Has it become too easy to let other people down?

Or the awkward truth that someone else's loneliness might be our fault.

Just about every time I travel up to Yorkshire to see my grandma, I'll be sat in her living room with her, my aunt and my uncle having the same discussion about the merits of online interaction (mainly Facebook) versus picking up the phone. Because I'm connected with my uncle on Facebook these days, in his own words he "knows more about him in the past 2-3 years than I have his whole life". I like that. It is an ongoing regret that my mum knew so little about me; she not only misses out on the cool stuff I get up to these days, she didn't even get close to the cool stuff I did while she was alive. On FB, I can broadcast as much as I like and because I broadcast so much, people around me can choose to listen or not. The can choose to give me their attention or not. They can choose to let me down as much as they can choose to engage with me. There's very little consequence either way.

My grandma hates the internet and would much prefer to chat in person or on the phone. She likes the personal interaction and to see how people are reacting. That means it is both more rewarding for her when someone wants to talk, but also a bit more brutal when someone doesn't want to listen or doesn't agree! I associate my grandma with a lot of debate and argument! Because every interaction means something, it is very easy to let my grandma down if you don't interact with her and she worries about letting other people down. She rarely calls me because she's worried she's bothering me (she's not), and I know if I haven't called when I said I would, it'll matter to her. I definitely owe my grandma a phone call, and I'm a little ashamed I've not called sooner. In the time I've fretted about not calling my grandma back, I've posted A LOT of stuff on FB, Twitter, Instagram.

I am not proud of this.

When I was 18 or 19, I came home from university in France for a long weekend and while I was home, I forgot to call my grandad for a catch up. This upset him a lot. I took the hit on the phone bill and called him when I got back to France but he wasn't ready. It was a 2 minute conversation with lots of one word answers in spite of my energetic delivery. I'd let him down. I wrote him a letter instead, apologising, explaining why I'd not had time to call and letting him know how much I valued him. I got a lovely response back and everything was fine between us again. I had done damage, but really the solution was as easy as me swallowing my pride, accepting I had done hurt to someone I cared about and repairing that hurt. It took time and energy, but it was worth it.

These days, the only person I think I could imagine doing something similar for is my partner Anna. I mean, our relationship would fall apart pretty quickly if I didn't respond to calls or texts from the person I live with right!!! In fact, with Anna I have a full range of conversations - some are the most interesting and entertaining interactions I've ever had with someone. Some are so mundane it actually feels like I'm wasting precious words. Both are equally valuable to our ongoing relationship because if I don't respond to her and treat our interactions with respect, I let her down and vice versa.

I guess I'm sharing this because it has struck me that in all the chatter around loneliness and isolation, the public messages are around the wonder of connection and how brilliant people are to talk to and discover if we make the effort. We bask in the positive but fail to address that connection and meaning in a relationship (of whatever form) comes from the ability to stay connected when it isn't fun as well! When the opportunity of something great goes hand in hand with the risk of losing something and the need to invest through the bad times as well as the good times.

This feels hard these days and adapting to a social media age is probably part of this, but not because it is easier to communicate online, but because it is easier to NOT communicate and still act like you are connected. It is easy to not listen. It is easy to let people down. Maybe it's time to stop thinking about how we tackle loneliness and isolation, and maybe talk about how we make it easier for all of us to have the strength, confidence and resilience to to invest in our friends and family when we don't want to as much as when we do. Maybe we should start by asking ourselves "what the hell happened to me?" before looking at someone disconnected and wonder "what the hell happened to them?".