Friend or Foe: Advice for when your BFF goes MIA, and other friendship problems.

Welcome to "Friend or Foe," a regular Double X advice column for your queries about the trickiest of all love affairs: friendships. Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of I'm So Happy For You, a forthcoming novel about best friends, is now taking questions at lucinda@imsohappyforyou.com.

Dear Friend or Foe,

Greta and I have been extremely close friends for almost a decade. We met when we were in our late teens and clicked instantly. It was friendship love at first drunken 1 a.m. excursion to the make-up aisle at CVS. We were quickly calling each other our "best friends." We still refer to each other as such, but the BFF title is starting to seem vestigial. We’re both extremely busy and bad at sending e-mails that go on longer than two sentences. Since she moved to another city two years ago, we’ve kept in sporadic—if intimate—touch.

When Greta called me a few weeks ago to tell me she was planning on returning to Miami, where I still live, I was delighted. We made dinner plans for a Saturday night. Since then, she didn't respond to a couple of messages that I left her. Today, a couple of days before our planned dinner date, I was CC’d on an e-mail she sent to eight people telling them she'd be in town and asking us all to meet her at a restaurant where she will be holding court on Saturday night.

I'm of two minds about this—I know she's in town for such a short period of time and this might be her only chance to see all of her friends. But I can't believe she never checked in with me about this change of plans. Should I go to this dinner (which, I'll admit, will probably be fun) or send my regrets and simper elsewhere?

Sincerely,
Greta and Me—Plus Eight I Don’t Want to See

Dear GAMPEIDWTS,

Suck it up and go to dinner with the gang. BFF designations are for sixth graders, and, from your description, I’m trying to believe that you’ve already graduated to seventh (though who doesn’t love a soused visit to the Max Factor display?). Should Greta have been more honest about the nature of the dinner? Maybe. But unless there’s a history of her acting as if each and every one of her pals is her very best in the world—until she sees the next one across the room and abandons you mid air-kiss—you have no business throwing a snit.

If, post-dinner, you still crave a tete-a-tete, invite Greta out for coffee. Though I suspect the problem is not that you long to speak with her alone, but that you like the idea of her longing to see you in similar, attention-monopolizing isolation. If the latter is true, may I suggest ordering the “Because You’re Special Gourmet Food Gift Basket”? That or get a dog.

Sincerely,
Friend or Foe

Dear Friend or Foe,

A couple of weeks ago I had my semi-annual phone conversation with a college friend who lives across the country. We do not keep in touch by e-mail, so there's a big data dump every time we talk. My friend had just found out that she has gone into menopause prematurely and would not be able to conceive. She was very upset and just absorbing the news, and because she and the guy she is with are not married, she expressed fear that adoption would be pretty difficult.

Because I'd had had my own struggles with infertility—struggles to which she had been privy—I informed her that after a long search I'd found an egg donor and was greatly relieved to be getting closer to having children. I told her I could help her if she wanted to pursue that course, and she responded that she wouldn't because she considers it "unethical.'' I'll be forced to see her in a few weeks when she comes into town for a mutual friend's party, but I can't get passed the idea that I'll just want to throw a bowl of hummus on her head.

Sincerely,
Middle Eastern Food Hurling Inclined

Dear MEFHI,

Tags: friend or foe, friendship, houseguests, infertility, lucinda rosenfeld

Lucinda Rosenfeld is the author of I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU: A Novel About Best Friends.

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Introducing Friend or Foe, Our Friendship Advice Column

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Lucinda Rosenfeld
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May 18, 2009

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One friend gets poorer, the other stays the same.

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June 11, 2009

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June 15, 2009

Life

Friend or Foe: When Your BFF Goes MIA

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