Stephen Fishbach @ 9/4/2015 11:33

Austin: In the game, you and I never talked too much before the Katie vote. And after it I came to you insisting I'd be upfront with you and we could work together. You told me what I wanted to hear and had me convinced that there was at least a possibility of making something happen. Props to you. I didn't feel betrayed or really anything towards or against you because we never had a close enough in-game relationship. But I have heard from other jurors that you went too far in certain cases with leading people on and making them believe you were with them, only to turn around and axe them, send them packing with a generic apology about feeling bad. Do you regret doing that? Or did you feel the need to do it at the time? If yes, why?

Hey Stephen!

Alright, this is the question I knew was coming (from someone, though not necessarily you haha), so I'm going to try and explain my side of things as best I can.

I'll start with the things I don't regret, and that's mostly making the moves I made. I feel like I had to vote out each and everyone one of you guys in the order I did in order to get to where I am now, and I have absolutely no regrets about that part. None of my vote-offs were malicious in any way, but all strategic. Similarly, I don't regret leading people on before the votes were read because one of the largest parts of my game was convincing people that I was with them all the way. Whether that was with Rory, Caryn, Kelley, or even you to a certain extent, I felt like telling them before the vote would give them an opportunity to try and pull things together against me. So I mostly tried not to. The one time I did tell someone long before (the Sierra vote), it backfired in my face and only made her more pissed at me. So ultimately, I feel like leading people on before the vote was a huge asset to my game. The biggest examples of this (the Kelley, Rory, and Yve votes) all have further explanations and reasons (many bad lol) behind them that I'm fully expecting to go into in their respective question threads, but I can into more depth here if need be.

Now for the stuff I do regret. What I regret is how I handled or treated many of the jurors after they were out of the game. There were three major vote outs that sort of exemplify my general cluelessness on how I was acting, which was a combination of self-involved, inconsiderate, and needlessly deceptive. The first was Kelley's vote off, where I got much too caught up in my own game and paranoia about her connections with other players that I openly lied to her about my intentions out of some misguided fear that she would tell Sierra, which was stupid as hell. The second was Caryn's boot, in which I didn't say much to her but after her vote out attempted to apologize for which she (understandably) raked me over the coals for because she felt I was being fake. The third was Sierra's boot, which I attempted to "right the wrongs" by giving her plenty of notice about my intentions to vote for her, which only made me look cocky and mean. Those are three very different scenarios with a common thread (not to mention some of the other vote offs).

So what does this ultimately all add up to? That I was much too self-involved to consider the feelings of those of you leaving the game, and to consider the ramifications of my own actions past just the personal easing of the conscience I was getting from treating you guys that way. I was more concerned with my game, making myself feel like a good person, and getting to the end rather than how my actions affected y'all. And I didn't even notice it. I didn't consider y'alls feelings so much as my own in these situations. So in the end, it was all just very narcissistic of me. So again, I apologize if I hurt any of your feelings in the process because that was absolutely not my intention. I didn't even realize it until around the Final 3, which shows how clueless I was about how I was actually coming across. But at the same time, I don't regret voting any of you out, just how I handled it on a human level. I'm ready to live with the consequences of my lack of consideration in this final vote for sure.

Alright, that answer got a little messy so I'm going to summarize it all here. Basically, my intention was never to hurt anyone or be needlessly fake or cruel or narcissistic. But what I learned in a big way in this game is that intentions don't matter so much as what the actual impact of your actions are. So even if I never meant to be any of those things, my actions ended up being needlessly cruel and self-involved multiple times in this game. I got too caught up in my own game to even realize that I was doing it. I expressed dismay at the reactions I was receiving to Monica & Yve both in complete ignorance. And I understand that now and apologize for anything that I did that hurt your feelings or was mean. I own those actions now (way way too late) and whatever consequences come with them. None of it was from malice, just plain lack of self-awareness and stupidity :( <3

The last thing I want to touch upon is the concept of "feeling bad" as a negative or fake quality in this game. I don't think that voting someone out and "feeling bad" are two things that are mutually exclusive, and I genuinely did feel bad about voting people out. Because I know that this is a game we all put a lot of time and heart into, so I feel like we all felt bad whenever someone had to leave, because we knew how much effort and energy we all put into this thing. So just know that I did feel genuinely bad, even if I shouldn't have tried to use apologies to make myself feel better and just respected your guys' space.

Anyways, thanks for the question Stephen and good luck with your decision. My answer got a little too clinical in a way that I could only make it (lol communications major), so if you have anything you want me to expand upon or clarify, I'm here to do it. But basically, it was a yes and a no.

First off: that picture of Stephen is really making me laugh for some reason. He is so "that guy" He's not still with Courtney, is he?

That is a very good question. It does definitely speak to my agency and involvement in the 'playing both sides' aspect of the game. I knew of every boot, and especially of my allies -- but just let them happen. I mean, I am not sure what would happen otherwise? Sierra would never have worked with Caryn. Erik would not go to Sue with his plan to boot Austin. Kelley and Rory did not have a relationship. I think if I revealed any of it, it would backfire on me or Austin. I think the way the tribes were set up dynamically made it hard to seek any allies on the other side that would genuinely want to work with me and my allies.

But with you, it was definitely early enough to give you a heads up. I did think about telling you about it, but it seemed too risky at that point. I am not sure it would have benefitted me. I feel like me not revealing that, or any of Austin's info, made him ensure taking me to the finals. I definitely argued with him to vote with us and boot out Garrett. It seemed the two sides were locked.

I guess the only benefit of telling you would be that you would not have been blindsided. But, I feel like me even telling you that info would make me seem sketchy as fuck if you ever told anyone that I told you or etc.

Can I ask you: Why did you want Katie out and not Sierra during that round?

I can answer that. it's because he loves me

Sierra Reed @ 10/4/2015 0:11

I can answer that. it's because he loves me

Yep.

I have what I need. Thank you Austin and Monica. And good luck.