Letters to the Editor
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The quick and the dead
Thanks, everyone, for all your posts here and special thanks to Cary for this breathtakingly fine (IMH?O) post.
I am An Ole Wo(e?)m'n and can't immediately "take sides" in any of this but I do want to say that on first catching up with the original post and all the then "thus far" responses, I did muster up all sorts of Wit and Resolve to write something wise, compassionate, amusing, and germane.
Fortunately for all concerned, I hit a wrong key and the whole thing was Lost to Posterity.
To cite a years ago "Advice Columnist"'s those days line (Ann Landers) so-and-so-many (I forget now the exact number) lashes with a wet noodle.
Just posting again in order to keep my foot in the door till I may or may not be able to join in again later.
[I'm at the moment closer to the "designated 'congestive heart failure'" member of the current tale's Dramatis Personae than the other players but, ?god wot?, to one or another degree as to all the others I "hae" to at least some extent also "been there, done that".
So thanks to all the participants here! Me Ole Wo'm'n gotta go back to bed right now.
Hope to be able to join in later with the seriousness as well as the lighter-hearted appreciations all these so-far posts seem to me so richly to deserve.
salonmarte
[No time to proofread. Sorry. :-(]
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LW, start giving
Unlike others, I don't think you're a sociopath. But Cary is right here, so very right.
Like all families, and especially when you're the daughters' new boyfriend, it will take some time before you'll get your spot in a new family - and that's when there's nothing serious going on.
So start giving, see what your girfriend needs, her mother, the father, and attend to that. Give the people you love what they need. And if you're lucky, you might get something in return, possibly faster than you'd think (but not that fast).
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Yes, yes, Cary's right: let this dick whipe his feet on you
Cary, for all saints, why should this guy humble himself before an absolutely boorish obnoxious rude man? One, let me point out, who would make his step-daughter's life more difficult by being an asshole to her boyfriend? Why should he think of him as Christ or Buddah?
LW, here's what you need to keep in mind.
1) The stepfather is going to die. Soon. You won't have to deal with his rudeness for THAT much longer.
2) When he dies, the girlfriend is going to need your support. Regardless of how close she is to this man, the family will be badly affected (at least through her Mom). So don't back out on her right now. It's not her fault he's awful to you.
3) I suppose you could expect that she'd say something to him, under normal circumstances, but don't judge her for not saying anything to him now. He's already putting her in an impossible position, don't make it worse by being angry at her for that.
But bring him a newspaper? Yeah, and WHACK him with it.
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Yes! to Cary, but also...
please look up the definition of "diffident". If you mean the guy is reserved, shy, unassuming...OK, but I don't think that was the gist.
Also, grow up.
Also, congestive heart failure can be a long road. If you can't deal, move on. Your gf will probably be better off (after all, what if she experienced an illness that made her withdrawn and not as quick to fill your needs?).
Also, grow up.
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The SF is not literally a "Buddha," lawyerette...
He is a lesson, spiritual instruction, if you will. Perhaps the guy is an asshole, perhaps not. But for the LW he can be an opportunity to (yes, I know, gag me) GROW, come to grips with the reality that 1) we all die (so instead of belittling this man's long, tortured experience of death, maybe a little empathy is called for) and 2)we are pretty damned small in the scheme of things.
Cary, for all saints, why should this guy humble himself before an absolutely boorish obnoxious rude man? One, let me point out, who would make his step-daughter's life more difficult by being an asshole to her boyfriend?
No evidence the guy is any of these things. For all we know, this guy (a boyfriend of three months, if I recall) is just one in a long string of boyfriends. He's an extra, not a featured player, in this guy's life.
The stepfather is going to die. Soon. You won't have to deal with his rudeness for THAT much longer.
lawyerette, you are young, aren't you. The guy may have years left, years in which he may become more withdrawn and uninterested in new people in his stepdaughter's life, or may go the other direction, entirely. The LW hasn't taken the time to actually find out the prognosis (figures) but I've been down this path twice with relatives.
Ah, the self-centeredness of youth.
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I'd stop short of sociopath
But I agree there's something immensely narcissistic about LW. YOU make HER happy? You bring her flowers "on the right occasions?" What about the wrong ones? The unexpected ones? What about being a MAN by asking her stepdad what HIS life was like, finding out, before the shitty blood flow through his lungs prevents ANY oxygenated blood from getting to his brain?
Oh, I forgot. This is All about YOU.
Look, even if the stepdad is utterly and completed uninterested in you, and, in his exhaustion at not being able to get enough O2--EVER--he can't get up the energy to fake it, it still doesn't make him an asshole, it just makes him tired.
But your response, ah, that's the kicker, isn't it? Your inability to look past that hand that you have permanently positioned about your opposite shoulder, the better to be in place for some WELL deserved back patting. As I said, I'm not sure that I'd call you a sociopath. But I certainly would call you the most breathtakingly self-absorbed asshole who's written to this column in a long time. And goodness! there is a lot of competition for that title.
And Lawyerette, I am SO glad that you are planning to be an attorney instead of a doctor or a nurse, because your compassion for the suffering just flows from your post.