fear of things we cannot control

it must be come characteristic of being human, that we should fear things that we cannot control. at some point or another, i am sure that everyone has been afraid of something that is completely out of their control, namely the reaction of another person to something that they have said or done.

why? if you cannot control someone else, then you cannot expect anything from them. without expectations there should be no fear - only freedom. now, obviously this is a bold statement to be making, and i don't always live by it. but, in truth, if we cannot control how someone else feels then why do we worry so much about it? i have to clarify that i am talking about when we worry that someone else will not like us if we say that we didn't care for the jokes they told, of the friend that they introduced us to at a party, or their strange parents, or even the spaghetti recipe that they made last weekend. i am NOT referring to the reaction of someone else if we lie to them, or cheat on them, or betray their trust. we should be concerned about how the other person(s) would feel, because that is part of what keeps us from doing hurtful things to them in the first place. i may have to put this into context:

i've been having conversations with one of my roommates about how she feels that something is amiss with her boyfriend but when she asks, he says that nothing is wrong. she was afraid that if she tried to talk to him about it that she might aggravate something and make him break up with her. she thought that maybe he would be upset if she brought it up again. she worried that she would seem like she didn't trust him, or come across as though she wasn't enjoying his company. i told her that the only advice that i could offer her was to be honest with him about how she was feeling, and own all of her emotions.

she ended up having a long conversation with him, and although it didn't resolve everything that she was feeling, it did shed some light on the situation because when she told him how she was feeling, he told her how he was feeling. she got to get some things off her chest, and she got him to open up like she was hoping he would. so, why are we afraid of just saying what is going on?