Why Being Around Happy Friends Makes You Feel More Alone
Image Source: Queen (2013), directed by Vikas Bahl, via IMDb media collection.
Neha noticed it gradually, the way you notice the seasons changing—not all at once, but in small accumulations that eventually become undeniable. Her friends were the same people: same humor, same warmth, same willingness to meet for dinner. But when she sat across from them now—listening to talk of preschool applications and sleep schedules, of mortgage rates and maternity leave—she felt something she hadn't expected to feel. Not envy, exactly. Not resentment. Something quieter and harder to name.
She was deep into her PhD, which felt like parenting a difficult, abstract child. She was in therapy, doing the uncomfortable work of becoming a different version of herself. She was navigating a dating scene that felt increasingly surreal and fielding arranged marriage proposals from her parents with varying degrees of grace. Her life was full, even fulfilling, but it was not conventional. And when she tried to share any of this—the small victories, the daily frustrations—she could see her friends trying to understand, genuinely trying, but the shared language they'd once spoken seemed to have diverged into different dialects.
What surprised her most was not that their lives had changed, but that she felt guilty for noticing. Wasn't she supposed to just be happy for them? Wasn't feeling this strange, quiet sadness a sign that she was somehow failing at friendship—or worse, failing at being a good person?
It turns out she was experiencing something far more universal, and far more neurologically real, than she imagined.
Why Can't You Just Tell Them How You Feel?
There was a time when Neha didn't have to explain herself to her friends. They just knew, understood, and could relate. Relationship troubles, parent troubles, workplace woes were everyday conversation. Shared experiences formed safe spaces where it felt safe to be who she was.
Today, she knows her friends want to be there for her, but she can't help but notice the difference in their life experiences and feel the shared space between them shrink. She minimizes herself: "My life is not as complicated," "What am I talking about—these small things?" She draws on her identity as the "good friend," the listener, while not able to put her finger on the disconnect.
What's really happening? Neha is missing her social baseline—the cohort of people she can co-regulate with. They haven't gone; they're still there. But their relatability and the function they serve in her life has changed.
What's Really Happening in Your Brain?
What Neha is experiencing isn't just emotional. In fact, it's deeply neurological.
Social Baseline Theory proposes that your brain doesn't treat being alone as "normal" and being with others as "special." It's the opposite. Your brain expects to be around people who share your experiences and understand your context. When you're isolated from that—even if you're surrounded by people living different lives—your brain has to work much harder.
Your brain uses about 20% of your body's energy despite being only 2% of your body weight, so it's constantly looking for ways to conserve energy.
Other people—particularly people who "get you"—are your brain's power-saving mode.
Scientists conducted a study with married women in brain scanners, telling them they might receive mild electric shocks. They scanned their brains under three conditions: alone, holding a stranger's hand, and holding their husband's hand.
When the women were with someone—even a stranger—their prefrontal cortex (the part that helps us manage emotions) didn't light up more. It actually quieted down.
The brain showed intense threat responses when the woman was alone. It calmed noticeably when holding a stranger's hand, and was even calmer when holding her husband's hand. In high-quality marriages, the brain barely reacted to the threat at all.
The better the relationship, the less the brain had to work.
The researchers concluded that when we're with trusted others, our bodies use less energy to regulate emotions. Since humans evolved as intensely social creatures, this co-regulation is our baseline state. Being truly alone and having to regulate everything ourselves is the stressed, high-energy state.
Why Does Everything Feel Harder Now?
Social Baseline Theory offers a way of understanding what's happening beneath the surface. We evolved to share the emotional and mental load with others. The tricky part is that we often don't notice when this shared load begins to shift.
Risk Distribution: Think about animals in the wild. A single gazelle has to watch for predators 100% of the time. In a herd of 20, each one only needs to watch 5% of the time.
When Neha and her friends were all in similar life stages—dating, figuring out careers, dealing with family pressure—they unconsciously helped each other carry the weight.
Load Sharing: When we're with someone we trust, our brain assumes their support is available, so it uses less energy and treats their resources as an extension of our own.
Over time, your brain doesn't see you as separate from the people you trust. It expands its sense of "me" to include the people you rely on.
Neha's brain literally counted her friends as part of her resource base.
But now, because her friends can't relate in the same way, she has to do all the emotional work internally.
Why Do You Keep Playing the "Good Friend" Role?
When social resources feel scarce, asking for your needs to be met carries risk.
Neha's brain is doing a cost-benefit analysis: staying connected feels safer than risking rejection.
So she performs goodness. And she stays quiet about her own struggles.
What Can One Do About it?
Neha slowly recognized that her older friendships served a different purpose now.
"I've found the reading group fulfilling," Neha notes.
This is her brain recognizing and seeking out new co-regulators.
Remember: You're Not Broken!
You're not broken. You're not weak. You're not failing at independence.
You're human.
That's honoring her brain's real, legitimate need for co-regulation.
And that, ultimately, is the most authentic friendship she can offer herself.
A Practical Way to Support Your Nervous System
If this reflection resonated, grounding your mind and body can help when social connection feels strained. The Ground Breaking - Mindfulness Cards are psychologist-designed prompts that help you slow your thoughts, reconnect with the present moment, and regulate emotional overwhelm when you are carrying too much alone.
