Today was the most emotional day I’ve ever had while playing an ORG. Ever.
Like, oh my gosh, I literally was such a mess all day. It was absolutely awful. I didn’t even want to write about it, but I feel like it's necessary.
It started out when I was in the library this morning, reading my book for class, and I got a text from Dominic, saying that he wasted his idol guess, and was hoping I would guess for him and give him the idol. I told him I would think about it, and then he reminded me that I promised him yesterday that I would do that. Which, I did. It was in the heat of the moment and I felt bad, so at that time I told him I would do that. Which, I know, was extremely stupid of me so we don’t need to go there.
So I told Dominic that I thought about it, but it’s not smart for me to do that, and I was just going to stick with my alliance. Then, he said that he takes it extremely personal that I lied to his face, when we were talking as friends.
Wow, I felt like such a shitty person, you don’t even know. I felt awful. Like, beyond terribly awful. I told him that I wasn’t lying to him, I just thought about it and I realized it wasn’t smart. But he told me that it would be smart; I’d be making a huge move, and I’d be playing with my head instead of with my heart. (Which is totally inaccurate, that would be just the opposite…)
I asked him that if I did that for him, if he could idol me out instead of one of my allies. He said he would if I really wanted, but he would rather not do that. I sent him a long text about how I’d rather take the fall for my own dumb, emotional move rather than have one of my allies pay for it. Then, he said that he “can’t even have this conversation right now” and stopped responding.
This is when everything really started to get to me. I felt sick to my stomach. I felt awful and extremely weak. I hadn’t eaten all day, but yet I had no appetite. I could not focus on my book at ALL. I literally got up and walked around for a while, just trying to clear my head. I went and sat in my car for 20 minutes. I was so stressed out over this silly game, which is absolutely ridiculous. I have never in my 5 years of playing ORGs felt my real life so affected by a game before.
I shouldn’t have even been contemplating this. There should have been no decision for me to make.
But yet, there was.
I was torn. No matter what I did, I would be hurting and upsetting someone. I have my amazing alliance who have been my rock this entire game, who’ve helped me get to this point, and who I’ve become really close to throughout all this time. Then I have Ben and Dominic who are emotionally manipulating me at the last second to try to save themselves. I realized what they were doing, but yet, I was letting it happen.
The worst part about everything is that I was bottling up so many emotions. I tried to write a confessional earlier, but I was so rattled and beaten that I couldn’t even write properly. Even worse, I couldn’t think of anyone to talk to about this who wouldn’t have any bias. I was seriously a mess, and I had no idea how to get that feeling to go away. It was beyond awful.
Finally, I came up with a temporary cover-up idea. I decided that I would pretend that I thought you got a guess at the idol for every clue, even though I knew that you only got 1 guess total. A huge lie, but I just needed something to get me out of this mess at least for this round.
So I texted Dominic and told him that I would do it. He gave me the answer. I told him I was about to guess, but then first “I noticed” that Morgan added another clue. I asked Dominic, “Did you guess after the last clue???” to which he said yes, and reminded me it’s only 1 guess total. So I was like “Seriously?? I thought it was a guess per clue….I guessed when there were 3 clues.” And he immediately said “Are you lying?” So this awful, sick-to-my-stomach that I’ve been feeling all day literally just got worse. Now I felt added frustration and guilt. But I just kept lying, and told him that yes I had already guessed, but he told me to guess his answer anyways just incase, and so I said I would.
At this point, I felt as bad as I possibly could. I truly had no idea what to do, and I had no idea what the
right thing to do was. Now, I lied about not having guessed for the idol, and I know for a fact that everyone else has already guessed. So by pretending to have guessed, that means that I would have to hope that Dominic doesn’t find out that everyone has already guessed, or if I throw away my guess, then he would know that I was lying, and I didn’t guess the word he told me to. I’ve played a fairly clean game up until this point, and now I had gotten myself into a huge mess for no reason other than I felt bad for Dominic. So I'm in a mess in this game, but also an internal mess with myself. It was the worse feeling ever. I had so much emotion bottled up into me, and I decided that there was no way I could keep this in any longer. So I told Knox, I NEEDED to talk to him on google hangout like, now.
So we went on google hangout, and I tried my best to articulate the situation, but I was still so broken that I could barely construct proper sentences. But I explained to him the situation. I told him everything, from the stupid comment I slipped out on the phone, to Dominic giving me the correct answer for the idol, to me pretending that I already guessed. Knox was super understanding of everything. He told me that they know that I’m naïve and an emotional player, so they were using that to their advantage. He said that if they were truly my friends, they wouldn’t be trying to use me like that. And he said it pisses him off that they were treating me the way they were. Of course, Knox is biased and wants me to stay on his side. So obviously he is going to say these things. But I needed to hear it.
During that conversation, the message about us having 2 guesses was posted. Which put a whole new spin on things, and created many new options. Knox told me that regarding the idol situation, he wasn’t going to tell me what to do. He said if I wanted to guess and keep the idol, or guess and give it to Dominic, he wouldn’t argue with me. However, he also offered to find it for me so that I didn’t have to worry about it, or he said that I could just not tell him, and he’d never use his 2nd guess and they would never find it. After a little bit of talk, he told me that he thought I should just send Dominic a text saying something like “Hey, I’m sorry I’ve been really conflicted about this all day, but I’m just not going to use my second guess, I know you and Ben want to say in the game, but I want to stay true to my alliance” or something like that. And I decided that Knox was right, and that was the best thing to do. So I asked Knox if he could just wait while I composed the message. But what I didn’t tell Knox was that first, before I composed that message, I sent Dominic a text saying “Did you guess twice?” and he said “No just once” and I was like “you can guess twice now, go!!” And while I was waiting for his response, I started was also typing the longer message Knox and I decided I was going to send.
But while I was typing that text, Knox told me that he already figured out that the answer was nymph. He was like, “this is perfect, this will just solve all your problems if I get this right!” And this was the first time all day that I smiled. I was hoping that Knox would just get it before Dominic did, but at the same time, I hoped he didn’t.
Then I get a text from Dominic asking if I told Knox that nymph was the answer. I told him I didn’t. He told me to stop lying. Again, I told him I didn’t. Then he told me that there was going to be an “idol tiebreaker” because someone else guessed it correctly at the same time. Oops!
So the idol tiebreaker starts, and I’m sitting here while Knox is just going crazy trying to guess stuff for this idol. There was nothing I could do but just sit there and hoped for the best. And minutes later, Knox screamed that he found it. And sure enough, that followed by a text from Dominic saying that I fucked him over, and not to talk to him because he was upset. Then he won immunity, and he texted saying that I could now make Ben upset by voting him out when he just got 7th in another game.
So, this was a crazy emotional day for me. I seriously at one point today was the most upset that I’ve been in at least 3 months.
My analysis of the situation in general: I think the smart thing to do is to continue to the final 5 with my alliance, but it’s a tough thing for me to do since I love Ben and Dominic so much. However, for them to say that I fucked them over, and that I’m not giving them a chance and I’m being a bad friend, I don’t agree with any of that. The entire premerge, I was loosing, and neither of them cared. I gave Dominic multiple chances to help me out, and he never did. All he had to do was be like “Hey, I’m working with Ellen, but you should too and so we can all work together” and everything would have been solved. Up until the Chase vote, I would have done everything he told me to. But that vote showed where he stood. When I asked him to explain why he did that, he didn't, so that's when I had to not trust him. Ben, I admit I didn’t give him as much as a chance, but he screwed with me from the start by running to Ellen with everything I said. I know he says now that the reason he told Ellen all that pregame stuff was because he wanted to help me so she wouldn’t go after me, but if that was true, he would have said something to me about it. So, I’m sorry Ben and Dominic. You guys might hate me after this. Ben, you may never let me come visit you again. Dominic, you may ignore every one of my phone calls from here on out. But hey, it’s just a game, and all I am doing is playing it. And I’m sorry if that upsets you guys.
On another note, though, I really have to say this. Knox absolutely turned my entire day around. I can’t even describe how awfully shitty I felt today. I seriously could barely talk. But I finally took that chance and talked to Knox, and I just told him
everything. I remember when I did this same thing round 4 after all that Luca stuff, and he made me feel better about it all. And now, he did that once again. I seriously feel like I’m Dawn and just lost my teeth, and he’s Brenda and found them for me. Lol that’s seriously how I feel. This day was going by so slowly, and I could just not go through the rest of the day feeling as shitty as I did. My conversation with Knox seriously made everything better. I love him SO much. I could not have asked for a better ally and friend. I can tell why he’s such an amazing RA to his residents. They are so lucky to have him. Yes, I realize that I’m sure in the back of his head he’s thinking about strategy and how he needs me on his side to get to the end. And I also realize that he has told Dominic many things that have been said within JABBA, and he could do that again. But honestly, I don’t care. I took everything that he did for me today as him doing that as my friend. Because that’s honestly what it felt like. And at this point, I truly don’t think I could ever vote Knox out after doing that for me.
But hey, that’s what Dawn said about Brenda, too.
