Friendship guide
How to Make Friends With Social Anxiety
Social anxiety doesn't mean you're bad at friendship. It can make you judge your interactions and relationships more harshly than the other person does.
Updated July 26, 2026
Making friends with social anxiety is possible, and it doesn't require the anxiety to disappear first. Research on social anxiety and friendship keeps finding the same thing: anxious people are harsher judges of their own friendships than their friends are. That gap, between how you rate a relationship and how the other person actually feels about it, is the place to start.
Your anxiety is not a reliable narrator of your friendships
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis compared how people with social anxiety disorder rated their own friendships against how their friends rated the same relationships. The anxious person's self-report was consistently harsher than their friend's. Friends didn't rate the friendship itself as worse, though they did notice real differences, describing the anxious person as somewhat less dominant in the relationship and slightly less well-adjusted. (Journal of Abnormal Psychology)
Social anxiety can make this kind of uncertainty especially hard to sit with, even though the broader tendency to underrate how much others enjoyed a conversation, what researchers call the liking gap, shows up well beyond social anxiety. The discomfort you feel in a friendship isn't necessarily evidence the friendship is going badly. It can just as easily be the anxiety talking.
Start smaller than feels necessary
Generic advice to “put yourself out there” backfires for social anxiety because it front-loads exposure: a party, a big group, a long hangout with strangers. That's the hardest possible starting point, not the easiest.
Lower the bar further than feels natural. Brief, repeated contact can be a more manageable starting point than one long, high-stakes evening. The aim isn't to make every interaction meaningful. It's to make the next one possible.
Let structure do what confidence can't
Freeform socializing is hardest with social anxiety because there's no script: what to say, when it's okay to leave, whether you're overstaying. Every one of those becomes a decision to second-guess.
Structured, recurring, task-based contexts remove most of that. A class, a volunteer shift, a small club with a fixed agenda: the format tells you what happens next, so you're not inventing the interaction as you go.
The follow-up message is where the anxiety gets loudest, and where it matters most
Right after a good interaction, the fear that you were too much, or that they didn't really enjoy it, tends to peak exactly when the follow-up message needs to be sent. That timing is not a coincidence. It's the moment the anxiety has the most to work with.
Send it anyway, and keep it short: mention something specific from the conversation, add a small amount of warmth, suggest one concrete next step. For the exact wording and timing that works best, see how to follow up after meeting someone.
What actual treatment research says helps
This isn't just encouragement without evidence. A randomized controlled trial tested an online friendship-building program for 55 adults with social anxiety disorder against a waitlist group. Across everyone randomized to the program, fear of intimacy was lower by the end of treatment. Among those who completed it, loneliness and depression were also lower at follow-up. The program didn't reduce social anxiety symptoms themselves, and it didn't change behavior during an observed conversation, so the results are real but modest, not a cure. (Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry)
Friendship-building skills can be practiced, and practicing them helps with the friendship side specifically, even though it isn't a treatment for social anxiety itself. If your anxiety is significant or diagnosed, therapy, particularly cognitive behavioral approaches, is the primary evidence-based treatment. Coaching and practical practice can complement that work. They aren't a substitute for it.
You don't have to feel confident to be a good friend
Confidence is not a prerequisite for closeness. Consistency is what actually predicts friendship quality: remembering, following through, showing up again. None of that requires feeling at ease in the moment.
Being reliable while anxious is still being reliable. For what that looks like in practice, see how to be a better friend.
About the author
Carole Stromboni is the founder of The Friendship Practice. She is the author of Innover en pratique (Eyrolles) and splits her time between Hawaii and Paris. Her work focuses on helping adults turn good intentions into concrete friendship practice. Learn more about The Friendship Practice.
Common questions
Quick answers
Does social anxiety mean I'm bad at friendship? +
No. Research consistently finds that people with social anxiety underrate their friendships compared to how their friends actually feel. The anxiety distorts the read, not the relationship itself.
Should I wait until I feel less anxious to start making friends? +
No. Waiting tends to make the anxiety bigger, not smaller. Starting small, with low-stakes and repeatable contact, works better than waiting for confidence that may not arrive first.
Is coaching a replacement for therapy if I have social anxiety? +
No. If your anxiety is significant or diagnosed, therapy, especially cognitive behavioral approaches, is the primary evidence-based treatment. Friendship coaching can complement that work on the practical, day-to-day side, but it isn't a substitute for clinical care.
Why does sending a follow-up message feel so much harder than the conversation itself? +
Because it's the moment your mind runs the worst-case scenario: that you misread the interaction. Research on the liking gap shows people generally underestimate how much others enjoyed talking to them, and social anxiety can make that particular uncertainty harder to shake, even though the underlying effect isn't unique to social anxiety.
What kind of social settings are easiest with social anxiety? +
Structured, repeatable ones with a built-in activity, classes, volunteer shifts, recurring meetups, work better than open-ended mixers. Structure removes many of the moment-to-moment decisions that fuel anxiety.
Can I be a good friend even when I don't feel confident? +
Yes. Reliability and attention matter more to friendship quality than how at ease you feel in the moment. Showing up consistently is more convincing than appearing relaxed.
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Next step
See your friendship life clearly. Then change it.
The free 7-day Friendship Challenge is a short daily reflection: who is in your circle, what feels off, and what you actually want from friendship before you try to change anything. Seven days, one step at a time.