Survivor Micronesia

Erik's Comedy of Errors

Erik Reichenbach is the latest victim to get caught up in the women's tangled web of deceit and manipulation on Survivor Micronesia. In what is being called the dumbest move in Survivor history, the ice cream scooper from Hell, Michigan gave his Immunity Necklace to Natalie, who kindly returned the favor by voting him off.

What was I thinking? That’s a good question! Obviously my judgment was clouded by the fact that the girls were putting all these different ideas in my head and there were a lot of emotions going on. You can see it from the way Amanda was messing with me. Amanda would act like she was my best friend and the next day she would hate me again or want to get rid of me.

I would have been better running to the other side of the island and staying by myself and surviving! I was pretty naïve and I got played. There’s no question about it. It was just… crazy.

Dude, Never Take Off The Immunity Necklace!

Halfway through tribal, I made my final decision about what I wanted to do. When I finally made the decision to do it, I didn’t look at anybody, which was the dumbest thing I could’ve done because I would have seen the warning signs on everybody’s face and not done it. But I had made up my mind and told myself not to look to anybody for help because people would think I was totally nuts, which I was!

Natalie and Cirie had convinced me the plan would work. Natalie is very good at persuading people to do things that she wants them to do. It worked with Jason, and I should have seen that and immediately recognized it as a threat. When she first came up to me with the idea after the immunity challenge, I said “that’s a dumb idea and I am not going to do that.” But by the end of the day, I was doing it!

Cirie also gave me her word and up to that point, I had not seen Cirie lie. I thought Cirie was pretty trustworthy, which is ridiculous looking at the show now. On top of that, they mentioned that it would help make up for the blunder I made when I didn’t send Natalie to Exile, and that the jury would see it as a nice gesture.

In my eyes it made sense for Cirie and Natalie to come with me because Parvati and Amanda are very close. They said many times that they would never vote for each other, so it made sense for Cerie and Natalie to come with me to vote those two out.

What A Tangled Web They Weave…

People have asked me if I will ever look at women the same way again. A lot of it was the game and the motivation of a million dollars! I was hurt by pretty much all the girls there and it’s going to take awhile for those wounds to heal, but I’m not going to judge all women by the standards of a few.

I got along great with Alexis and we had a good relationship out there; I know that she wouldn’t have done anything like that, so it just depends on the person. At the end of the day, someone’s going to get screwed over. That’s how Survivor is played; you’re going to get screwed over eventually, unless you win.

One Dumb Move Leads To Another

Sending Parvati to Exile was the first dumb move that ended up leading to all the other stuff. It didn’t do anything except piss off Natalie and guarantee Parvati was still in control of the game.

I sent Parvati because after the conversation with Natalie on the beach, I talked to Amanda. And then there was a conversation with all the girls involved, and we all said we should send Parvati. The problem was that I listened to them, when in reality it should have been Natalie, no matter what.

Taking Amanda on the reward challenge goes back to when I had voted for her at the previous tribal council. I was trying to get her on my side. I thought it would be a nice gesture, but obviously Amanda didn’t see it as that. Immediately after we got back from that awesome reward, she started saying all these things about me so that didn’t profit for me at all. But generally, I liked Amanda over the other girls. I knew Amanda better than anybody else there.

Life After Micronesia

As of right now, I’m still in Hell, scooping ice cream. I would love to go on Survivor again if they call me back, but I don’t know if that will happen. And I need some time to get over blowing it!

I came into the game thinking I was going to have a good strategy, and then I saw the beautiful scenery all around me: the betel nut, the boobs, the beer… and my strategy took second fiddle to where I was and what I was doing. I just wanted to soak everything in – I will probably never be in Micronesia or Yam again, and I just enjoyed everything.

I definitely learned I need to stand up for myself and be more aggressive. I played a pretty passive game; I kind of hid behind Joel for the first part and then I hid behind Ozzy after that, and then I just floated along without even an alliance. I should have just stood up and said I’m going to go for this. I had all the power in my hands but I was playing an under-the-radar game when I needed to step up.

Up to two episodes ago, I would have voted for Amanda for sure, out of the four girls. But now I’m not so sure, based on the way that she acted towards me and the way that she played me on top of everyone else playing me. I don’t know Parvati very well but she might get my vote because she hasn’t done anything to betray me like the other three.

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