How do you think Dylan would act after getting into a fight with his love?

When the two would fight, it would be hard for Dylan to articulate because he wouldn’t want to cause her upset or allow her to see that ‘negative’ side of himself. It would amount to him fearing rejection.  He would get moody and sullen and maybe even act like nothing was wrong but she could tell there was. When she tried to engage him in an argument, he’d clam up until he’d reach the point where he’d have spurts of angry words in return with her. As a boyfriend it would be a challenge to get him to express his negative feelings and upsets, to help him identify and put voice to what he was actually feeling and without withholding or suppressing. In the midst of a making up, Dylan would probably knee-jerk apologize profusely. He’d more than own his fair share of blame having finally gone off on her in his exploding like a volcano. In not feeling quite smooth and confident enough to confront her and express his regret verbally, he’d likely resort to initially slipping his girl a breadcrumb trail of make-up notes – some of which, when opened, would be nothing more than a simple but perfect poem expressing his regret and how much he missed being with her and ending with a very earnest, heartfelt  “I love you, Dylan..”  

On a scale of 1-10 how much do you think dylan had social anxiety? What else did he have…Obviously depression but what else E-C….your reliable AF.

It depend on the social setting but I’d say probably about a 7-9 by around the age of seventeen and 8-10 as a child.  It wasn’t debilitating to the point where he couldn’t function but it was difficult and stressful for him to manage on a daily basis. Retreating to his bedroom was a comfort zone,  a way for him to replenish his depleted energy from putting himself out there with people in the world and people pleasing to keep everyone happy.  Once he knew certain peers well enough, that helped ease the anxiety but being in a new setting with new people would have been a struggle.   He’d shut down and get very quiet, withdrawn, ‘an observer’ and on the inside, feeling very nervous and overly self aware/self conscious. If he attended a party, he’d stick with friends  he knew and that’s why the drinking and projecting as a ‘party animal’ helped him to push aside his social anxiety and allowed him to relax a bit more around other people. The drinking would be a sense of relief to be more like how he wished he could be.  I think he probably had more panic attacks as a sensitive child but sort of eased out of that with more practice being around people. As Brook’s Brown’s mother said, it took little Dylan a good 15-20 minutes to warm up every single time he came over to their house for a play date. The time he slipped in the mud (as described in Brooks Brown’s book “No Easy Answers”) and everyone laughed as he took a spill was excruciatingly unbearable for Dylan. His reaction to his fuck up, his inability to cope with people laughing at him was an exaggerated and off the richter scale reaction. The public humiliation (which in his eyes it was) was amplified where as for other kids, they’d just laugh it off and get on with the day.

And always, there was that underlying feeling of not being made right, feeling like a fuck up with every little thing he did or said and those feelings never quite go away even with time and experience and being around the friends he hung out with regularly. Just feeling so unworthy and like an odd oddball outsider that could never fully relax and truly feel ‘a part of’.  His close friends saw the real, genuine Dylan with the guard down. They knew him to be goofy, hilarious and good company. They liked what they saw enough to stay friends with him. He never really fought and broke up with the friends he did make. Some friendships he drifted a part from but he never really burnt bridges.   I do strongly feel he had AvPD which is something I struggle with myself.  I go into this more here and here and here.  The AvPD distinguishes this from basic ‘shyness’ and ‘social anxiety’ that people tend to ‘grow out of ‘over time as they get older.  The AvPD and sensitivity would’ve limited his personal sense of perceiving himself as a successful person and certainly did not help his depression. The sense of isolation and self-hatred would’ve exacerbated his sadness.  One fed into the other.

Do you think Dylan ever felt unsure of going through with NBK?

Yeah, I think Dylan had moments were he was completely undecided about it. It’s not so much that he was vacillating about doing it but more that it wasn’t a reality until it actually was. He was always kind of hoping that Fate would intercede and reveal his true love to him. He was waiting for something to happen that would give him that reason, that purpose, to stick it out in his existence. Sure, he loved his parents and he’d miss his friends but in his mind, all he could focus on was the intense personal pain he was enduring..and the relief from it. By Jan ‘99, nothing panned out and the sense of alone-ness and pain seemed like infinity times itself. NBK was always kind of there in his back pocket and once the time began to run out and senior year was almost at an end, he decided that going for it with Eric was the best, the only option to be free of his stuck stasis. He may as well just go for it because what more more did he have to lose? In his mind, not a whole lot.

“Of course, I will miss things. Not really.”

If Facebook existed in the 90s, & if Dylan had one, what kinds of things do you think he’d post? I’d think maybe a few poems, not tooooo deep of ones though. What other kind of El Thoughtzo’s do you think would be status-worthy for him to share? Also, do you think he’d still keep a journal for his more private/intense thoughts? :)

I think Dylan would probably avoid Facebook at all cost as a teenager no matter what decade it was available in. lol If he was in his thirties now, sure, that’d be different but as a teen, no, not likely. Tumblr would probably be it; Facebook is too older crowd. Course, back then, they didn’t even quite have MySpace just yet. Social blogging didn’t exist either. They were just on the brink of Napster music sharing and blogging actually.. I think Dyl’s journal/personal meanderings would always remain just that, private – or maybe, portions of it friends-locked to certain close friends.

When Eric wrote about his fantasies of raping girls, he quoted the song “Closer” by NIN. Dylan also wrote down the lyrics to this song in his school journal, so do you think it’s possible that fantasized about it too?

Eric briefly quoted a lyric line from two different songs in regards to his dominant-aggressive sex fantasies (which doesn’t really fit the definition of ‘rape’, btw ) Weisses Fleisch and Closer by NIN. Dylan wrote the entire lyrics of Closer by NIN down in his day planner. Eric was a huge Rammstein fan but not as big of a fan of NIN. Dylan, otoh was a huge fan of NIN and he wrote one or two other NIN songs in his day planner as well as made a few references to the band’s songs in his journal. I think given the very different context that Eric and Dylan are referencing NIN’s “Closer’, I’d say that Dylan wrote the song down in full simply because he liked it a lot (the video was kick-ass at the time too) while Eric was using a line from it to embellish his sexual fantasies of ravishing girls while in the midst of writing about it in his journal. There’s no way to really extrapolate from Dylan writing the ‘Closer’ lyrics down that he was sexually turned on by these particular lyrics. What we do know is that Dylan had a ‘foot fetish and bondage extreme liking’. So, it’d be likely that there would be certain music that he’d listen to that would..inspire his own brand of sexual fantasies also involving certain expressions of power play yet was probably vastly dissimilar from Eric’s coercive ‘caveman’ type approach.

You said in a previous post that you disliked “The Dirties”, and pointed out a specific part where the Klebold “morning ritual” arm wave is re-created or possibly alluded to. I watched the film after reading that answer and didn’t catch that specific part, sadly. I felt that the film was decent, and served as an analysis. But beyond that it wasn’t a true reflection of the mindset. Heart u.

Here’s the copy cat Dyl wave scene.   Of all the school shooting flicks, it’s at the near bottom of my list but  thanks. ❤

When you come up to the Halcyon you’re getting a fuckin tight hug that’ll be so tight, you’ll barely be able to inhale, but you won’t have to, because you’ll be dead! JEEEYEEEAAAAHHH! – DBK

Aww, thanks Dyl. 💞 I dig that twisted sense of humor of yours as always. Looking forward to returning your ✨Everything hug✨, hangin’ out in the Halcyon bliss 🌈💫 shootin’ some 🎱 and partaking in some Rock n Bowl. 🎳