Welcome!

[candice]

it's ok brian i liked you. i hated just about every decision you made but i liked talking to you lol

[Brian]

I understand that Candice, the game just goes that no matter what decision you make on things, someone's going to hate it. It's like, I wish Mike wasn't still upset at me for evicting him sure, but between him and Matt the choice was kind of clear.


I have to kind of get this out there and since I'm not sure how to word it, I'm going to go on gut feeling so bear with me.

The issue here doesn't appear to be whether or not I actually was some sort of Zach/Nick follower who didn't play hard, for himself, and bust his ass in this game. That's not the issue because I (naturally) know better than anybody what my thoughts, plans, and feeling were throughout the game to know that's far from true. The issue is with how well of a job I did relaying that I wasn't, making it clear that I wasn't, and getting it clearly across that I wasn't. Perception may not be reality, but in a game like this, perception is what a lot of people have to rely on to move forward. If the impression that I were to give suggested something opposite of the truth then yeah I have to live with that.

However, that isn't the thing that gets me. I'm a blunt and stubborn person, and when I disagree with something I'll voice my opinion on it. That's just who I am. The thing is though, in a game where I know, or at least partly know a number of people in it, those parts of my personality, and that I'm not the type of person to ever just take orders and play sidekick should already be known. From things said in here by you guys and Pyramid Head, to things said by Heather, it paints an unsettling picture. It comes across as people that I thought had gotten to know me or were getting to not really paying attention to things I said or hearing me out. Some of it even comes across as those with DR access merely "light skimming" through mine and judging off that, from some P.Head posts. And that's part of what bugs me most.

I felt as if people I reached out to, didn't attempt to reach out back and that I was forced to work within the confines of what was available to me. It's not even so much the act of being left out of being included in alliances that could've been mutually beneficial, or of wrong opinions being formed of me (though that happening in the first place stings a bit) that hurts. It's that the perceived and implied reasoning behind them comes across as making judgements and assumptions about me without knowing half the story or trying to get the rest of it. I knew coming in that there was a perception about me as a person, and that I'd have to work all game to change it. I just wasn't prepared to feel like I was being looked down upon and not seen as equal prior to getting to say much and since that's not a situation I'm used to, I didn't fully know how to change it. Hell, I think at one point I figured "I could've somehow won HOH 4 times and gotten Nick, Zach, Boog, and Sofia out during my reigns and people would still view me the same".


So...that's my burst of what I've been feeling since eviction. I'm sure not everyone that can read it will, and that it'll at least get "skimmed over" by some, but to be honest...I just feel a bit better getting it out of my system.

[pyramidhead]

Aug 28, 2015 0:45:58 GMT -5 Brian said:

You're crying? Imagine how upset I feel at knowing that you never even read any of my DRs to begin with. I'm hurt. Truly, I am.

I read all of them. I'd read them before going to bed every night because they put a smile on my face knowing you were masterminding this whole game. I was hurt that you would take so long to answer my questions

[keith]

Brian that paragraph almost seems nothing like you. I really felt like I never had an opportunity to play the game with you, because the few times that I tried to get any sort of opinion out of you you dodged it. Like you were writing me off completely. But after the week I was evicted I grew to respect you and I'm sorry to see you here.

[keith]

Aug 28, 2015 12:34:22 GMT -5 Brian said:

I felt as if people I reached out to, didn't attempt to reach out back and that I was forced to work within the confines of what was available to me.

Sorry man, but this is bullshit.  You limited yourself as to who you wanted to work with.  When people approached you about decisions, you completely dodged them.  I remember during the Mike vote i asked you several times what your decision was and you never said it.  It's a horrible social tactic, and you put yourself in a situation where you could only beat Matt and Neda because of it.  It's disrespectful to write people off, and it's kind of infuriating that you're acting like it was done to you.

[Brian]

The thing is though, sure I'll admit there were a couple of people who left early that I didn't reach out to, but I'm fairly confident I'm not the only one that has that apply to them.

I didn't approach "everyone" no, but there were a number of people who didn't approach me when I really felt they could of, and it made me think it had to do with some pre-conceived notion on me. The whole "Brian dodges giving straight answers when asked" thing has always been something that confused me a bit. I talked to Neda on it a number of rounds ago and made efforts to try and improve on it. I'll elaborate a bit more in the questions Kat asked, but the matter of fact answer is that it was never at all something I tried to do. People would ask me on stuff like that, and I would usually just give an honest answer on how I felt at the time. It obviously may not have always been an answer people liked, but it tended to be honest nonetheless.

That being said, there were a couple of times where I would know what I was doing and say I didn't instead of outright lying by saying I was doing the opposite. Even though both are dishonest and technically lying, "being caught unsure" tends to get you in less hot water than "being caught flat out lying". One of those times WAS with the Mike vote initially, but I did have every intention of telling you I was voting Mike (as I told others including Mike himself), so I'm not 100% on why that conversation never got to take place or happen. But before it gets said, yes I could've sent you a PM if I really really wanted to, and yes that was nobody's fault but my own and I have to take responsibility for that.

[memphis]

Aug 28, 2015 13:58:52 GMT -5 keith said:

Aug 28, 2015 12:34:22 GMT -5 Brian said:

I felt as if people I reached out to, didn't attempt to reach out back and that I was forced to work within the confines of what was available to me.

Sorry man, but this is bullshit.  You limited yourself as to who you wanted to work with.  When people approached you about decisions, you completely dodged them.  I remember during the Mike vote i asked you several times what your decision was and you never said it.  It's a horrible social tactic, and you put yourself in a situation where you could only beat Matt and Neda because of it.  It's disrespectful to write people off, and it's kind of infuriating that you're acting like it was done to you.

I don't want to pile on but there is definitely some truth to this. Brian, I perceived us to be somewhat close gamewise but whenever I would ask you about a vote or just what you were thinking about the game, you would never give me a straight answer despite us "aligning" in the first week of the game. It was always some vague answer that could mean anything. 

[Brian]

For what it's worth Memphis, I genuinely considered you an ally through the game. I did sometimes have moments of "even though I like X, Y, and Z, there's always some way someone finds out everything I say and do anyway" where I'd just instinctively want to limit the information people could leak on me. Maybe I just come across as a private person to some people and that winds up contributing to not being in as many legit alliances instead of things that turned out to be surface 'alliances', I don't know for sure.

[memphis]

I figured after the drama of RNF7 - you were just playing your cards very close to your chest - which I do think worked out better for you in this game. I was just never sure if you trusted me or not, lol. But yeah, you were definitely someone I was never going to target and would have protected deep into the game.

[Brian]

Yeah, I didn't want to always be saying "this is fucking stupid" or "if everyone doesn't just do this, they're idiots since anybody could see this", and start going on about stuff. I figured if I didn't hold things closer, it'd turn into "oh that's just Brian being Brian again" and I wanted people to know there was more to me than that. I don't think I can ever fully take the need to get my unfiltered thoughts off my chest every now and then though, and not really having someone to completely do that with (I did a little with Heather, but I still felt I had to hold back a little) wound up making me hold my tongue a lot more than I would've liked to.

Hm...maybe happy medium's the way to go, lol.

[Shir]

Brian. Literally every single person in this cast that had a convo with you has said that you don't give straight answers. Just so you know.

[Brian]

That already got mostly sorted a bit ago Shir, and I'm not sure where the issue seems to be following that. As I said there, I gave honest answers to the questions that were asked when people wanted my take on things. Sure, it tended to not be the answers that people wanted and sure it wasn't as blunt as usual, but they were still at least partly how I felt.

I mean, you were certainly there for Season 7, and you saw how things went when I was open and blunt about things (which I was criticized for), so you should certainly be able to understand and know why I saw the decision to scale things back as being necessary. There were only a very select few people I ever was like "screw this, I don't have to answer that" and dodged answering, or wrote off. I already explained that anything like that wasn't done with any sort of malice, and I'd much rather it not be viewed as being that, so it's seen as something it's not.

Even with it, I still did have people that I was certainly what would be considered "direct" with, and when I felt we'd been able to relate enough that I could, I had much less of an issue with it. I appreciate the attempt or offer to help Shir, and I've meant nothing negative by any of this, but some of it is stuff I already knew or at least heard.

[candice]

soooo anyway

who do y'all think will win HoH, zach or nick?

[Brian]

Ah shit, I felt bad after posting that so yeah.

Who'll win HOH? Well, Zach seems to be having the best luck with those, so let's just go with him because 'why not'.

[Shir]

Ok Brian, but whether you intended to or not, they still didn't consider those straight answers.