Recently writing in his blog on mashable.com of the tragic events in Kansas City where the NFL player Jovan Blecher shot and killed his girlfriend, and then himself, Sam Laird asks, ‘has social media cheapened our real-life relationships?’

On behalf of the three Yorkshire guys who make up the ‘What Men Do’ Movement’s writing team, I reply with a cautious, ‘Yes’.

Why cautious? Hasn’t the arrival of the Technological Age and with it, the provision of ‘Instant Friendship’, even ‘Instant Marriage Partners’ cheapened Real relationships to bargain basement status?

Let’s first understand what makes a friendship, or indeed any kind of close relationship Real. In the WMD Guide, discussing Friendship we make it very clear that in our view, Real relationships impose a sense of obligation. Lacking this, the relationship is merely that of an acquaintance.

So how about when you’ve just had a great shag? How is this relationship to be rated? The way we see it, this is essentially ‘ships-that-pass-in-the-night’; lust, ideally two lusts, have been calmed by the erotic activity, but no emotional closeness has been established. No Love, or mutual understanding has been involved; merely an animalistic coupling that will soon need to be repeated.

So how can closeness be measured? Those who consider themselves ‘close’ to another, be it as lovers, or as friends, experience an Awareness quite different from the outer Appearance of the physically obvious.

If you approach this issue from the basic point of the Real You being an invisible creature, how you Appear is merely a reflection of how you’d ideally like

to be seen and assessed. For most teenagers, this is heavily influenced not merely by their own fantasies, but by the requirements of their peer group. Hopefully, maturity and life experience will change this image of the perceived ideal to something much closer to Reality.

Closeness can only come about over Time. The scars which make an imprint on a life – some good, some not so – provide the Real history of a guy, being episodes in a lifetime’s development. It takes Time, and individual Courage to allow and trust another to be Close to our essence, There’s nothing ‘instant’ about this.

And yet, ‘instant fame’, ‘instant notoriety’, ‘instant celebrity’ is today’s name-of-the-game, and the instant contract provided by the Digital Age distorts the reality of what a Real-life relationship is all about – it being capable of providing meaning and purpose to our lives.

So yes, Sam, but let’s not put all the blame on the availability of social media. Our infantile desire for instant gratification is the greater enemy.