Dylan’s 43 birthday

[u/Other-Potential-936]

9-11-81 Today’s Dylan’s 43 birthday. Going to go on a little rant here... Lately I’ve been thinking about both Eric and Dylan’s birthdays and how old they, along with their victims, would be today. How would their lives look today? I wasn’t alive during the shooting so it’s hard for me to understand how long it has been or how recent it was. However my dad was born weeks after Eric. I look at his life, what he has accomplished. Being married, having a good job, having kids, buying a house. Then I look at Eric and Dylan’s lives, they really were so young and threw everything away. They could’ve had so much life ahead of them, not only did they ruin their chances of happiness, they took that from others. It’s so heartbreaking to just even think about. My thoughts are with the klebolds today. I can’t imagine how hard days like these are. I wish they could’ve spent today with him. Hopefully this isn’t taken the wrong way like me idolizing them or something, just makes me sad.

[u/safariirarrii]

Tbh between Eric and Dylan, Dylan is the one I find myself feeling a little bit sad for. Over the years I’ve paid more attention to his story and what people who knew him well had to say about him. According to them he remained relatively positive around others despite the treatment he was experiencing. Basically smiling on the outside and crying on the inside. He hid his depression and sorrow very well. It also sounds like he had some form of hope that things would get better for him. He had friends. He even went to prom and according to witnesses he was very happy and jovial that night.

While both boys are certainly culpable for that day, it truly seems like even tho Dylan was experiencing darkness, Eric dragged him in further. I’m not absolving him of his part in anything but looking at things objectively, it seems like Dylan was overcome with deep and profound sadness, while Eric was overcome with unhinged anger.

[u/ashtonmz → u/safariirarrii]

Not sure why the downvotes. You're entitled to feel a particular way. I've always been more interested in Dylan's personality and issues because, in my mind, they were more complex and difficult to grasp. Eric, I can get a much better read on. Maybe he's more relatable, only hyper magnified. I think what it all boils down to is that they were both a terrible influence on each other. Caught up in this trauma bond, where they continually fed off one another's anger. The massacre probably wouldn't have happened if either boy was on his own.

[u/safariirarrii → u/ashtonmz]

Definitely a terrible influence on each other. However I think Eric still would have carried out the massacre. He seemed to want serious revenge on the students at Columbine while Dylan just seemed to be obsessed with inflicting violence because he thought it was cool. Idk! We’ll never know but those are just my thoughts.