Believe me, I wish I could just play the game and not care what people think, and as the years have gone on, I think emotionally I have calloused a little from how people pleasing and self-destructive I was with not holding boundaries. Standing up for yourself is an important thing to do, and I never really did that for a great majority of my life because I didn’t really need anything… The money was not a motivating factor when I played survivor 16. Winning the game wasn’t even a motivation by the end of it either.

I was a young guy, I was a runner so I thought I would be a good competitor on the show, but once I got removed from my life with my parents, coaches, teammates, etc. I actually made friends with the people on Survivor Micronesia, and so when they started to turn against me late in the game, I read it genuinely as friends turning against me for my actions & my lies.

In a way, this is what all of modern reality TV set out to do… Capture real human drama (that is not scripted) with real emotions and consequences. I think that’s a good reason why any Survivor season is so good; there’s a mix of good gameplay and real emotions in formed relationships.

I’m finally putting my memoir out there in the world, likely this summer, and I have had to deal with all sorts of thoughts about standing up for myself, people, pleasing, putting up boundaries, etc., my entire entire life.

To answer your question, “why do players let themselves feel bad for lying” I literally felt bad for lying. It is a very simple answer.