If you’ve known the joy of a close relationship, be it platonic or romantic, then you almost certainly know that it doesn’t always last. The ‘love of our lives’ at 17 is rarely the same at 30. The friends we make on the playground seldom end up by our sides as we move through life’s later stages. The mates we made at uni and swore were ‘our people’ eventually fade into the occasional birthday text and Tonight Josephine drink.

No big, screaming break-up has to incite it, either. In fact, it almost always tends to be a slow, seeping realisation that you’re just not the same people you were. That the commitment and intimacy you once shared feels weaker now. It’s sad, but inevitable, and only serves to make those relationships that do survive the turbulence feel even more sacred.

It’s true that while it’s more than OK to have different tiers of friendship – not every person in your life is meant to be a BFF, after all – it is hard to know what to do with someone you still care for, but just don’t feel the same closeness to any longer. Do you cut ties completely? Take baby steps further and further away from one another until there’s very little still holding you together?