Beautiful, Cary, really.

(And honestly, it also applies in the face of people who are NOT dying and also don't give two shits about you. You can't force everyone in the world to give a shit, therefore it's a good idea to learn ways to cope with those who don't.)

But for the LW I'd like to mention something about congestive heart failure which he may not have realized: this man, your stepfather, isn't getting enough oxygen to his brain. Just sitting there to him is like running a marathon to you. If he took an IQ test today, he'd score lower on it than before he had heart disease; if he got a heart transplant, his scores would go back up. Just living is hard work for him. He may not be thinking all that clearly and it may sometimes be hard for him to follow a conversation. Imagine yourself at the end of a long night, when you really ache all over and want to fall into bed and you can't put your finger on the word you wanted. Now imagine feeling like that when you're perfectly rested!

It's hard to understand any chronic illness without having suffered it yourself. My mom is impatient with my dad's asthma. My husband is impatient with my lupus. I'm impatient with my husband's migraines. However, if you want to keep your credentials as a compassionate member of the human race, it's essential that you TRY to understand.

Mikerm5255. Dude. Seriously. You're way scarier than the last Letter Writer, who was a piece of work. You are literally scaring people here. Step back and think about that. People aren't jumping to call you a sociopath because they like kicking people who are down, they literally think you are a very scary person, because you have said things which are scary. Please don't continue to dismiss that.

The scariest bit of your original letter was where you talked about asserting your "rights, indeed, as a man." Now, that's the sort of thing people say who later turn out to shoot your whole family because of some long-cherished grudge about something you had no idea they were even mad about. You have no "rights, indeed, as a man," to force a dying man to exchange pleasantries with you when you visit his house to pick up his stepdaughter. You have no "rights, indeed, as a man," to expect the stepdaughter to lecture her dying father on your behalf. Pleasant conversation is nice, certainly, but not a right. The sort of man who insists on his "rights" in every interaction isn't someone the rest of us want to be around. If you are not, in fact, that sort of person; if this phrase in your letter was an ill-conceived aberration - you need to quickly explain it, because that phrase was scary.

You just wrote in to confirm the essential facts of your original letter - you're feeling pissed off because a dying man is "a complete asshole" to you, based on his failure to accept you and show common courtesy. Sorry, buddy, but that ain't the definition of an asshole. Following the restatement of your original grievance, you expounded on your new grievance: none of us here think you are the bright shining center of the universe either. Sorry about that.

I'm a little saddened by the failure of Cary's advice, which was in fact advice, kindly and written for your own good, to reach its intended target. It STILL hasn't occurred to you to consider the possibility that you really aren't the bright and shining center of the universe. An entire forum full of people in unanimous agreement can't reach you, because you have placed yourself outside the reach of anyone. There is no argument that can possibly persuade you if you close your ears to all arguments.

What advice would have been more acceptable? Break up with your girlfriend, she sounds like a bitch? Kick that old man to the curb, you're a man by God and he needs to know it? Here's a kind and thoughtful way to insist on your rights in someone else's house and force those ingrates to recognize how wonderful you are and appreciate your contributions to their happiness? What exactly were you EXPECTING TO HEAR?

Shake yourself. Slap yourself. Go look in the mirror. Do anything, for heaven's sake, but take those fingers out of your ears and actually listen to what people are saying.

I'll even give you some short-term, useful advice for dealing with this uncomfortable situation as a bonus. You mention that your conversational overtures hang in empty air. That doesn't sound very fun. Tell your girlfriend, "You know, I'm worried that I bother your father, he doesn't seem to have the energy for entertaining strangers right now. Would you mind terribly HURRYING THE HELL UP when I come over to pick you up and not leaving him to entertain me? It's not really fair to him." That's the way to get your problem dealt with without placing demands on someone dying who owes you nothing.

P.S. for the other forum goers: Late twenties is too old to use "he's young" as an excuse. If a man over the age of 25 wants to continue to be an asshole, he needs to find a new reason. ;)