech, the social bonds were used for strategic gain but in my opinion that does not actually make the social bonds invalid, I don’t even think it’s possible to fake genuine connections with people nor would I want to. So I’m sorry for anybody that I hurt and I really hope we can be friends afterwards.