How did Dylan ask the girl he ran into at the mall on a date, and did she turn him down?

I’m guessing you’re referring to Tobin Kennedy who worked at All Wound Up at the Southwest Plaza Mall?  Dylan came in to her store about 10-12 times, half of those time he was with a friend that Tobin couldn’t identify.  Dyl asked her out once and she turned him down and he said “maybe I’ll ask you out again.”  So, I’m guessing he spent all those other times in the store working up the nerve to ask her out just that once.  Poor guy.  :-/ Tobin’s full account is here

What did Dylan look like in very late 1997 (fall, winter) in terms of hair length/did he wear the trenchcoat/have a ‘darker’ style? Or was it after the robbery in Jan. 1998 that he started dressing ‘darker’?

This photo is dated the exact day the January van theft took place. Dylan’s hair is still pretty short but you can see it’s getting past his ears. Fall ‘97 was probably some subtle changes from the standard prep ‘normal’ Columbine dress so D & E probably started to shake things up by wearing more black band t-shirts to school. This is a pretty normal dress code for teenage dudes but if you factor in that they’re in a very christian environment, it was probably considered ‘edgy’ within that culture.  The original Trenchcoat Mafia was in it’s heyday from the ’97-98 year. After the January Incident, Dylan probably said ‘fuck it’ and started evolving into his more individualistic ‘darker’ look all throughout spring of ’98 onward. I seem to recall somewhere that his parents bought him his trenchcoat (not sure where I came across this..) so it’s possible he acquired the trench as a Christmas gift from his parents in ’97 but he didn’t start openly wearing it at school until spring ’98 when he felt he had justified reasons to. By the looks of this Jan ’98 photo, I’d say he didn’t get his hair cut in ’98 and just let it continue to grow long – although he might have begrudgingly gone for a ‘trim’ at his parents insistence. 

My question was if you thought Eric and Dylan’s conversations ever went deeper than just things that made them angry. Feelings of sadness, loneliness, disappointment, self consciousness, the need for love or a relationship, etc. these things are usually kept secret, especially among guys who want to appear masculine. But at the same time they must have had a bond different from most male friends if they planned a mass murder together right? Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this.

Ok, thanks for the full Q.  Answered here. 🙂 

In your opinion what do you think Dylan meant by the zombie type of person and why they irritated him so much?

Zombies – the majority of human society – the cattle, the sheeple – the unaware, obedient populace that follows the rules, thinks inside the box, consumes endlessly what society dictates for them to consume, zones out on tv programming provided by societies’ media – especially sit coms with laugh tracks ;), wears status symbols and competes with others over who has the best, most affluent, most statusy clothing or pumped up kicks. Petty, greedy, ignorant, vain, self absorbed – so unaware of their own slavery that they’re contently happy within the confines of their fake contrived sandbox. Zombie jocks with uber perfect bodies, competing and achieving in zombie approved dictated sports and attracting zombie attractive girlfriends with hot bodies. Living their fake little perfect worlds. Everything Dylan was not and never would/could be and therefore contemptuous of.

was dylan a jealous person?

Dylan was a very jealous person, very envious of the jocks who to him represented everything that he felt was the opposite of himself. In his mind, he possessed knowledge, higher intellect and self awareness and they possessed happiness, women, friends and blissful lives in a more ignorant state of humanity. Dylan’s rage was essentially fueled by jealousy of others. His inner mantra devolved to : ‘If I cannot join them, I will spurn them and leave this place.’

Do you think Dylan ever talked with Eric about the girls he loved or was that something he just kept to himself? Sometimes I wonder how much they shared about their feelings in general. Obviously they weren’t afraid to show anger but what about sadness, insecurity, longing for love and other deeper emotions? Do you think they ever had conversations about those things?

I think Dylan rarely if ever mentioned any girl/s he crushed on to Eric, let alone girl’s he loved. I tend to think the deeper more intense his feelings were for certain girls the more he’d keep his cards closer to his chest and not gossip about it. It would be something he felt was private and would prefer not to have any guy friends teasing him about it which would then make him feel more on-the-spot and embarrassed if the actual girl happened to be walking near by. I think he and Eric probably spoke about girls they thought were ‘hot’ in that cursory sort of way but I doubt they shared any details about the depth of their personal feelings. Dylan would’ve played along with Eric’s usual dude banter “That chick is making me drool in the short skirt, wouldn’t you want some of that?” and he’d agreed or not with a chuckle or Eric might complain how he couldn’t get (yet another) so-and-so to go out with him and so Dylan knew his overall strategy with certain chicks but that was likely the extent or depth of their chat. So, no, sadly, I don’t think Eric and Dylan shared any of the vulnerable, deep emotional stuff with one another as it was mostly just that male group mentality bravado type stuff. Anything they did share would’ve been experiences that made them angry or hurt/bitter where they could commiserate and externalize that personal pain and frustration into a “just you wait” injustice collection for those future destructive plans of theirs. As Eric was continually rejected by certain ‘bitches’, Dylan would also be his ear for all of those rants too. I do think Dylan found himself confiding much more easily about pent-up emotional stuff with Zach Heckler and those raw feelings sort of leaked out between the both of them in a therapeutic way – to the point of tears at times – during late-night bedroom phone chats and video games.

Hm..yes, Subtype Discouraged Borderline Personality does have several similiar characteristics that do fit Dylan, and many of them are a spot-on matchup to Avoidant Personality Disorder though a bit more expanded including emotional, angry outburst issues. However, I think one of the central characteristics of this disorder appears to be the “co-dependent clinginess” factor which trips me up because I don’t think that entirely applies to Dylan. Actually, the “passive-follower” emphasis brings to mind a bit of Dave Cullen’s pigeonholing? 😉 Overall, I don’t see Dylan as clingy but just the opposite, he seemed more detached, disconnectly chill, in relationships (but who knows..this type of borderline trait might’ve kicked in full gear if he found a girlfriend who decided to break it off with him? ) Dylan had several friendships that he maintained throughout the years. Zach and Eric were Dylan’s two closest friends but he did not seem to be clingy in regard to either. Dylan’s loyalties shifted more towards Eric because Zach suddenly became preocuppied with his steady girlfriend but also because he had found a shared mutual necessity with Eric and that’s why he, by choice, stayed aligned with him. Dylan was sad and angry that his best friend, Zach was taken by a girlfriend but I think his mourning is within the normal scope of rejected feelings when the best buddy is no longer spending as much time with him. Eric, on the other hand, had more of the ‘clingy’ thing about him in comparison to Dylan, he was ‘all or nothing’ with the few friends he did have, and he also was super annoyingly clingy with various girls he tried to date – so in that respect, he was a dash Discouraged Subtype BPD but, really to me, Eric reads as more of a slam dunk for Petulant Subtype BPD 🙂 Anyway, I do agree with you that Discouraged BPD and Avoidant Personality Disorder have quite a lot of overlapping symptoms in common and can see why you say it’s essentially AvPD comorbid with BPD. I’m almost with you on it for Dylan – just a nope on the ‘clingy’ aspect of Discouraged BPD.

I think it’s a good possibilty that Dylan had Dysthymia coupled with double depression. The only thing that makes me not fully embrace Dysthymia is that some people described Dylan as being ‘hyper’ at times. I don’t know how often he was hyper but I recall that some observed him as the more “hyper active”one at work in comparison to Eric. I think this was described of him in school too but I cannot recall the specific instance but I’m thinking one of Robyn’s friends said this. Anyway, this makes me wonder if he had some lesser bipolar symptoms occuring along side the chronic major depressive disorder. Then again, it’s possible he could have been temporarily hyperactive a short period of time by way of external influences too. This was before energy drinks were big but maybe he bought over-the-counter speed dietary supplements which contained ephedra (banned since 2006) to boost his energy level so he could function. This might also explain his rapid weight loss. I’m reasonably sure that St. John’s Wort cannot cause that side effect.

Shortly before the attack, Dylan went with his family to see his future dorm room at college; he seemed happy, hopeful, eager to move on with his life. He went to the senior prom three says before the attack with his closest female friend, a bright, attractive girl who invited him to go with her; he interacted with people and seemed to have a good time. He even talked about staying in touch after graduation. No one knew he fantasised about being a godlike figure. No one knew he was suicidal. No one knew he was homicidal. No one knew Dylan at all.

Why Kids Kill (inside the minds of school shooters) by Peter Langman (via outrun-my-bullet-1999-april20)

Do you think Dyl had any mental illnesses or personality disorders aside from depression? People always say it was obvious that Eric had some kind of illness/ disorder but what about Dyl?

Dylan’s deep depression was essentially his form of mental illiness. The melacholic affliction clouded and distorted his perception. Coping mechanisms became necessary to manage how overwhelming and hopeless life felt, and you can see his steadily devolving transition of thought throughout his journal as he acquires a god complex to cope with his feelings of not fitting in. His decision to view the majority of humanity as sheep-like ‘zombies’ in comparison to himself is based out of conscious reasoning, not delusions, to cope with his self perceived failure in not acclimating to the mainstream populace within Littleton. Dylan created his effortless, blissful afterlife universe ‘the Halcyons’, a place he envisioned and designed, as a way to hope for something better beyond his present very painful, disappointing ‘fake reality’ existence. He holds the Halycons vision within his sites, reafirrming it in several repeated drawings in his journal: a long, unending lost highway going down the middle of a massive heart. He held it within his sights as a touchstone to bouy his happiness and believed that at the end of this existence, which was only a ‘test’ of humanity, he would eventually be united with his ‘true love’, ‘if she even exists’ he considered, by way of fate. His depression allowed his ability to care and feel connected to humanity as a whole to numb out, to disintegrate into a sense of dangerous disconnect and apathy.

In terms of a personality disorder, it’s my strong belief that Dylan had Avoidant Personality Disorder. Some of the characteristics of this disorder describe him like the perfect fit of a glove: extreme shyness, socially anxious, highly self-conscious and self critical, self loathing, feelings of inferiority (the jealousy of not having the happiness the jocks automatically acquired), lonely self perception even though others – his friends – didn’t perceive him that way, emotional distancing and an important one here that underscores the contextual language of Dylan’s mystical meanderings within his journal: using fantasy as a form of escapism to interrupt painful thoughts. An AvPD person is one that wishes to be part of the world in a social way but they believe they cannot – ever – seem to fit in. To give you an example of how it feels for an AvPD – it’s as if they are seated at a large table amongst others with a big feast laid out before them. Others are participating socially and enjoying the feast yet they, themselves, are starving, unable to feed and nourish themselves unable to participate and feel included and enjoy things the same way others seem to effortlessly do. There is a great self loathing “why can’t I, what is wrong with me?” and frustration because they cannot participate and enjoy the same experiences as everyone else. Dylan was gifted and as a result he was put into special schooling which automatically created a subliminal message, a burden in his distinction which equated ‘unique-ness’ with ‘strange’. That line was drawn in the sand betweeen himself and other people, average, normal peers that he was separated from. Additionally, he was intensely shy and sensitive as a child, and he still grappled with that shyness as a teenager, it proved to be chronic. This basically delineates the difference between normal shyness from that of AvPDs. The AvPD also experiences anxiety, self-loathing and self-critical tendencies, especially an exteme judgment of themselves and their actions. If you take all of this criteria into account, it’s easy to see how it would feed into a frustrated, lonely, disconnected path of deep downward spiraling depression. AvPD and symptomatic depression is mutually inclusive. The two are a two ripe exacerbating pairing. The self proceived failings of an AvPD can easily express and transmute into symptoms of depression to various degrees. Given that Dylan hid his depression secretly and didn’t talk about it with anyone except for Zach, the overwhelming feelings of sadness and hopelessness grew deeper and darker and more severe which inturn distorted his perceptions. He was not delusional in mental illiness because he reasoned and made concrete justifications for why he believed things were the way they were and how they would be once he left this ‘weird’ and pointless existence. The fantasy idealogies he spun was a way to relieve the stress to hope for better things in the next life because he’d already decided this one was a wash and it was impossible for him to ever fit in and be happy. To get a psychological snapshot of Dylan’s mindset all one has to do is contemplate the visuals he drew on the second page of his journal: There he draws a massive box with divided sections within the box excluding certain groups of people categorically: “Most” “Some” “Few” “None”. And outside the box at a plunging, downward trajectory at the bottom of the large ‘human existence’ box above is relegated to “Me”.

How many times a week did Dylan drink? I heard he downed a whole vodka bottle in like 15mins. I can’t even imagine doing that OMG.

It’s a bit difficult to give specifics as Dylan’s friends did not offer any details as to how much Dylan drank in a given day, week or month. Dylan’s best friend, Zach Heckler, did offer in his account that he thought that Dylan had a potential problem with a penchant for alcohol. On the other side of the coin, Sarah Slater said that Zach and Dylan would leave theater production together with booze in a bag so they could get drunk off campus. In his parent’s account, the Klebold’s seemed to have been cursory monitoring their youngest son’s drinking habits, and Sue mentioned having asked Dylan how prom was after he had gotten home in the middle of the night and his response was to make a point of showing his flask to her indicating that he did not drink all that much from it. I would say that Dylan likely sampled whenever he could, and I can see him sneaking in some swigs late at night when the parents were off to bed – including the simple, innocent variety of mixed drinks that could easily be hidden in oj or cranberry juice as evidenced once in his journal writings. He’d also indulge quite a bit at buddies’ homes on the weekend when they’d get together for movies and mix their own experimental concoctions and shots, and of course, liberal drinking at parties. So, I’d say Dylan probably indulged 2-3 times per week on the light side and with any socializing included in the mix of a given week, a good bit more. Of course, when around the parents, I think he knew he had to be careful and mindful so anything done at home was late at night and in secret. It probably helped him take the edge off with his constant thoughts and allowed him to relax and sleep.

This is a dude that coveted a drink mix poster ironically titled Shooters on his bedroom wall. Yes, the rumor from friends is that Dylan downed a whole bottle of Vodka in a short amount of time thus earning him the nickname VoDkA. Since, Eric seemed to have a penchant for giving friend’s nicknames, I’m certain he knighted Dylan with this nickname of jovial badassery. It’s hard to imagine how one could physically down an entire bottle of Vodka in under say 15-30 minutes but a travel sized mini bottle of the stuff, sure – easy enough to envision. Just doesn’t sound very hardcore does it? lol Boasting thereafter that it was an entire bottle of Vodka to friends, and not devulging the actual size of said bottle, is a pretty plausible way to automatically earn a reputation of legends with such a potent liquor! I don’t know though, perhaps there are some people out there that do down an entire bottle and not nearly die. Maybe Dyl’s partial russian heritage allowed him to hold that liquor well? 😉

Would you say that Dylan’s hair was dirty blonde or light brown, cause it’s hard to tell in some photos and videos..🍒💗

Dylan’s hair was a close toss-up between a dark blonde or ‘dirty dishwater blonde’ as some people refer to it and a light brown. Personally, I think he tended more towards dark blonde given the way his hair appeared lighter looking in natural light. In his senior photo where Dylan’s posing outdoors with the light blue shirt, his hair seemed decidely blonde with almost strawberry-blonde highlights.

Also, just to add to this.. Dylan’s facial hair was light. He experimented with sporting a goatee and trace of a moustache in the last couple months of his life and the facial hair was so light blonde in color that you could barely detect it in photos and videos – particularly the Breakfast Run video. In the Rampart Range video, you can see Dylan’s arm hair was very fine, light and almost non-existent as he reaches out to examine the bowling pin. I tend to think a male with more blonde spectrum hair is generally more likely to have finer, lighter colored body hair whereas someone with light to medium brown hair tends to have more complimentary visibly noticable darker body and facial hair.