A friend recently shared a post from the satirical site Reductress. It depicted a woman, arms held triumphantly aloft, beneath the headline: “She Did It! This Woman Was Able To Confirm That Everyone Was Not Mad At Her!”
When I asked her about it, my friend admitted that it was partly a ploy to flush out anyone who might indeed be mad at her.
“The way I deal with it externally is to make a joke about it,” she said. “And a few people did message me – also sort of in jest, but not really – to be like ‘Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you!’”
I sometimes feel the same heart-sinking insecurity. If I haven’t heard from a friend in a while, or their most recent message seemed a bit curt, my mind throws up the question: did I do something wrong?
In many ways it’s a senseless reaction – I’ve no real reason to believe I’ve offended or upset them; they’re probably just busy. Yet I can’t shake the feeling. Especially if I’m tired, stressed or premenstrual, I can convince myself that my friend actively hates me – and that any evidence that they ever enjoyed my company or appreciated me as a person was fake.
I surveyed my friends about the phenomenon, and it seems common.
Some act on the insecurity, asking if they’ve done something wrong. “It’s become a running joke,” said Cat. Others fret, second-guessing their last interaction or reading into text messages. Lauren said that one- or two-word responses, full stops or use of her name put her “immediately on high alert”.
Even reassuring language can set off these fears. “I actually don’t think I could even hear ‘No worries’ without assuming sarcasm,” said Michael.
Why are we so quick to assume that our friends are mad at us – or even itching to drop us?
“When we fear that our friends are mad at us, it feels really convincing,” says psychotherapist Meg Josephson.
“We’re trying to alleviate this anxiety, so we seek reassurance – ‘Was I annoying? Was I weird?’ – but it’s not getting to the actual feeling that’s underneath it.”
In her new book Are You Mad At Me?, Josephson says this impulse is driven by a desire to please and be affirmed.
The so-called “fawn response” is one way we respond to threats, whether real (physical danger) or perceived (your friend taking longer than usual to text you back).
“The fawn response is about appeasing the threat, so that you can feel safe,” says Josephson. “Your immediate instinct is to be ‘Are we OK?’ – or to compliment them, or be helpful to them, so that you can defuse the perceived tension.”
Less well known than the fight or flight response, it is often developed in childhood in response to critical or emotionally neglectful parents, or a volatile home environment, Josephson says. Women are especially susceptible, being socialised to put others at ease.
The fawn response isn’t bad; often, it keeps the peace. Yet over time, it can become compulsive, stoking a cycle of reassurance-seeking.
We might intellectually understand that a friend isn’t upset with us – but those “old ways of being” bite hard, Josephson says. “Something was learned: ‘I need to try harder and do more to be loved.’”
The pattern is self-defeating in two ways. First, it conceives of friendship as conditional, which can “keep people at a distance”, Josephson says. Worse still, assuming everyone is annoyed with you can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “When we seek reassurance, that can put quite a strain on the relationship.”
Lauren, who reads into short text messages, has found this. “Pressing too hard” sometimes makes the fear a reality: “I almost always wish I never asked, because it almost always backfires.”
The attempted mind-reading and “anxious rumination” can become exhausting, says Josephson. It also doesn’t actually protect you against conflict. “Sometimes people will be mad at you,” Josephson says. “They will misjudge you, misunderstand you, misperceive you.”
The key is understanding that it is not the end of the world – or a friendship.
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“Especially if we grew up in more volatile homes, where conflict was brushed under the rug or we didn’t witness disagreement handled in a safe way, we learn to fear conflict” as terminal, Josephson says. “Actually, in healthy relationships, a little bit of friction is really good, because it means both people can have differing opinions.”
Conflict is not only inevitable; it can even be healing, she adds, demonstrating that disagreement or discomfort doesn’t have to come at the cost of intimacy. “Repair is what leads to closeness.”
With nearly 600,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, Josephson often hears how social media worsens social anxiety. The lack of nonverbal cues and other context make it easy to misinterpret the tone of messages. Additionally, “because there are so many ways to connect, there’s also so many ways to feel forgotten,” she says. “‘Why did they see my story, but not respond to my text?’”
Since the fawn response often registers as a sense of urgency, technology can enable us to act on it. We might fire off a message seeking reassurance against our better judgement.
So if your friend sends an unusually short text, instead of rushing to confirm that they hate you, Josephson advises pausing for 30 minutes, or even just a breath. “Slow down and acknowledge the feeling beneath it: ‘Am I anxious right now? What’s going on?’… Oftentimes, we find it’s just like a craving that sort of passes.”
This helps to relax the cycle of reassurance-seeking, and convince “our bodies that we’re safe”, she says. “We’re bringing that unconscious pattern into the conscious mind, and that’s making a huge difference.”
With practice, it’s possible to increase your tolerance for discomfort and gain more control over your response to triggers. But you can also try to trust your friends. When they say you weren’t weird or annoying, and that they didn’t reply because they’re busy, tired or distracted – “take what they say at face value,” says Josephson.
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Instead of inventing stories about why they might be mad at you, or seeking reassurance at every turn, trust that they will tell you if – or when – they are. “It’s a way to release control over things that we never had control over in the first place,” says Jacobson.
After all, there’s no question you can ask, no magic sequence of words you can say that will fix someone’s perception of you. Even if there were, you might be robbing yourself of opportunities to grow, learn or deepen a bond.
I think about all the times I forgot to text a friend back – it’s never because my feelings about them had changed. “Realising that no one’s thinking about us as much as we think they are is very liberating,” says Josephson.
But for any of my friends who might have anxiously read this far, I’m happy to put your mind at ease – I am not mad at you. And if you’re mad at me – just let me know.
Are You Mad At Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You by Meg Josephson is out now