Anxiety When Dating Someone New? 7 Tips to Overcome Your Dating Anxiety

Anxiety is a common phenomenon that occurs while dating! The anxiety symptoms can range from nervousness and intrusive thoughts to more physiological ones like a faster heart rate, sensations in your throat or gut, and unpleasantness as it takes you away from the present and onto your body’s defensive response. With the rise of online dating and limitless options in major cities, dating can feel overwhelming and hard to navigate, especially when seeing someone new; combined with new relationship energy, that can drive up hormones and make things more nerve-racking. In this article, I’ll go over why dating someone new brings anxiety and tips and tools to help calm your anxiety so you can be more present with your person.

Why do new relationships bring anxiety?

New relationships can bring anxiety for various reasons, including a vulnerability in sharing yourself with a new person, navigating new situations, and the uncertainty of the novelty and the desire to protect your relationship and keep it safe. New relationship energy (NRE), defined as “the surge of emotional and sexual feelings that result from forming a new relationship,”  can be seen as a pleasant dopamine rush. However, these moments sometimes combine with more anxiety as things can feel powerful and significant to hold as one tries to make sense of them. Especially for those that historically have lived with anxiety, the newness can activate more stress in the relationship. 

How to overcome dating anxiety

1..Acknowledge your anxiety and where it comes from

The first step is to name the feelings of anxiety and identify where it’s coming from. Anxiety can be projected onto the person you are seeing, and sometimes it might be activated from past experiences that play into insecurities or controlling tendencies since exploring anything new can come with a lot of uncertainty! Gently name and practice leaning into the suspense and practice coping tools to calm your nerves, such as breathing exercises, journaling, or connecting with a resource such as a close friend or four-legged friend to move through the feelings before your date. 

2. Date planning 

Uncertainty be scary and can cause anxiety. However, planning can be vital in finding the parts you can exercise your agency over. You can plan a date to a place you are familiar with and feel comfortable in, or if your person is doing the planning, it’s perfectly okay to ask them for the details of the night so you can feel more prepared.

3. Relaxation and self-soothing before and after the date

Some ways to self-soothe include breathing exercises or guided meditation from apps such as insight timer. Journaling to process feelings, taking a warm bath or shower, connecting with a loved one or four-legged friend, and movements such as stretching or exercise are all ways to help soothe and calm anxiety in the body and mind.

4. Manage expectations

Setting a realistic expectation of a date or the new person you’re seeing is essential. A helpful tip is instead of focusing on the other person and managing outcomes, and you can instead turn inwards and set an intention for yourself. Maybe the purpose is to be honest, and have fun; perhaps it’s to learn more about yourself and your likes and dislikes of experiences, people, and energy as you explore dating. 

5. Use open communication

This one is important. We are all socialized differently depending on our sex assigned at birth. Those that are socialized as women are taught to be passive and wait to be pursued, while those that are socialized as men are the ones that should be doing the pursuing and persuasive. Let’s unlearn these unhelpful dating rules and be direct in asking for what you want and honest in saying no’s and asking questions when things are unclear or need further explanation; this will save lots of time and hassle. 

6. Be present 

Be present with your person and have fun! Allow yourself to tune into curiosity as you get to know the person and enjoy the new places and experiences. If you have a hard time being present, here are some somatic exercises to help you ground and tune into your present when it’s hard. 

7. Be yourself! 

Sometimes it can be hard to be yourself when you are anxious and trying to cope while on your date. The good thing is often, people are more worried about themselves and how they appear than they are about you. Bring genuine parts of yourself forward to connect with the experience!

If you need more support…

Therapy can help you can build more resiliency to guide you beyond anxiety and self-doubt to create healthier relationships. 

You are welcome to learn more about my approach as a psychotherapist and contact me if you need more support with your journey.