Friendship anxiety is when a person excessively worries about their platonic relationships. The person may ruminate over interactions, feel jealous of a friend’s other relationships, and not feel able to be themselves around friends.
Social anxiety disorder is a mental health condition in which a person has a persistent fear of others judging or watching them. Individuals with social anxiety can find it challenging to make and maintain relationships.
Friendship anxiety is similar to social anxiety. However, it is not an official condition, and it involves anxiety related to specific close relationships, rather than social situations as a whole.
This article contains personal stories from Alex Alexander and Elvira Huang, two individuals with experience of friendship anxiety.
A note on friendship anxiety
Friendship anxiety is not an official diagnosis. In a clinical setting, this type of anxiety would most likely fall under the category of social anxiety disorder.
However, due to increased awareness around feelings of persistent fear specifically related to friendships, this article will use this term.
According to Rod Mitchell, a registered psychologist from Therapy Calgary Emotions Clinic, friendship anxiety is persistent worry about social relationships. This worry goes beyond the typical nervousness of meeting new people.
Dr. Menije Boduryan-Turner, a licensed psychologist and founder of Embracing You Therapy, expands on this definition. She states that friendship anxiety is the experience of anxiety responses, including rumination and overthinking, in the context of friendships.
Thoughts from an expert
“This type of anxiety can make it hard to form or maintain friendships. It might lead to avoiding social events or struggling to relax around friends. Friendship anxiety can affect anyone, regardless of how many friends they have or how outgoing they seem.”
– Rod Mitchell
Friendship anxiety is when a person experiences intense worry that their friendships are not secure. It can occur as a response to one particular friendship or across all of a person’s friendships.
Most people will experience some worry or concern about their friendships at one time or another. However, friendship anxiety occurs when those worries begin to affect daily life and relationships.
Rod Mitchell notes the following signs of friendship anxiety:
- Overthinking: A person might spend a lot of time analyzing their interactions with friends.
- Avoidance: People with friendship anxiety may cancel plans at the last minute or make excuses to skip social events.
- Constant worry: An individual might often experience concern about doing or saying the “wrong” thing and frequently worry about whether their friends truly like them.
- Physical discomfort: A person may feel tense or on edge when spending time with friends, even those they have known for a while. This may involve symptoms such as a rapid heartbeat and sweating.
- Difficulty opening up: An individual may find it difficult to share personal information or feelings with their friends due to the fear of judgment.
Alex’s story: How friendship anxiety affects my life
“I don’t have a great family of origin situation, so my friendships are my main support system. That was all fine and good when I was in my early 20s, but when I hit my late 20s [to] early 30s, societal messages that friendship needed to take a backseat to other life priorities got loud. I’ll admit that I fully panicked. I started overthinking everything about my friendships.
“Overall, I think I was trying to hold onto that version of my friendships too tightly. If I know anything about friendship now, these relationships are ever-evolving, and that is what we have to get used to. Every single version that we experience will pass at some point, so try to be present, do the work to navigate the challenge, and try and find the new ‘peak’ in the new version of the friendship.”
Effects of overthinking
Dr. Menije also discussed one of the core signs of anxiety: rumination, the act of replaying or overthinking things that have happened.
Rumination may lead the person to catastrophize, thinking about the worst-case scenario, which can involve “black and white thinking,” where an individual views issues and incidents in absolute terms.
For example, if a person’s friend does not answer their call, the person automatically thinks their friend must be mad at them or not want to be friends anymore.
Friendship anxiety can also make an individual feel pressure to be the “perfect friend,” always being helpful and available. This can lead the person to review their time with friends to make sure they did not say or do the “wrong” thing.
Read about how anxiety feels.
Elvira’s story: How I experience friendship anxiety
“If a new friend joins my and my best friend’s routine, I will always check whether my best friend and the new friend are more social and talkative with each other than with me and whether they will ask me to hang out with them or not.
“If they often hang out without me, I may feel that they don’t like me, and then I will gradually reduce my contact with them.”
According to Rod Mitchell, friendship anxiety can develop as the result of a combination of factors, such as the following:
- Past experiences: Negative social experiences, such as bullying or friendships ending badly, can increase a person’s anxiety about future relationships.
- Perfectionism and low self-esteem: Experiencing low self-worth and setting high expectations that may be unrealistic in friendships can lead to constant worry.
- External factors: Life changes, such as moving or changing jobs, can put a strain on current relationships and create increased concern about forming new ones.
- Social skills: Feeling unsure about how to interact with others in social situations can increase a person’s anxiety. Experiencing shyness does not usually cause anxiety. However, it can make it more difficult to gain social experiences.
Thoughts from an expert
“When it comes to anxiety, it is best to remember that it always latches on to things you value. Therefore, things we value, such as relationships in our lives, can be an easy target for our anxiety.
“Ultimately, we are afraid to lose things we value, including our friends. While anxiety in moderation has great value, it can also get out of hand and create unnecessary stress in our lives.”
– Dr. Menije
Friendship is an important and meaningful part of life. Research has found that healthy and stable friendships can be crucial for longevity and well-being.
However, various factors of modern life appear to have caused a rise in people reporting friendship anxiety. Dr. Menije notes that this may in part be due to increased awareness of mental health and how debilitating anxiety can be.
Rod Mitchell states that he has noticed an increase in friendship anxiety among clients of his practice in recent years. He believes this increase is due to a combination of factors, including:
- Digital communication: Texting, email, and online chat have come to replace many face-to-face interactions in daily life. This can make it more difficult for individuals to build deep connections and recognize social cues.
- Comparison culture: Social media has intensified people’s tendency to compare themselves to others. Mitchell states that many of his clients express anxiety about whether their friendships measure up to the seemingly perfect relationships they see online.
- COVID-19: Mitchell notes that isolation and the disruption of regular social activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened anxiety around friendships for many people. When existing friendships have been strained or disrupted by social distancing, there is more pressure to avoid saying or doing something that could lead to further isolation.
Tips for making new friends and keeping existing ones
Making and maintaining friendships can be challenging. The American Psychological Association offers the following tips that might help:
- listen attentively to others
- try to welcome emotional closeness
- look for ways to connect with people with similar hobbies, interests, and values
- try to assume the best (that you are likable) rather than the worst
- be consistent and invest in existing friendships you value
Read about the benefits of a social media break.
Dr. Menije notes that one of her favorite tools for managing anxiety is making value-based decisions instead of fear-based ones.
For example, a person who reaches out to a friend to make plans because they are afraid of being alone is making a fear-based decision. A person who reaches out because they want to show interest in their friend and stay connected is making a value-based decision.
Elvira’s story: How I manage my friendship anxiety
“I think the most effective treatment is to be yourself and focus more on yourself… Go out and socialize more and go to the activities that you enjoy. If you meet enough people, you will have enough friends. You won’t be afraid of losing a particular friend, you’ll be able to be more relaxed and comfortable with your friends, and you can turn it into a positive cycle.”
Rod Mitchell lists the following methods for helping treat and manage friendship anxiety:
Mindfulness
People can use mindfulness to ground them when they feel anxious.
The goal of these techniques is to shift attention away from worries and physical symptoms of anxiety, helping prevent these feelings from becoming overwhelming.
Two helpful approaches are:
- Focusing on the external world: This involves a person shifting their attention to their surroundings. For example, they might try to notice three sounds they can hear.
- Focusing on a neutral part of the body: This involves choosing a body part not strongly linked to anxiety symptoms, such as the toes. The person can try paying attention to the physical sensations in this neutral place.
Cognitive behavioral therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps an individual identify and adjust negative thought patterns about friendships. For example, if they often think, “My friends don’t really like me,” their therapist will help them challenge this belief and find evidence to contradict it.
CBT also teaches practical skills, such as how to start conversations or how to respond when feeling anxious in social situations.
Exposure therapy
Exposure therapy involves gradually facing feared situations. A therapist might help a person create a “fear ladder,” which involves starting with less anxiety-provoking situations, like texting a friend, and working up to more challenging ones, such as attending a party.
By facing these fears step-by-step, an individual may be able to reduce their anxiety over time.
Alex’s story: How I manage my friendship anxiety
“I have done extensive therapy work for my past overall – eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), attachment protocols, talk therapy, emotional freedom technique (EFT) tapping, and life span integration.
“The focus hasn’t overall been on friendship anxiety, but friendship does come up often. We talk mainly about how important my friendships are in my life and how I navigate friendships in a healthy way to optimize the relationships that are working in my life.
“I have such trust in my friendships at this point that my therapist often reminds me to consider how I show up in those relationships, how worthy I feel, how supported I am, and to remind myself that I do have healthy relationships in my life, even if they aren’t my family.”
Why does my friend trigger my anxiety?
Dr. Menije Boduryan-Turner states that there can be two reasons why a friend triggers a person’s anxiety. She states that when a person has anxiety, it is only a matter of time before it shows up in their friendships because friendships are an important part of life, and anxiety will “latch” on to it.
However, it may be important for the person to make sure the boundaries of the particular friendship are not feeding their anxiety. For example, if the friend often gives mixed messages or is inconsistent with communication, these behaviors could trigger friendship anxiety.
How can you help a friend who has anxiety?
According to Dr. Menije Boduryan-Turner, two factors are particularly important: compassion and accountability.
She states that it is always important to have compassion for others who are trying to manage their emotions and find inner peace and confidence.
However, people may inadvertently enable and engage in accommodations that would only reinforce the person’s anxiety. For example, reassurance-seeking is a common compulsion in friendship anxiety. Without healthy boundaries, an individual may find themselves reassuring a person with this kind of anxiety endlessly.
Dr. Menije suggests people find ways to set limits with love.
Anxiety resources
Visit our dedicated hub for more research-backed information and in-depth resources on anxiety.
Friendship anxiety involves persistent worry and overthinking about friendships. This kind of anxiety may affect daily life and relationships, potentially keeping an individual from interacting socially and building meaningful friendships.
Mindfulness may help with managing friendship anxiety. People can also seek help from a mental health professional. Treatment options may include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or exposure therapy.
Anxiety can be debilitating. However, people can learn to manage or overcome it with proper management techniques.