It is a truth universally acknowledged that friendship is founded on a communality of thought or of experience; best of all a combination of the two. I recently went camping and hiking in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with a guy I've known since we were at high school together in Scotland. Years ago I slept on the floor of his flat in Edinburgh for several months while looking for job. But I was a little concerned. I think we'd only spoken once on the phone in the past two years and he doesn't give much away in his emails. We're both older than we once were but not much wiser. Was the essential spark of communality of thought and/or experience still there. Fortunately, yes. We were like a well oiled machine. As before, he seemed to be able to read my mind. Years ago I was good friends with one of my flat mates in Newcastle upon Tyne. When he got his girlfriend preggers and they set up home together on the other side of Chillingham Road I thought the friendship would continue. But without the communality of experience we'd shared at old digs, it turned out we had nothing.