Why do I feel so insecure when I'm dating someone?

You probably feel insecure partly because of timing: attachment anxiety tends to run highest in young adulthood, and in your 20s you’re often in one of your first serious relationships while scrolling past everyone else’s best moments. It’s common and it usually eases with experience, but in the meantime it helps to sort what your partner is actually doing from what your history and your feed are adding.

Why does it hit so hard in your 20s?

Meet Theo, 23, five months into his first relationship that feels real. Nadia is kind, plans dates, introduced him to her roommates. And still: when she goes quiet on a work night, he feels a jolt. When she posts a photo from a friend’s birthday he wasn’t at, he zooms in on who’s standing next to her. He’s not sure whether this means something’s wrong with them or with him.

Probably neither. In a study of more than 86,000 people aged 18 to 70, William Chopik, Robin Edelstein and R. Chris Fraley found that attachment anxiety, the worry about whether partners really care and will stay, was highest among younger adults and lowest among middle-aged and older ones.1 People in relationships also reported less anxiety than single people, especially when they were young.1 So the feeling is not a sign you’re uniquely broken. It’s partly what being this age, and this new to it, tends to feel like.

First relationships also carry extra weight. In a large German study of 9,069 late adolescents and young adults, Eva Luciano and Ulrich Orth found that starting a relationship raised self-esteem, and the boost lasted when the relationship lasted at least a year.2 Breakups lowered self-esteem, though that effect faded after about a year.2 When a relationship is tied to how you feel about yourself, it makes sense that the stakes feel enormous.

Is social media making it worse?

It can add fuel. Comparison is the obvious part: you see a couple’s anniversary trip, a proposal video, a “he planned everything” story, and your Tuesday night on the couch looks thin. You’re comparing your whole relationship, boring parts included, with someone else’s edited highlights.

There’s a less obvious part too. In research led by Lydia Emery, people higher in attachment anxiety wanted their relationship to be more visible on Facebook, and were more likely to make it visible.3 On days when people felt more insecure about their relationship, they were more likely to post about it.3 In other words, some of the coupled-up content you’re measuring yourself against may come from people on their own insecure days.

Checking is the other trap. Who liked their photo, who they follow, whether they’ve been active: none of it tells you how they feel about you, and the checking itself tends to make you feel worse, not more certain.

How do you sort their behavior from your history?

Back to Theo. Split it four ways:

• What happened: Nadia was at a birthday he wasn’t invited to, and she texted less that night.
• The reading: “She’s building a life that doesn’t include me.”
• The fear: “I’ll be the one who cares more, and she’ll leave.”
• The next step: ask about the party tomorrow, the way you would with any friend.

Things that belong to their behavior: plans that keep falling through, a change that lasts weeks, being put down, promises that stop being kept. Those deserve a calm conversation. Things that usually belong to your history: a jolt that arrives before anything happens, the exact feeling you had with someone before, a photo or a post doing most of the work. Those are worth noticing, and they rarely get solved by more reassurance from your partner.

When is it not insecurity?

Sometimes your gut is picking up something real. If a partner demands your passwords, tracks your location, gets angry when you see friends, or you feel afraid of how they’ll react, that isn’t insecurity on your part. It’s a safety issue, and the support line on this page is there for exactly that.

What to do this week

• Name the source. Each time the insecurity spikes, label it “they did something” or “nothing happened.” Keep the tally for seven days.
• Unfollow or mute two accounts that reliably make your relationship feel smaller. You can refollow later.
• Skip one check. The next time you want to look at who liked their post, wait twenty minutes and see if the urge passes.
• Say one honest sentence. “I’m new at this and sometimes I get in my head about us” is easier to hear than a test.
• Know when it’s bigger than dating. Anxiety is common at this age: the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 22.3% of adults aged 18 to 29 had an anxiety disorder in the past year.4 If the insecurity is constant, intense, or getting in the way of sleep, school, work or friendships, a licensed mental health professional is the right next step.

What doesn’t the research show?

• The age study was cross-sectional and online, so it compares different people at different ages rather than following the same people as they grow up.1
• The self-esteem study tracked German young people, and its results are averages.2
• The visibility research was about Facebook, not every platform you use now.3
• The anxiety figures come from a national survey run in 2001 to 2003.4
• None of this tells you how your partner feels. It can help you notice when the feeling is about them, and when it’s about everything you’ve been through to get here.