While friendship is essential and can have a positive impact on our well-being, it’s not always easy or simple. We might feel a range of emotions when it comes to our friendships. Feeling friendship anxiety can be confusing and distressing, and many people wonder, “Why do I feel anxious toward a friend?”
Navigating a relationship with a friend is similar to navigating other relationships in your life. You may have to figure out how to deal with specific issues, face certain obstacles, work on how you can be a better friend and communicate how your friend can have a better relationship with you.
Feelings of worry or inadequacy, known as friendship anxiety, often stem from past experiences, social dynamics or personal insecurities. Understanding where these feelings come from and learning how to manage them can help you maintain healthy relationships.
Find out more about friendship anxiety, where it comes from and how you can manage your anxiety to build fulfilling friendships in this article.
What Is Friendship Anxiety and Why Do I Feel Anxious Toward a Friend?
Friendship anxiety often answers the question, “Why do I feel anxious toward a friend?” by uncovering hidden triggers and past experiences. Defining it and learning what it involves can help us manage it.
Understanding What Friendship Anxiety Is
Friendship anxiety is a type of anxiety that triggers feelings of worry, inadequacy and anxiousness related to platonic relationships. It can be similar to social anxiety or social phobia for most people. However, where social anxiety symptoms generally manifest in any social setting, friendship anxiety is tied specifically to relationships with friends.
Friendship anxiety isn’t typically considered a specific “diagnosable” condition like social anxiety or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). While many people who experience it may have other types of anxiety disorders, feelings of friendship anxiety can happen to anyone.
Signs and symptoms
Some of the most common symptoms and signs of friendship anxiety include:
- Trouble fully trusting family or friends
- Physical reactions, such as a rapid heartbeat, when thinking about an interaction with friends
- Worry that you don’t have enough friends or that your worth is dependent upon the number of friends you have
- Distorted thinking patterns that have you constantly replaying and overthinking conversations or interactions with friends
- People-pleasing and avoiding friends in an attempt to avoid rejection or conflict
- Seeking constant reassurance from friends, such as regularly asking, “Do you hate me?” or “Are you mad at me?”
Research suggests that both genetic and environmental factors play a role in someone’s predisposition to anxiety. In addition to general anxiety factors, friendship anxiety is often tied to a lack of meaningful in-person interactions.
Common Causes or Triggers
There are multiple things that can impact friendship anxiety, including our past experiences and current social norms. Common triggers of friendship anxiety include:
- More digital interactions and fewer in-person meetings
- Frequent use of social media and smartphones
- Past experiences, such as those related to unhealthy relationship dynamics or related to rejection or conflict
Some research suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to social anxiety. Though there is more limited research specifically on friendship anxiety, the pandemic could be a contributing factor. Lockdowns, cancellation of events and a move toward digital interactions left many people with fewer in-person relationships. This lack of in-person interaction can strains relationships, and many people are still recovering.
Likewise, society’s modern obsession with social media and technology could be contributing to feelings of friendship anxiety and the fear of losing friends. For example, if you see a friend post an Instagram story of dinner with another friend, it could make you feel left out or wonder if they’re mad at you. While you might logically know that the dinner was just a chance for two friends to catch up (just as you might do with someone else), seeing it on social media can trigger friendship anxiety symptoms.
Finally, people who’ve faced rejection or high levels of conflict in the past may be more at risk for experiencing friendship anxiety. For example, someone who was bullied in school or treated as an outcast might have trouble accepting that their friends like them for who they are.
5 Tips to Overcome Friendship Anxiety and Help Your Friendships Thrive
Friendship anxiety could be harmful to your mental health and your relationships with friends. Luckily, there are several ways to cope with mild anxiety and friendship that you can put into practice right away. Getting past these issues could potentially help you have stronger friendships.
If you’re asking, “Why do I feel anxious toward a friend?” these tips can provide a starting point for managing and reducing those feelings.
1. Challenge Negative Thoughts
Anxious feelings are commonly rooted in emotions, which can be unreliable when working through a problem.
If you’re feeling friendship anxiety, a first step might be to take a step back and look at a situation logically. Putting an objective lens on your interactions with friends and challenging any negative thoughts can help you identify when your anxiety is taking control, so you can push back mentally and challenge those negative thoughts.
2. Be Open and Honest With Friends
One of the best ways to cope with friendship anxiety is to be honest with your friends about how you’re feeling. This can lead to open conversations about anxiety and how you and your friends can support each other in the relationship. Being vulnerable can have many benefits and can even strengthen relationship bonds.
Ultimately, having honest conversations with friends about your anxiety struggles could help you build trust and connection with others.
3. Practice Mindfulness and Self-Care
Anxiety can to leave us feeling overwhelmed by things we can’t control, such as overanalyzing past interactions or worrying about what will happen in the future. Try to practice mindfulness to help counteract the effects of friendship anxiety.
Some ways to practice mindfulness include meditation, journaling or going for walks to give your mind a rest or a reset.
4. Define Your Friendship Values
Part of reducing friendship anxiety is defining and living according to your friendship values. Start by asking yourself questions such as:
- What kind of friend do I hope to be?
- What do I want to offer to my friends? What do I hope they offer me?
- What does the relationship stand for?
Answering these questions can help you better understand what you want out of a friendship and what you can offer your friends in return.
5. Build Your Self-esteem
In some cases, friendship anxiety can come from feelings of inadequacy or self-doubt. Working on your self-esteem and building your confidence could help you reduce friendship anxiety.
Try these methods for improving your self-confidence:
- List the things you love and admire about yourself.
- Practice saying “no” to others.
- Set challenges to step outside your comfort zone.
- Try a digital detox and step away from social media.
- Start each day with a positive conversation with yourself.
If Anxiety Is Harming Your Friendships, Consider Professional Help
Are you trying to manage your feelings surrounding the question, “Why do I feel anxious toward a friend?” but nothing seems to work? It might be time to reach out to a professional.
While the five methods listed above can help you cope with some aspects of anxiety, it can be helpful to speak to a professional if the anxiety persists or interferes with your daily life. In fact, most mental health professionals advocate for therapy or related mental health services even if you’re not diagnosed with a mental health disorder.
A mental health professional, such as a licensed therapist who specializes in relationships, can help you work through friendship anxiety triggers and develop a management plan.
Face and Overcome Your Friendship Anxiety
It’s important to have friends, so find ways to identify why you worry about your friendships or ask, “Why do I feel anxious toward a friend?”.
Remember that some options may work better than others for your particular bout with anxiety, and those strategies could be different depending on each relationship with a friend. Look at factors that affect your particular views of friends and find ways to adjust your mental load, including getting professional help if you need it.
FAQs About Friendship Anxiety
You may still wonder, “Why do I feel anxious toward a friend?” Here are some answers to common questions. These can help you better understand why you have friendship anxiety and how you can handle it in your life.
Why do I feel anxious toward a friend even though we get along?
Even positive relationships can give you friendship anxiety, so it’s good to explore your personal insecurities, past experiences or social dynamics to see if you can find the origins to your anxiety.
Spend some time focusing on yourself to see if you can adjust your own attitude and views of your friendship to have a more positive relationship.
Can past experiences contribute to friendship anxiety?
Your previous friendships may have included past rejections, conflicts or negative social interactions that could influence your current anxiety about losing friendships.
Try to identify these issues in your past relationships and use them to inform your current views of friendship anxiety so you can move forward with solutions that could help you alleviate your anxiety.
Why do I feel anxious around certain friends?
Each friendship is different, and you may only have friendship anxiety with some friends but not others.
Think about why you have the fear of losing friends in some cases, as that could help you get a better grasp on why you’re having these feelings in some circumstances with some friends but not others.
How can I know if my friendship anxiety is part of a larger issue?
While being proactive and following some helpful tips can be beneficial, you may wonder if there is more to your anxiety surrounding your friendship. Talking to a credentialed therapist or mental health professional is the best way to help determine if your friendship anxiety is part of a larger issue, such as generalized anxiety or another mental health concern.
This article was updated June 2025. Photo courtesy of Cookie Studio/Shutterstock
