About

Pedro Pascal's Anxiety Touching, also known as Pedro Pascal "Anxiety" Memes, refers to a series of memes and internet jokes about actor Pedro Pascal's rumored "social anxiety," which purportedly causes him to hold hands with women to calm down. The report came out amid the filming of the 2025 Fantastic Four film, when clips of him holding hands with and being handsy with co-star Vanessa Kirby surfaced on social media. As more clips surfaced of Pascal touching her and the two seemingly flirting, memes surfaced en masse on Twitter / X and TikTok, among other sites, which parodied Pascal's "anxiety" reasoning for touching Kirby, a woman with a fiancé. Some joked that Pascal was groping women because of his anxiety, which created a humorous contradiction. The virality also led to some attempting to use the excuse as a strategy to physically interact with women.

Origin

On July 27th, 2024, Pedro Pascal attended the San Diego Comic Con with fellow Fantastic Four co-stars to promote the new movie.^[1]

On July 30th, Instagram^[2] user @relationships.usa posted a Reel, showing a clip from the Comic Con when Pascal moved closer to co-star Vanessa Kirby and held her hand. The Reel's caption read, "Pedro Pascal suffers from anxiety, and when he is anxious, he usually tries to have contact with someone." The claim is speculative, although Pascal has talked about suffering from anxiety in the past.^[3]

The video received over 1.4 million likes in a year (shown below).

On August 16th, 2024, X^[4] user @crazyclips_ reposted the clip, attaching a caption reading, "Pedro Pascal suffers from anxiety and when nervous needs to touch someone to calm down." The tweet received over 60.3 million views and 100,000 likes in 11 months.

The tweet received numerous viral quote-tweets and replies, which largely started the viral memes about Pedro Pascal's anxiety and his supposed coping mechanism. The earliest viral post was a reply shared by X^[5] user @beardleystone seconds after the tweet, who wrote, "My priest had the same condition," gaining over 35,000 likes in 11 months (shown below).

Spread

On August 16th, 2024, viral quote-tweets of the video surfaced, like one from X^[6] user @thatstarwarsgrl, who wrote, "I'm sorry but this is BS. You’re a full-grown man, not a toddler, control yourself." Over 11 months, the post gained over 107,000 likes (shown below).

On August 17th, X^[7] user @mikerecine quote-tweeted the post, writing, "If this nerd 'suffered from anxiety' around my wife, he'd be tasting cold steel," receiving over 5,100 likes in 11 months (shown below).

The jokes largely resurfaced on July 23rd, 2025, when X^[8] user @FearedBuck tweeted a compilation of clips of Pascal and Kirby being handsy with each other in interviews. The tweet received over 24.8 million views and 54,000 likes in a few hours (shown below).

Pedro Pascal and co-star Vanessa Kirby on their Fantastic Four press tour 👀 pic.twitter.com/o9rP37TOAH

— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) July 23, 2025

That same day, X^[9] user @movieboy69 quote-tweeted the post, writing, "If my wife was doing this with her coworker I’d kill myself in a public space," gaining over 132,000 likes in a few hours (shown below).

Also on July 23rd, 2025, X^[10] user @asimbawe quote-tweeted the Natalie Portman and Christian Bale 'Situationship' Beach Scene, captioning it, "Pedro Pascal and his female co-worker because of his 'social anxiety,'" gaining over 139,000 likes in a few hours (shown below).

Pedro Pascal and his female co-worker because of his "social anxiety" https://t.co/oXMDOKv5MV

— Bibawen (@asimbawe) July 23, 2025

Later that day, X^[11] user @ExtremeBlitz__ tweeted a Pedro Pascal edit, captioning it, "When you get 'anxiety' so now you have to grope the nearest female co-worker," gaining over 13,000 likes in a few hours (shown below).

when you get “anxiety” so now you have to grope the nearest female co-worker pic.twitter.com/tTvUvJLF4e

— duck (@ExtremeBlitz__) July 23, 2025

Various Examples

pic.twitter.com/dZmR9zqznw

— lilrose (@aronrose_jr) July 23, 2025

me wondering why Pedro Pascal never has “anxiety” around his male co-workers pic.twitter.com/dfPsqBBGtp

— duck (@ExtremeBlitz__) July 23, 2025

Search Interest

External References