The world has seen how much a virus can change things in the past couple of years. But Alyssa Ljubicich learned that lesson in a much different way on The Circle. The assistant to a sex therapist found herself in many powerful positions early on, focusing on making small yet sturdy alliances. Her most significant one was the “throuple” in herself, Josh “Bru” Brubaker and Yu Ling Wu. So when the show threw a new “antivirus” twist in, with each contestant picking a person to be safe, Alyssa thought she was in a good place. She had just been an influencer, and she now had two people watching her back. Unfortunately, she was not as well covered as she thought she was. Yu Ling and Bru both passed her over for other allies, eliminating her. Alyssa was stunned and driven to tears at her shock blocking, as she went from the top to the bottom in only a couple of days. Read on to hear Alyssa’s thoughts on her time in the game. And check out Parade.com throughout The Circle season 4 with the various players and catfishes alike. What made you decide to enter The Circle? I was a fan from season one. And every time I would watch, I’d be like, “I could do that better. My strategy would be better.” And so I just applied and I never in a million years thought that I would get even just that first interview. No one in my personal life has done anything like this before, which is part of the reason I like shows like The Circle because they really try and pull people from completely different backgrounds. Did you ever contemplate coming in as a catfish? I didn’t think I could do a catfish strategy because my memory is awful. I’m not a great liar. And it’s probably largely because my memory is bad. If I had to remember all of the things that I told people, I would be [expletive] out of luck. It’s so tough to create a profile that feels so genuine when you’re just creating this person out of thin air. I wanted to go in as myself. My strategy was to be well-liked. When I was in high school, my superlative was I was the nicest one in my graduating class. And so, similar to Bru, I was like, “I can be nice through this game, and be myself.” So it was more important to me to be myself. But I also don’t think I would be sharp enough to be a catfish. You said at one point that your strategy was to avoid making big alliances and instead go for one-on-one relationships. Why did you decide on that gameplay? People really rely on their alliance strategy. And I didn’t want to create these really big alliances and then break the alliances. It sort of creates a rift in the whole game. I’ve watched some seasons of Big Brother. And I feel like that’s something that they do a lot in Big Brother, where they avoid the big alliance. So that’s where I got that inspiration from the strategy. I wish I had had the opportunity to make more small alliances, but we only have so many chats in a day. I feel like I was often pulled into bigger group chats, and I always wanted smaller ones. But to do that, that other person has to be available. So many things have to line up for us only to have those small chats. My only regret is that it’s just not possible to have continuous one-on-one conversations, just by the nature of the game. Let’s talk about some of your most relationships in the season. Give me your thoughts on Bru. I thought he was kind of harmless. I thought he was just super nice and would be a good alliance. He always seemed shy, but he was a team player. And that is him in real life. So when he started this “twentysomethings” chat, I felt, “Okay, this is great. He took the initiative to pull Yu Ling and me into this chat.” And I felt like that was an easy alliance for me to make because I felt like there’s really good potential for him to be loyal. And then, when all of that antivirus stuff went down, obviously, I was upset to leave the show. I was upset that it was my alliance on both ends. That just hurt. And oh, my God, it was the longest process ever. But ultimately, after I went to go and see him, seeing how genuine and sincere he is, it was hard. How do you stay mad at somebody like that? He is the person that you think he is. He really is so well-rounded and kind. And so it just made it easy for me to trust him both in the upfront and then later when everything kind of went sour. There was a limit to how mad I could be about that. Another one of your allies who did not save you was Yu Ling. What was your relationship? At first, I had a moment where I thought she might be a catfish. I couldn’t understand her personality, especially in the beginning. She was a little quieter one day, and then she was super involved in chats. I couldn’t get a read for her right away. And then I got to really understand a little more about her, to the point when her chat bubbles started to pop up. I was like, “Oh, I can’t wait. I just can’t wait to hear what she has to say.” Every time she contributed, it was hysterical. I really loved having all the girls chat. We had a lot of really nice moments together to bond. So in my blocking, I blamed her more than I did Bru. He really had two choices. And it didn’t make sense to me that Yu Ling had chosen Rachel. But at the finale, the first thing she did was she ran up to me, grabbed my hand, and went, “I am so sorry. Do you hate me?” And she’s like the size of a tic-tac! (Laughs.) I was like, “I can’t hate you looking at you.” Ultimately, it’s a game. She was hard to get a read of in the beginning anyway. So I probably made a mistake in fully trusting her as my strongest alliance. But I didn’t think that it would go down the way it did. I loved playing with her. She’s hysterical. Every single moment that she entered anything into that chat, I knew it was going to be ridiculous. You were close with Carol, AKA John, at the beginning of the game. But once you and Yu Ling started comparing notes, you realized she might be a catfish. However, I noticed this season that contestants such as yourself were more likely to keep in a catfish if you felt they trusted you. How tough was it to reconcile suspecting someone was a catfish with having that trust? I felt back and forth about it. I knew that catfish hunting is a distraction. It’s not the point of the game. It’s survival of the fittest. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. The catfish don’t really matter. But when you’re boiling it all down, and that’s somebody you’re trusting in the game, it starts to feel like, “Okay, this person has created a whole persona.” Unfortunately, it does affect your trust after a little while. John was really John. It’s funny because I got crap for making fun of his cake and whatever. But John played a little bit of a sneakier game than he likes to let on. I saw him yesterday, and I was like, “You play harder than you thought you did. I don’t want to hear it about the cake anymore.” I think it’s just the nature of the catfishing relationship where you’re lying about so much, and I want to trust you and believe you. But I have confirmed that you are not who you say you are. So it’s hard for me to confirm then that you will have my back later down the road, especially if you’ve thrown out that you have everybody’s back. You were the lucky one to get visited by the Spice Girls on their way out of the show. What was that experience like? I can’t even. It didn’t occur to me that they were going to come see me at all. I was just not mentally prepared for it. And then, all of a sudden, I hear a bang on my door. And I was like, “Oh, no way.” I had Spice Girls Barbie. I was so heavily, heavily invested in everything Spice Girls when I was young. I couldn’t understand what was happening. It was funny, too. I’m so glad it was filmed because I don’t remember anything I said. (Laughs.) When I watched it, I was like, “Oh, good. I actually composed myself. That’s nice.” (Laughs.) I want to take you from your happiest moment to probably your saddest. We could see how upset you were at your elimination, probably the most emotional reaction of the season. Talk me through everything that was going on at that moment. A big part of it was the way that it went down. That blocking took hours. It was 3:00 a.m. when I finally got blocked. Bru took 45 minutes for his decision alone. At that point, I was exhausted. We don’t know what time it is. We don’t know how long we’re waiting. But I felt like I was waiting an eternity. It was 45 minutes waiting for this Sophie’s choice of a decision coming from Bru. I felt like every relationship I had–or I thought I had–on the show failed me completely. Honestly, even with Rachel, she and I had really good conversations. And couldn’t understand how she chose Nathan because all I knew was that they had a bad relationship. So I was like, “What the [expletive] is going on?” I just couldn’t believe this was happening the way it’s happening. Because I don’t know what I could have done differently to save myself. The only person I had any moments where our relationship was iffy would have been Carol. And it was the two of us sitting at the bottom. It often happens that you’re an influencer, and then that person ends up leaving shortly after that. But it just didn’t seem like that made sense. None of it made sense to me. I really, really, really thought that I had a strong handle on the game. And I thought for sure that I would, at the very least, make it to the finals couch. And it was heartbreaking to see it slip from my fingers in a way that I felt like I couldn’t have predicted, and I had no control over any pieces that I thought I had control over. It absolutely slowly pulled the rug out from under me in front of my eyes for hours and hours. You’ve talked on the show about wanting to be a sex educator, and you showcased some of those skills on The Circle. What has the response been like from the audience who got to see you open up about those topics? The response has been amazing. It’s just validated everything that I want to do. Every single time I do a question box on Instagram, I’m flooded and inundated with questions and things that are important. Emotional things, health-related things. People really need someone to answer these questions. It’s been a really validating experience for me, and I’m very, very, grateful that I was given a platform to be able to be helpful to people. Next, read our interview with The Circle season 3 winner James Andre Jefferson Jr.
