Here are the characteristics of my ideal man: a good sense of humour. This means that he should be witty, not an irritating practical joker, and he should cultivate a certain fashionable cynicism. He should like football, not rugby; pubs, not clubs; books, film, walks in the country and long nights of conversation by the fire. In separate chairs.

I'm not looking for a gay relationship because I think the fact that I'm not gay would rather spoil it for the other person. The relationships I have formed with some straight men, however, have borne all the signs of a romance, from early infatuation to angry break-ups.

I have had what I would call a platonic romance - or “bro-mance” - with a man six times in my life. I have fallen out with three of them so seriously that we see each other either not at all or about once every five years. Each of those break-ups was easily as traumatic as when I've split from a girlfriend; much worse in two of the cases. Why wouldn't they be? The relationships were more intense than I have managed with most women. We met each other three nights a week and all weekend; we shared ideas, dreams, hangovers, sporting disasters and triumphs; we went on holiday together; we shared a flat. It was wonderful while it lasted, devastating when it finished.

Take alpha male Gordon Ramsay, 41, who has fallen out with close friend and protégé 38-year-old Marcus Wareing so irrevocably that this week Wareing described the celebrity chef as “a sad bastard” whose influence had left him feeling “constrained, confined and trapped”. The two are involved in a legal battle over Wareing's position in charge of Pétrus, Ramsay's restaurant, at The Berkeley Hotel, Knightsbridge, West London.

Even though Ramsay was best man at Wareing's wedding that didn't stop their friendship from hitting the skids. “If I never speak to that guy for the rest of my life it wouldn't bother me one bit,” said Wareing. “Wouldn't give a f***.”

They're not the only ones. Earlier this month it was reported that two friends, Ed Stafford, 32, and 37-year-old Luke Collyer, who had spent over a year planning an expedition to walk the 4,000-mile length of the Amazon together, had split up - only 90 days in to a trip that should have lasted 18 months - because of a row over an MP3 player.

Their relationship bore all the hallmarks of an intense friendship, from the early days to the moment you realise that the object of your admiration isn't quite the person you thought.

The pair met in 2004 and originally got on “like a house on fire”, according to Stafford. Two months in to the expedition, though, the strain was showing. Their blog of the trip charts the fallout. Collyer records how, in Peru, he was having difficulty on a mountain. Stafford had to keep waiting for him. Collyer wrote: “He would start doing press-ups. As I would get closer Ed would ask, while doing star jumps, ‘How you doing, Luke?'

“‘Fine', I'd reply through gritted teeth.” This is standard bloke behaviour on both sides - masking (even from yourself) irritation beneath humour. Later on, the tone begins to sour. Stafford, the star jumper, wrote: “If I'm honest the hardest thing has been getting on with Luke.” His mate agreed and, within a week of the admission, after a row about the music player, Collyer had flown home. In fact, it's not at all unusual for male friendships to follow this pattern. One of my best friends and I haven't seen each other for 17 years - after an argument over a belt. I said it was mine, he said it was his. We didn't go to the Amazon, but our friendship had faced a tough challenge: living together.

Dave and I met in about 1988. I had moved in to a shared house in Camden, North London, where he was one of my new flatmates. He was working class, laddy, clever, wordy and very, very witty. Right from the off I spent much more time with him than I would have done with a girlfriend. The first two years of our relationship went by in a whirl of pints, parties and laughter.

Why did it go wrong? We had too much of each other, or rather, he had too much of me. There are unspoken distributions of power in all relationships and, at first, I was the dominant partner. He looked up to me, slightly, for coming from the same background as him and doing the whole university/media career thing, and he found me funny. After two years of living together, though, my jokes were wearing thin. I don't think the fact that I had the domestic habits of a Tasmanian devil was particularly helpful either.

I found him increasingly moody, but I didn't back off and give him more space. Instead, like a forlorn lover, I actually closed in on him, tried harder to make him laugh, asked him on evenings out even when he didn't ask me.

Eventually he decided to move out and then we had the argument about the belt. I saw him a couple of times after that and drunkenly asked him why he had abandoned me. He was embarrassed by the question, saddened by it, clearly still fond of me, but equally clearly was no longer a part of my life. Still, much later I heard that he'd been very upset when I didn't invite him on my stag night, despite the fact that I hadn't seen him in 14 years. Like a jilted lover, I had heard of him through mutual friends.

Dr Arthur Cassidy, a psychologist and expert in friendship and identity at the University of Ulster, says that this “romance” model of friendship follows psychological rules that apply to everything from buying a new car to toddlers playing with toys. The problem? Boredom.

“We seek out people whose competencies match our own,” he says. “For an expedition, that may be self-reliance. In friendship, it may be humour. Just as with a new car or motorbike, the new friendship reflects our own sense of identity and reinforces it. It says something about you.” It's unfortunate, though, that when the novelty wears off, the prized vehicle is left rusting in the drive while its owner scans Autocar. The same is true of friendships. Cassidy says that difficulties arise when people are overexposed to each other and their competencies don't move on. You begin to be able to guess what the other person is going to say, you're less bothered about impressing them. Then other personality traits, such as aggression, may emerge, which effectively spells the end for the friendship.

The answer, he says, is not to become overexposed in the first place; either that, or grow in your interests and abilities together.

In the case of the Amazon boys, Collyer felt that there was a power imbalance in the relationship. “The arguments were one-sided,” he says from his home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. “He is more articulate than me and would start contentious discussions that I didn't want to be involved in.” Even the way each other ate and walked became irritating. They even discussed what would happen if they came to blows.

“Ed is a public schoolboy and a rugby player and has the idea that it all gets left on the playing field, you have your fight and then it's over. I told him that if he ever hit me I would remember it for the rest of my life, so luckily it never happened,” Collyer says.

Women, on the whole, handle things better, although they seem to exist in a permanent state of low-level crisis. They fume that someone has cancelled on them at the last minute; invited one friend and not another to a meal; been to see a film they had promised to watch only with them. They then discuss things, argue about them and move on to the next point of disagreement. They are constantly monitoring the state of their friendships, giving and receiving signs of mutual appreciation, offering feedback to their friends.

Men tend to assume everything is fine until their friend attempts to strangle them after six pints at the Dog and Duck.

Stafford and Collyer could see this happening to them and, after a row over the MP3 player and “airing everything that bugged us about each other”, Collyer decided to go home. He was very clear on his reasons why - to preserve his friendship with Stafford. They'd got too close and now the only option was to put some distance between them. It's not a decision everyone is wise enough to take before it's too late. Take heed, Ramsay.

Mark Barrowcliffe is author of Mr Wrong, published by Macmillan

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