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" Today I got an Evite from someone named Meredith, inviting me to Amy&amp;#039;s surprise bridal shower in two weeks. I scanned the 30-plus people on the invite list, and noticed one glaring omission: Lori.  Now, I haven&amp;#039;t spoken to Lori since she sent me that bitchy email implying that I was a horrible girlfriend to Ben for going wedding dress shopping with Amy. She and Ben made up after he yelled at her about it, and she apologized to me through him, which isn&amp;#039;t really an apology at all, but whatever. I decided to let it go, because she&amp;#039;s Ben&amp;#039;s sister and he loves her. (Side note, I keep typing insanely bitchy things about Lori and then feeling guilty and deleting them.) And because I&amp;#039;m actually a good girlfriend, I sent Meredith Lori&amp;#039;s email address. About an hour later, she wrote back: To: K From: Meredith Subject: Re: Evite Invitation: Amy&amp;#039;s Bridal Shower...Shhh! It&amp;#039;s a Surprise! Funny you should mention Lori. I tried to get her on the planning committee for the shower, and she said that not only would she not have time to help plan, but that she was going to be busy that day. I hadn&amp;#039;t even told her the date yet. Jesus, Lori. If there were a Jeopardy! category entitled &amp;quot;People Who Will Not Give Even an Inch,&amp;quot; every question would be &amp;quot;Who is Lori?&amp;quot;. I don&amp;#039;t understand how Ben managed to turn out to be such a reasonable person. I feel like LB and I have a lot of the same issues\u2013difficulty communicating, a decided flair for self-sabotage\u2013and I just assumed that when people grew up in the same household, they ended up damaged in the same ways. Not so, apparently. After work, I met up with Ben, and filled him in on the situation. He sighed. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll talk to her,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t really understand what she hopes to accomplish. It&amp;#039;s not like she&amp;#039;s going to stop this wedding by being a pain in the ass. She&amp;#039;s just making it harder for everyone involved, including herself.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You two are so different,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re not so different, actually,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;We have the same issues. The only difference is how we deal with them. Lori lashes out at other people, and I just internalize them and beat myself up.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I never thought of it that way.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t either, until I spent years in therapy,&amp;quot; he said with a sad smile. &amp;quot;Something I&amp;#039;ve tried to get Lori to do, unsuccessfully.&amp;quot; He went on to explain some of the issues that he and Lori share\u2013growing up with an overly demanding, judgmental mother and a father who was never there, they both felt like they were never good enough.  They both felt like their weight was the thing that most disappointed their mother, and made their father not want to be around them. When Ben lost all the weight, he and Lori had a huge fight and didn&amp;#039;t speak for a while. Lori felt betrayed, like they had been in it together, and Ben was leaving her behind. He actually felt guilty at the time. After talking to Ben, I feel like I&amp;#039;m starting to understand Lori a little better. I may never get to a point where I genuinely like her, but it&amp;#039;s a step in the right direction.  Posted at 11:45 PM "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a9320/bedroom-blog-051811/>