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You have to know your limitations. I am often a guest, I often eat food that was made by lazy people. (OUCH) burned, dry, underseasoned, overcooked, undercooked, not so tasty food.
Once it is I eat something that was made that I considered lazy cooking, I will be hard pressed to do it again. This includes my own mother.
I agree with Mich about actually orchestrating the meal, I am far more rehearsed than most people and put forth a better meal on any day than most people eat on any day.
My own MIL once used the term, "something she (me) would consider a good meal" as a reference point. Yes I know wild isn't it?
This is one of the reasons why I do not like people to bring something without letting me know. It may not make it to the table.
I cook most if not all of the holiday meals. I have been cooking them since Easter 1991. My mother is older now and I do not feel she should have to do all the work. Also she looks at if different than I do. She thinks it is a job and I think it is the olympics. (Lazy cooking insinuation.....seasoning.....forgot something once....you get the idea) Often I was hand carrying half the meal to her house anyway.
Isn't that called catering?

Am a baby boomer living with my disabled father, and so host far more meals than I attend. That way I can prepare food pleasing to my guests while considering my dad's dietary restrictions. So far, it's worked out well. Being a good guest requires a graciousness that extends beyond how the meal was prepared. Am always humbled when anyone makes an effort to feed and entertain me at table.

I have a very hard time eating food that other people have made (except for my mom's). I cannot pinpoint as to exactly why, but I usually cringe when I have to try something. Sometimes I am pleasently surprised however. That being said, I love being the cook. If I am attending a gathering and others are cooking, I at least usually have to stir the thing. This caused a lot of problems with my old boyfriend...he hated the fact that I had to add my 2 cents in while he was cooking...and not just enjoy him cooking for me.

Either. As long as I can cook. I don't mind running the show in my own kitchen or being someone's deckhand in their galley.

Both, I prefer being in the kitchen most. But when you cook decently, your friends are less likely to invite you to dinner. Especially since I write my own recipe site and post on food, seems like the invites are fewer coupled with having a little one, and they all dried up. Rarely does anyone refuse to come eat at our place, though!

But when you cook decently, your friends are less likely to invite you to dinner.

This is SOOO true!! I don't critique anyone's food unless they ask me - like if they are competing or something and are looking for an ingredient by ingredient examination. Otherwise, I'm just happy to be invited!

Ahhh, just yesterday I was sitting in the recovery room with my Other as he had a hernia surgery in the groin area. As I was sitting there, I realized that WE are always the hosts. WE are always the ones to go running when someone is sick or hurt or needs something done. Even when someone has a simple cold, it is us that is making soup, picking up kids and their homework, driving over to take the trash to the curb.

So how many people do you think offered to do ANYTHING for either one of yesterday? Zero. At first, I was mad and told him I was ready to find new friends. Then I remembered that they all pretty much suck at cooking and I wouldn't want anything they had made anyway! So I came home and nursed Jake and made him stew and homemade noodles and roasted squash and apples to make a bisque for tomorrow and reminded myself with a treat of 4 Tylenol that I am entirely too old to be lifting his 190lbs of dead weight off the couch/car/chair/bed. Today, I would probably go if they asked, just because Im so tired! So, I guess that 99.98% of the time, I prefer to host. .02% of the time, I want to be a guest.

This is a no brainer for me. I can't cook well or do I want to, so I rather be the guest. Hopefully the food is good but that is the chance you have to take.

I enjoy both. Usually when there is a proper dinner party, I am the one who's giving it, and my partner and I cook together. We have really fun parties at our house, with lots of wine and good conversation long into the night, and I think people like to come to ours. We're quite flexible as well. Last Christmas Eve (the important day for Scandinavians) one of our friends turned up at our flat unannounced and we ate smoked haddock and posh chocolates, drank lots of good wine and played poker until morning. It was great. I'm pretty laid back, so I quite like that sort of thing.
That said, people don't usually invite us over for dinner. We live quite centrally, and people tend to invite themselves to ours (sometimes they help cook), which I don't mind.
The one exception is my book club (like most book clubs, it's basically an excuse to drink wine and eat hors d'oeuvres). It rotates every week, so every three or four weeks I host and on the others we go to our friends' places. Their offerings tend to be more basic than mine, but I'm always interested to see what they're going to make. Once, one friend spent the whole afternoon making these decorative spirils with red peppers and goats cheese from a Delia Smith cookbook. They weren't exactly a howling success, but it was funny listening to him recount the agony of making them, and it was great that he tried. One friend comes from Beirut and she always makes lovely Lebanese food, and another is from Finland and brought 'squeaky cheese' for us to try. It was kind of bizarre, but I loved trying it. That's what I like about going to friends' houses - whether you find their food delicious or not, it's definitely going to be an adventure compared to what you make yourself!

This is a good question. If we speak only of what we eat, then yes, I would rather be the cook. But I think this issue goes a little more into the fact that people just don't have each other over to eat much anymore. I recently had dinner at a friend's house, but before that, it had literally been years since I had been invited to someone's house for dinner. I have lots of friends, but most think they are not good enough cooks and so we end up eating out. But heck, how hard can it be to make a hamburger on the grill and heat up a can of beans. The important part of all this is not so much the food that's shared but the community that comes with sharing a meal at someone's house, something that doesn't quite translate when you are sitting in a noisy restaurant.

How about an interactive party where everyone joins the host in the kitchen and helps out? Crack open the wine, sample the food straight out of the pan, laugh and share... In a perfect world I suppose.

Thanks for sharing comments---we all love & enjoy good food either as the cook or guest :)