Jennifer Horgan: How do you break up with a friend when the fire has died out?

You might see one another again and find yourself recalling memories and laughing. But you won’t look at each other and say, what we had is gone; it is no longer

'In my experience, friendships fade out because we don’t know how to end them. They die like fires die, going from hot and raging to cool, grey embers.'

Nobody tells us how to break up with a friend.

It’s the strangest thing, isn’t it? Walk into a shop and there’s no great challenge in finding a ‘Best Friend’ card. A non-romantic ‘Thinking of You’ offering. Films and television shows centre on friendship. It is a continuingly fascinating topic, a bottomless well, a theme depicted from childhood to old age. We grow up on the stuff. I was part-formed by Dawson’s Creek, Friends, My So-Called Life, and Beverly Hills 90210. Yes, romance featured, sometimes in a starring role, but the real star, and the backdrop of every show, was friendship.