Illustration by Jason Raish.

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Welcome to "Friend or Foe," a regular Double X advice column for your queries about the trickiest of all love affairs: friendships.

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Right now, three different male Facebook friends of mine are showing off their recent culinary achievements.

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I hadn’t heard of Formspring.me until the weekend after New Year’s, when the site’s URL seemed to appear in 75 percent of the postings in my Twitter feed. A brief perusal made it seem like a Web site where you register to play a massive game of truth or dare—without the dare part—online.

Illustration by Jason Raish.

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Dear Friend or Foe,

Illustration by Nina Frenkel.

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The text from my friend last month was in all caps, urging me to turn on the radio right away. I can’t keep myself from an all-caps command and caught the tail end of a report about a new RAND Corp. study analyzing the negative effects of longer parental deployments on military children.

Photograph by Photodisc/Getty Images.

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The dawn of DoubleX inspired me to start a project in which I entertained on Tuesdays, a day I had decided unscientifically was the most inconvenient in the week. For eight months,  I doggedly slogged through regular dinner parties , fending off strep throat and fatigue as I spatchcocked game hens and brewed big pots of chili. Though I am a food writer and a former professional cook, I had shied away from entertaining because I have a tendency to overdo it. I dirty too many pans and make too many trips to the grocery store for expensive ingredients.

As the denizens of newsrooms attempt to name this departing era and assign it a theme song, Beyonce’s wagging finger will surely come to mind.

Photograph of Adam Richman by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

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On the Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food, plump and genial host Adam Richman sits at a table, surrounded by screaming fans, and expertly herds a giant stack of doomed hamburger patties into the slaughterhouse known as his mouth. Or he drinks a milk shake so large a small child could drown in it. Or slaps the table in agony as habañero-infused barbecue sauce commits arson in his gullet.

Illustration by Jason Raish.

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Dear Friend or Foe,

Illustration by Robert Weinstock.

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Over the years, I spent a lot of time with various mental health professionals trying to learn to be less invested in my child’s progress—“It’s not your homework,” one therapist told me sternly. Once Sam, my one and only son, left for college, I was sure I would regress. But that hasn’t been the case. Instead, these last few months have felt more like a melancholy blessing, as Sam has moved into a new stage of life with remarkable grace and I have been able to cheer him on from the sidelines.