Dann is generally an affable sort of guy. He grew up in a wealthy family and lived a care-free life where everything was handed to him. This was totally fine by him as a child, but it started to grate as he got older; his driven and independent personality type couldn’t tolerate having nothing to drive for and no independence.
He began to rebel as a teenager, as most teenagers do. He was still a decent sort though; instead of doing the stereotypical rich teenage jerk thing, he stayed away from home as much as he could. He’d stay at friends’ homes, he’d annoy his parents by working part time despite their insistence that he was taking valuable time away from his studies, and he was stubborn almost to the point of hostility over rejecting their wishes that he choose a career that “suited his station in life,” which in his father’s eyes meant law school, or maybe medical school.
He knew through and through that he could never be happy living his father’s dream, but he had no idea what his own dreams were. All he knew for sure was that he was solely responsible for whatever he ended up becoming, and as his teen years passed, he grew more and more convinced that the wealth and power his family possessed were a hindrance to him, not an asset.
Several months after his 18th birthday, Dann left home with absolutely nothing but the clothes on his back. At first he got by couch-surfing at friends’ places. He took many odd jobs to earn money to pay back his friends for their patience, and eventually took a series of minimum wage jobs, saving up enough to move into a tiny apartment in a seedy section of town.
He learned a great deal from this period in his life. It was a shock to him to learn just how insulated his privileged status had left him. He maintained contact with his family, but refused their continued urgings to just ‘grow up and come home.’