Dylan's view on love

Dylan talked so much about love and it seemed like that was the one and only thing he wanted his entire life. Exactly what kind of love was he searching for? A romantic relationship with another girl? A one night stand? Love is such a broad topic to describe and holds so many different meanings. The way I see it, love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. I wonder if Dylan ever understood what love is.

We will never know what Dylan thought love was or what he really wanted out of someone...

It would seem as he kept falling in "love" with girls he did not even know that his "love" might have been shallow and based on looks alone.

I don't think Dylan knew what true love was. He certainly did not know how to obtain it.

I think Dylan was really depressed and had to find a reason to live, and for him the main reason was to find the love of his life. He always desired girls, but was never able to have something with them, only been able to appreciate their beauty and know they would never be his.

So basically the was looking for the love of his life, because he probably thought that once he had a girl friend both problems would dissapear, he would have a reason to live and he would finally end his "quest" and get a girlfriend.

I'm saying this because that's what is happening to me and I feel it kind of happened with him as well.

Which I find very puzzling. I mean he was friends with Robyn so why didn't he date/go out with her? Or maybe she didn't quite meet his expectations. It's funny I believe Dylan would be the love-at-first-sight kind of guy.

Yeah, I find strange as well he didn't date Robyn, I think maybe she wasn't really special for him or something like this.

Of course Robyn wasn't really good looking (and I've seen some recent pictures of her, and she's not looking good) but for a guy like Dylan she would do, at least for some time.

I agree. Robin wasn't ugly for sure but she was not that pretty. Perhaps Dylan just didn't feel that vibe of attraction towrads her.

Sorry for the length, but this is a topic I looked into recently, thanks for starting the discussion!
When I first started researching around 10 years ago, I fell into the same camp of categorizing Dylan being this "romantic" singularly love-focused boy. As of a recent pass over the journals, I've changed my stance. People, especially mentally unstable teenagers, are too complex to neatly put in a box like that.

The first crush he talks about in the summer of '97 is innocent enough, but we know that he ended up writing about more than one girl as time went on. I think Dylan's idea of love morphed into something much more narcissistic, self-serving, and unrealistic than most media might have one believe. Dylan talks so desperately of wanting love, of being absolutely unnoticed by girls, yet, he had Robyn around...

aquillina wrote:

Which I find very puzzling. I mean he was friends with Robyn so why didn't he date/go out with her? Or maybe she didn't quite meet his expectations. It's funny I believe Dylan would be the love-at-first-sight kind of guy.

I think he deliberately kept her at am arm's length romantically. He would not settle for less than "TRUE love", whatever that meant. Maybe that included a built in-standard of looks that even Dylan didn't realize, or care to admit in writing. He was reluctant to mention porn in his journal, so he may have been just as reluctant to confess that conventional beauty mattered to him. Maybe she didn't seem as fed up life, which was a theme Dylan mentions being drawn to.

He later goes on to focus on "purity", which gives way to this spiritualistic tonality to his writing. The famous "I'll get with [redacted] and it'll be NBK for us" suggests that his dream girl is just as disaffected, homicidal, and suicidal as he is. When he later states that his humanity is almost done, he uses "we" a number of times, inferring that this girl is joining him in some way. His love letter pines that she seems "a lot like [him]". He projects feelings on to her A LOT. When he feels alone, he deduces that she is also in in pain. When he is suffering, he decides she must also be tired of suffering. He puts off calling her because he knows such a thing is a tangible, human act in which his illusions become vulnerable.

More examples:

"I will have a love, someone who is me in a way"  

"all the imaginative halcyons & pure existences I have with her (to me) are almost happiness"

"She feels as i do right now, i can feel it. we will be inseperable"

In true teenage boy fashion, he put these girls on lofty pedestals, though in his case, he took it to the extreme, essentially wagering and weighing his life on his idea of her/them. His excited musings about that first crush are destroyed in about the space of a month and half. Something leads me to believe the image of the girl he "loves" is a very fragile one, despite claiming that "love" itself is so important to him.

To me, Dylan's goal of his love being reciprocated would be representational of him being able to accept himself. Because the latter is so unattainable, he sabotages the former. He wanted a female version of himself for companionship, but also to feel ideologically validated. In and of itself, this isn't that strange for a teenager who has never been in a relationship, but Dylan goes so far as to assign these traits to her anyway, because it's one of the few ways he manages to slog on through life. When in real life she acts in a way opposite to this creation, it's devastating for him, and a form of deception.

I do not think getting a girlfriend would have changed his course. I think Dylan would have been selfish and immature in a relationship, because he didn't grasp the notion of relationships being emotional work, of them being a give-and-take deal. He was absolutely not equipped to deal with those kind of needs from someone else. Really I think Dylan's idea of love is half-baked, reactionary and not dissimilar from that of other typical teenage boys, he was simply able to turn it into something fantastical, flowery, and macabre because of his creative skill and his powerful death wish/mental illness

I think Robyn was very pretty ,especially when she was young.I believe Dylan wasn't attracted to her for a number of reasons.Perhaps parts of her personality annoyed him or he felt he knew her too well.

I find his views on love to be quite deep, romantic and beautiful ,especially for a teenage boy.
However, as some point out he seemed to idealize girls which would have likely caused problems when the "honeymoon" wore off and he was confronted with that fact that each girl no matter how smart and beautiful is a human being with faults, and problems and I think there is some truth to that.

What I can offer - because I can't analyse without it leading to fiction or delusion, only the boys themselves will know what they want - is that they were sexually frustrated teenage guys. I'm sure they have a void in them deep enough due to loneliness or being different that causes them to think they're ready to be with someone seriously, because they need somebody who will never judge them and love them for all of their flaws, but their life or surroundings so far never presented them with a girl of that type/level. Half the time, I'm pretty sure they just wanted to have sex and they kept getting attracted to different girls.

and what makes us think that the boys weren't shallow, meaning they too were superficial and had to be with a girl who was averagely good looking, good body at least? What if there was a girl the whole time who they thought weren't attractive but personality wise was PERFECT for who they were? They were insecure guys, but they were blunt on making fun of people superficially too. There was an account where Eric made a girl cry cause he called her ugly didn't he? Nobody was perfect.

Dylan developed too platonic of a relationship with Robyn to be with her the way he desired a girl, so it wasn't gonna happen. Same for Devon although I think for Devon I feel he might've considered being with her, I feel between the two girls if there's any close-to romantic attraction it'd be Dev. Dylan may have felt if he easily got too friendly with a girl and the girl liked him back, it was too weird and easy to establish for him. He wanted the toxic chase that girls do sometimes. You know, people who complain about never being with anyone cause no one liked them when they really are just after people who were unattainable, and the CHASE part, is the part that they are addicted to. That to me was Dylan.

liquorvamp wrote:

people who complain about never being with anyone cause no one liked them when they really are just after people who were unattainable, and the CHASE part, is the part that they are addicted to. That to me was Dylan.

Yes, I'm sure actually getting to the relationship part was daunting, so impossible that it could only be attained in death after Dylan reached a certain "point of no return" mentally. And even the chase really just seemed to be a series of events in his mind. As I recall, he didn't ever approach a girl in an act of actually pursuing her, like Eric did with numerous girls. As far as we know the furthest he got was trying and failing to call said girl one night, right?

liquorvamp wrote:

There was an account where Eric made a girl cry cause he called her ugly didn't he? Nobody was perfect.

Interesting if true! Do you recall a source on that one?

liquorvamp wrote:

and what makes us think that the boys weren't shallow, meaning they too were superficial and had to be with a girl who was averagely good looking, good body at least? What if there was a girl the whole time who they thought weren't attractive but personality wise was PERFECT for who they were? They were insecure guys, but they were blunt on making fun of people superficially too. There was an account where Eric made a girl cry cause he called her ugly didn't he? Nobody was perfect.

There was a girl on the old crtf board that claimed she went to CHS and saw Eric and another boy(not Dylan) do this but she offered no proof and wouldn't give her real name so who knows if that's the truth?
If this incident is documented anywhere else please let me know.

Pipistrelle wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] wrote:
There was an account where Eric made a girl cry cause he called her ugly didn't he? Nobody was perfect.

Interesting if true! Do you recall a source on that one?

Can't recall where I read this, haven't seen it from an actual source or account. As PaintItBlack said above I can't even recall her name either but it was like a compilation of supposed bullying that the boys had done to paint them as bullies aswell.

And yes as you said, Eric actually tried first-hand to talk to girls, flirt with them and ask them out, very rare with Dylan, the one I remember most is he had ask a girl who worked at a mall somewhere out a couple of times, and he wouldn't give up with her, I think when she declined he responded with "I'll ask again tomorrow" or something like that. Gosh I forget this chick's name too. She's quite pretty, kinda scene-looking. edit** ah yes! Tobin. Her name was Tobin Kennedy. I think her image can be googled.

As I remember the girl only made 2 or 3 posts so not a lot of information.

liquorvamp wrote:

And yes as you said, Eric actually tried first-hand to talk to girls, flirt with them and ask them out, very rare with Dylan, the one I remember most is he had ask a girl who worked at a mall somewhere out a couple of times, and he wouldn't give up with her, I think when she declined he responded with "I'll ask again tomorrow" or something like that. Gosh I forget this chick's name too. She's quite pretty, kinda scene-looking. edit** ah yes! Tobin. Her name was Tobin Kennedy. I think her image can be googled.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that whole thing with her! I stand corrected. It's easy to overlook because she didn't go to Columbine if I remember. Maybe that's why it was easier for Dylan to approach her? He could do it fully on his terms and not have to interact with her again if he chose? I also seem to remember that in her statement she had mentioned Dylan had filled out an application to work there, but thinks her manager destroyed the document after the massacre...

Pipistrelle wrote:

Sorry for the length, but this is a topic I looked into recently, thanks for starting the discussion!
When I first started researching around 10 years ago, I fell into the same camp of categorizing Dylan being this "romantic" singularly love-focused boy. As of a recent pass over the journals, I've changed my stance. People, especially mentally unstable teenagers, are too complex to neatly put in a box like that.

The first crush he talks about in the summer of '97 is innocent enough, but we know that he ended up writing about more than one girl as time went on. I think Dylan's idea of love morphed into something much more narcissistic, self-serving, and unrealistic than most media might have one believe. Dylan talks so desperately of wanting love, of being absolutely unnoticed by girls, yet, he had Robyn around...

aquillina wrote:

Which I find very puzzling. I mean he was friends with Robyn so why didn't he date/go out with her? Or maybe she didn't quite meet his expectations. It's funny I believe Dylan would be the love-at-first-sight kind of guy.

I think he deliberately kept her at am arm's length romantically. He would not settle for less than "TRUE love", whatever that meant. Maybe that included a built in-standard of looks that even Dylan didn't realize, or care to admit in writing. He was reluctant to mention porn in his journal, so he may have been just as reluctant to confess that conventional beauty mattered to him. Maybe she didn't seem as fed up life, which was a theme Dylan mentions being drawn to.

He later goes on to focus on "purity", which gives way to this spiritualistic tonality to his writing. The famous "I'll get with [redacted] and it'll be NBK for us" suggests that his dream girl is just as disaffected, homicidal, and suicidal as he is. When he later states that his humanity is almost done, he uses "we" a number of times, inferring that this girl is joining him in some way. His love letter pines that she seems "a lot like [him]". He projects feelings on to her A LOT. When he feels alone, he deduces that she is also in in pain. When he is suffering, he decides she must also be tired of suffering. He puts off calling her because he knows such a thing is a tangible, human act in which his illusions become vulnerable.

More examples:

"I will have a love, someone who is me in a way"  

"all the imaginative halcyons & pure existences I have with her (to me) are almost happiness"

"She feels as i do right now, i can feel it. we will be inseperable"

In true teenage boy fashion, he put these girls on lofty pedestals, though in his case, he took it to the extreme, essentially wagering and weighing his life on his idea of her/them. His excited musings about that first crush are destroyed in about the space of a month and half. Something leads me to believe the image of the girl he "loves" is a very fragile one, despite claiming that "love" itself is so important to him.

To me, Dylan's goal of his love being reciprocated would be representational of him being able to accept himself. Because the latter is so unattainable, he sabotages the former. He wanted a female version of himself for companionship, but also to feel ideologically validated. In and of itself, this isn't that strange for a teenager who has never been in a relationship, but Dylan goes so far as to assign these traits to her anyway, because it's one of the few ways he manages to slog on through life. When in real life she acts in a way opposite to this creation, it's devastating for him, and a form of deception.

I do not think getting a girlfriend would have changed his course. I think Dylan would have been selfish and immature in a relationship, because he didn't grasp the notion of relationships being emotional work, of them being a give-and-take deal. He was absolutely not equipped to deal with those kind of needs from someone else. Really I think Dylan's idea of love is half-baked, reactionary and not dissimilar from that of other typical teenage boys, he was simply able to turn it into something fantastical, flowery, and macabre because of his creative skill and his powerful death wish/mental illness

YES!!! I love this post especially the last paragraph! Dylan would be selfish in love. Getting what he wants out of it. I also don't think he thought about what a girl would want from him!

Pipistrelle wrote:

Sorry for the length, but this is a topic I looked into recently, thanks for starting the discussion!
When I first started researching around 10 years ago, I fell into the same camp of categorizing Dylan being this "romantic" singularly love-focused boy. As of a recent pass over the journals, I've changed my stance. People, especially mentally unstable teenagers, are too complex to neatly put in a box like that.

The first crush he talks about in the summer of '97 is innocent enough, but we know that he ended up writing about more than one girl as time went on. I think Dylan's idea of love morphed into something much more narcissistic, self-serving, and unrealistic than most media might have one believe. Dylan talks so desperately of wanting love, of being absolutely unnoticed by girls, yet, he had Robyn around...

aquillina wrote:

Which I find very puzzling. I mean he was friends with Robyn so why didn't he date/go out with her? Or maybe she didn't quite meet his expectations. It's funny I believe Dylan would be the love-at-first-sight kind of guy.

I think he deliberately kept her at am arm's length romantically. He would not settle for less than "TRUE love", whatever that meant. Maybe that included a built in-standard of looks that even Dylan didn't realize, or care to admit in writing. He was reluctant to mention porn in his journal, so he may have been just as reluctant to confess that conventional beauty mattered to him. Maybe she didn't seem as fed up life, which was a theme Dylan mentions being drawn to.

He later goes on to focus on "purity", which gives way to this spiritualistic tonality to his writing. The famous "I'll get with [redacted] and it'll be NBK for us" suggests that his dream girl is just as disaffected, homicidal, and suicidal as he is. When he later states that his humanity is almost done, he uses "we" a number of times, inferring that this girl is joining him in some way. His love letter pines that she seems "a lot like [him]". He projects feelings on to her A LOT. When he feels alone, he deduces that she is also in in pain. When he is suffering, he decides she must also be tired of suffering. He puts off calling her because he knows such a thing is a tangible, human act in which his illusions become vulnerable.

More examples:

"I will have a love, someone who is me in a way"  

"all the imaginative halcyons & pure existences I have with her (to me) are almost happiness"

"She feels as i do right now, i can feel it. we will be inseperable"

In true teenage boy fashion, he put these girls on lofty pedestals, though in his case, he took it to the extreme, essentially wagering and weighing his life on his idea of her/them. His excited musings about that first crush are destroyed in about the space of a month and half. Something leads me to believe the image of the girl he "loves" is a very fragile one, despite claiming that "love" itself is so important to him.

To me, Dylan's goal of his love being reciprocated would be representational of him being able to accept himself. Because the latter is so unattainable, he sabotages the former. He wanted a female version of himself for companionship, but also to feel ideologically validated. In and of itself, this isn't that strange for a teenager who has never been in a relationship, but Dylan goes so far as to assign these traits to her anyway, because it's one of the few ways he manages to slog on through life. When in real life she acts in a way opposite to this creation, it's devastating for him, and a form of deception.

I do not think getting a girlfriend would have changed his course. I think Dylan would have been selfish and immature in a relationship, because he didn't grasp the notion of relationships being emotional work, of them being a give-and-take deal. He was absolutely not equipped to deal with those kind of needs from someone else. Really I think Dylan's idea of love is half-baked, reactionary and not dissimilar from that of other typical teenage boys, he was simply able to turn it into something fantastical, flowery, and macabre because of his creative skill and his powerful death wish/mental illness

Makes perfect sense. Dylan never understood what love truly means and it would have been a failed relationship for sure. If someone were to explain to him what it's suppose to mean would he have taken to heart? Sounds doubtful.

liquorvamp wrote:

Dylan developed too platonic of a relationship with Robyn to be with her the way he desired a girl, so it wasn't gonna happen. Same for Devon although I think for Devon I feel he might've considered being with her, I feel between the two girls if there's any close-to romantic attraction it'd be Dev. Dylan may have felt if he easily got too friendly with a girl and the girl liked him back, it was too weird and easy to establish for him. He wanted the toxic chase that girls do sometimes. You know, people who complain about never being with anyone cause no one liked them when they really are just after people who were unattainable, and the CHASE part, is the part that they are addicted to. That to me was Dylan.

I gotta say I'm guilty in regards to that too :^) . Plus I agree that's what he was like too.

liquorvamp wrote:

Dylan developed too platonic of a relationship with Robyn to be with her the way he desired a girl, so it wasn't gonna happen. Same for Devon although I think for Devon I feel he might've considered being with her, I feel between the two girls if there's any close-to romantic attraction it'd be Dev. Dylan may have felt if he easily got too friendly with a girl and the girl liked him back, it was too weird and easy to establish for him. He wanted the toxic chase that girls do sometimes. You know, people who complain about never being with anyone cause no one liked them when they really are just after people who were unattainable, and the CHASE part, is the part that they are addicted to. That to me was Dylan.

I think Dylan put Devon on Par with Robyn until she started dating Zach. Then he felt jealous. He even talking about killing her for stealing his friend!

Dylan talks over and over about not having a girlfriend or friends that were girls, but pushes the ones he does have away. I do agree though that he prob didn't think Robyn was pretty enough.

Well, I think if Dylan had found his big love things could've been different, mainly on depression. Once he found someone who likes him, even though he's not a fantastic guy and have some problems I think he would be really happy and probably wouldn't go NBK with Eric.

Of course later on the depression could come back again, but at least at the beginning of the relationship he would be in heaven, because I think one of Dylan's problems was that he didn't like him, his self-steem didn't exist basicly, but once he started to date this would change completely

Lodka wrote:

Well, I think if Dylan had found his big love things could've been different, mainly on depression. Once he found someone who likes him, even though he's not a fantastic guy and have some problems I think he would be really happy and probably wouldn't go NBK with Eric.

Of course later on the depression could come back again, but at least at the beginning of the relationship he would be in heaven, because I think one of Dylan's problems was that he didn't like him, his self-steem didn't exist basicly, but once he started to date this would change completely

Even if he did find his true love, it could only do so much for him. What's more important is for both sides to build trust, and stay by each other's side no matter what hardships they had to endure. I doubt Dylan could fulfill such a promise. Relationships aren't suppose to be easy and it will stress Dylan out further agonizing his depression. Still I believe Dylan had so much potential, he just never had chance to prove himself.

I don't know, Dylan desired so much a girlfriend that if he had the chance with a girl he would try to make it work as much as possible. I can't see him just not caring too much about it.

Lodka wrote:

I don't know, Dylan desired so much a girlfriend that if he had the chance with a girl he would try to make it work as much as possible. I can't see him just not caring too much about it.

I think he would care, but I see him as fulfilling his relationship needs first. His wants. I don't know if he could think about a girl's wants first. You never know though.

Lizpuff wrote:

Lodka wrote:

I don't know, Dylan desired so much a girlfriend that if he had the chance with a girl he would try to make it work as much as possible. I can't see him just not caring too much about it.

I think he would care, but I see him as fulfilling his relationship needs first.  His wants.  I don't know if he could think about a girl's wants first.  You never know though.  

I can see that but she would have to be aggressive in making it clear to him that she needs some time to herself but at the same time remind him she has not forgotten about him. In any kind of relationship, you have to build trust with each other in order fulfill each other's desires and wishes. I can definitely picture being the jealous type but I doubt he'd be controlling/abusive. At least I'd hope he wouldn't.

I don't know that finding his love would have changed anything. Mainly because of his depression. Unfortunately, he was in such a black place that even if he had found that special lady, he probably still wouldn't have seen himself as she did. I could be wrong though.

i have an ex who is a lot like Dylan and we dated for a while when we were teenagers and he was...ugh. lets just say he Manic Pixie Dream Girl'd me. he didn't want an actual girl or an actual person he wanted an idea and i always felt like that was Dylan. like, my ex didn't really want me, me. he wanted this lofty ideal and thought of me. which goes into the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl phenomena. i just feel like Dylan would have Manic Pixie Dream Girl'd a girl. if by some chance no one knows what a Manic Pixie Dream Girl is, here is some of the definition from TV tropes:

"Let's say you're a soulful, brooding male hero, living a sheltered, emotionless existence. If only someone could come along and open your heart to the great, wondrous adventure of life... Have no fear, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is here to give new meaning to the male hero's life! She's stunningly attractive, high on life, full of wacky quirks and idiosyncrasies (generally including childlike playfulness and a tendency towards petty crime), often with a touch of wild hair dye. She's inexplicably obsessed with our stuffed-shirt hero, on whom she will focus her kuh-razy antics until he learns to live freely and love madly."

needless to say, feminists have gone on and on about what a harmful trope it is for women and i agree.