One of the more embarrassing parts of Survivor is that often, your place in the game depends entirely on the opinion of someone you think isn't qualified to mow your lawn. It certainly doesn't help when that person joins forces with several other like-minded players and, suddenly, you're at the mercy of a group of people you don't like or respect.

On Survivor: Gabon, Dan was one of several players affected by the tribe shake-up in the third episode. An original member of Fang, Dan suddenly found himself on the outside of the dominant group in Kota, specifically the "onion alliance," made up of original Kota members Marcus, Corinne and Charlie. Although he initially tried to ingratiate himself to the onion alliance, Dan was unable to break into their close-knit clique.

At the immunity challenge, Kota and Fang received a shock when they found out that both tribes would vote out players. At first, the onion alliance wanted to vote out wild card Susie; however, they soon remembered that Dan was potentially in possession of an immunity idol from his trip to Exile Island during the first episode.

So, they hedged their bets: the majority of the tribe voted for Dan and the rest voted for Susie. If Dan played the idol, Susie would go home and the other tribe members would no longer need to worry about the idol; if he didn't, the onion alliance would still eliminate one of their enemies. Sure enough, Dan hadn't found the immunity idol on Exile Island and he was eliminated from Survivor: Gabon.

The 32-year-old lawyer from Boston, Mass. explained why he didn't align himself with the original Fang members, the rationale behind his "non-strategy" strategy and which players he dislikes the most. (Hint: their names are Marcus and Corinne.)


What was it like watching the episode where you were voted off?
It was interesting. I mean, I pretty much knew everything that was going to be shown. I was surprised that they thought I had the idol. I'm really glad that Marcus – you're starting to see some of his personality flaws come out.

Like what?
Well, I mean, the guy's a doctor and he's name calling. I think name calling is kind of something we do back in grade school. I think that he's stooping down to Corinne's level; I think he's been hanging out with her too long. So it was nice to see that side, which I had experienced in the game and now everyone out of the game is understanding a little bit more about who he may be.

It sounds like you don't have a very high opinion of some of the Kota members.
I think we all have personality flaws; we really do. I've worked very hard over the last few years to work with my personality flaws that I've identified; it's just a matter of which personality flaws you can accept and which ones you can't. And that's part of the game of Survivor. Corinne and Marcus are two people with personality flaws that I couldn't accept and I think they caught onto that and I think that's why they didn't trust me.

During the episode, it looked like you really wanted to be part of their inner circle.
I think when I first got on that tribe, I did want to get into their social circle. Someone called them "the in crowd," and I said, you know, I don't think they're the in crowd. They – the "onion alliance," I guess it's called – had control of that tribe. I can understand, in a game where you're judged by your peers, you don't want to be on the outside out of that. However, I always sat there and they would tell these things around camp. They would ask and say certain things and I found myself thinking, "I can't wait to get away from these people. They are so negative." But in the game, you have to act like you want to be in their social circle. So they may have been "the in crowd" for that particular moment, but I don't necessarily want to keep those people in my life and, obviously, you can probably tell from talking to me, I'm trying to – I think we're all trying to deal with different issues of certain people on that show. I guess that's all I can really say about it.

Do you think you were portrayed fairly?
I don't necessarily care if I'm portrayed fairly; I don't have a problem with the way that I was portrayed. I know that anyone who’s going to make judgments based on an hour television show, it probably isn't the most intelligent conclusion they can come to. I have some great people back here in Boston. I've made a conscious effort this year to take all the people that I surrounded myself with that had drama or I didn't feel were nice, genuine people and I've gotten rid of them in my life. I have great friends here now and that's all I can ask for, so whether or not they're going to portray me fair on the show or not, it doesn't matter to me.

What about the scenes that show you eating more food than the rest of the tribe?
[Laughs] Well, I just want to start by saying: I love food. I really do. I mean, who doesn't? I do. It's one of my favourite things to do, is eat. But I think it shows you how petty things can be at day 19. And I don't mean to downplay the importance of food – I definitely am not a selfish person, nor did I want to be selfish. But we were cooking - from a logistical standpoint, let's think about it rationally: we had half a pot of rice that we would cook and we would cook that twice a day. I couldn't even have had – it's not possible, from a logistical standpoint, that I could have had a significant amount of food more than anyone else. If anything, I had a few extra scoops and at one point, I was counting the scoops that Marcus would have and I was having the same amount of scoops. But when something gets in Corinne's head, when someone's as negative as she is, she just runs with it. We're in an environment out there where it's like wildfire, where people see that and it just gets worse and worse and you can't stop it at that point.

So if you love to eat and you only want to hang around people you like, why go on Survivor to begin with?
I was recruited to the show. I was asked to go on the show – there was only about a month, it was probably May and we left three weeks after that. It just felt like it came along at the right time. Regardless of the feelings that I have – and I think we're all dealing with things. I can tell you, from the person who came in second to the person who came in last, we're all dealing with these feelings right now. I do talk to some of the people who were on the show – most of the people who were on the show – and regardless of that, you have to remember that this was an amazing experience. To see a part of the world that I had never seen before, to play a game that few people have the opportunity to play in and, most importantly, I went on the show because my parents have made a huge sacrifice in my life. My mother has worked herself to the bone, keeping our family together and to be able to hand her a million dollars or however much it would be after taxes, that would be just probably the best thing in my life to do. I wish I had that opportunity.

What was your strategy going into the game?
My strategy going into the game was kind of two-fold. One, I wanted to remain fluid because I think the game changes all the time and there are a lot of variables in this game. You don't know what challenges are going to come; you don't know the people you're going to be on the tribe with; they can switch tribes. There are so many variables, so I wanted to remain fluid; I didn't want to have a set strategy. But what I did want to do was make everyone feel comfortable. I do a pretty good job in my life of understanding people and I think there's a lot of people out there that come into a room and they don't start conversations; they don't extend themselves. And that's OK – people are generally like that when they're taken out of their comfort zones. My strategy was just going to make sure that I extended myself to them; try to make them feel comfortable. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep that strategy going because when I met Marcus and Corinne, I couldn't extend myself anymore. Although I never argued with them, I never called them names, I never got angry at them, I did a good job of staying neutral, I think part of Survivor is being able to embrace personalities that you don't like and I could not do that anymore. I think that was a big part of my downfall.

Do you think that you had stayed on the Fang tribe, you'd still be on the show?
I do. I definitely thing that if I had stayed on the Fang tribe, I'd still be there. But who knows? Anything can happen in this game. That's one of the things that you just don’t know. I'd like to think so, though.

If you hadn't been voted off, what would have been your next move?
Marcus had come to me a bunch of times and he said to me, "Dan, how can we trust you and Susie and Randy? You might be loyal to your old Fang members." And we would spend an hour's conversation with him trying to address his needs. And the thing that's self-serving about Marcus is that we would then turn to him and say, "How can we trust you?" And he'd say, "Well, I don't know what to tell you about that." So as soon as his needs were met, he kind of just brushed us off. If he'd just had a conversation with me and talked to me like an adult, I think I would have had a lot more respect for him and I think I would have been loyal to him. But since that didn't happen, my next move would have been to take him and Corinne and get them out of the game because they're strong players and I felt threatened by them at times.

Why didn't you, Susie and Randy – all former Fang members – band together and try to get them out? Couldn't you have brought Bob to your side?
I had talked to Randy about that a little bit and he didn't want to. He wanted to kind of ride their coattails until the merge, and I think that's probably a smart move. You will notice, a lot more of his personality started to come out as he got around Corinne. I think he was able to sort of mold to her personality and she probably thought that he liked her and that they were comfortable together. That left just me, Susie and Bob and I didn't feel that Bob would be able to do that, as well. He had come to me at one point and asked me if I wanted to align with him and Ace after the merge and I told him I didn't know. Probably about five or six days later, I went back to him and suggested that and he wasn't open to it anymore. At that point, he just wanted to keep a unified tribe. I don't know if it was because we were winning so much or if he felt more comfortable with Corinne, Marcus and Charlie. But Corinne did not like Bob at all and I made that known to Bob, but he chose not to make that alliance.

Do you regret any of the other moves that you made?
A little bit, I do. I wish I had a little bit more mental strength to put up with Corinne and Marcus a little bit more and make more of an effort to make them think that I was friendly with them. And I do regret asking Bob at that point if he would be willing to take out Marcus.

How was Jeff Probst as a host? It seemed like he couldn't even pretend to be impartial. He seemed to hate the Fang tribe, regardless of who was on it.
Jeff's interesting. He gives these opinions of us at the beginning of the season and we don't have much interaction with Jeff. I've probably only talked to him, throughout the whole two months that I was in Africa, for a period of 45 minutes – maybe even half an hour. So anyone to form an opinion of the tribe, or of a person, based on that – I don't necessarily think it's the best way to draw a conclusion. That being said, I can understand why Jeff said that. The Fang tribe had a difficult time organizing. I think that was the problem when it came to losing all the challenges.

But even in the second episode, when Fang won two challenges back-to-back, Probst was still convinced they were losers and this was just a lucky break. Sure, it turns out he wasn't entirely wrong, but he didn't know that at the time.
Well, the Fang tribe had some characters on it that were very difficult to deal with. I think he probably saw us, observing us at the challenges and he was still surprised, given our organization, that we would put together a win.

Who do you want to win the million dollars?
I think that there's some great individual people in this game. I think there's some people that are playing the game really well, so the combination of those, I would say are Matty, Randy, Sugar and probably Kenny.

Who do you think will win?
I think I'd be an idiot to answer that question, because everybody knows from Survivor, you can't predict anything. Someone can say one thing that's the wrong thing and they can go from being in a great position to a really bad position – and just eating an extra scoop of rice does that, so who knows what's going to happen?

Survivor: Gabon airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Global and CBS.

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