I was once at a party and I was trying to introduce myself to this person. I put my hand out to shake theirs and they fold there arms up and look away and say hello. How rude. I say what’s up? They, not making eye contact arms folded, ‘Nothing’.

I leave this weird game this person is playing fairly annoyed.

I walk over to a friend, who’s this person who won’t even look at me? ‘Oh that’s Tim, he’s blind.’

Fuckem. Say gmornin’ and keep moving, they probably suck anyway if they can’t muster up the decency to reply.

Yes this is disrespectful.

My advice would be to stop greeting them until they notice you. Occasionally try again, but not every day.

both of them staring at me. What am I supposed to do when that happens?

In this case, you say “what is it?” to them. If they continue to stare at you wordlessly, you may escalate slowly to either violence or a report to authority.

Whether you decide to self-handle it or have authority handle it, if they continue to stare wordlessly at you as you try to communicate with them, you escalate to the point where it forces them to move.

Why are they talking to themselves? Are they busy and don’t want to be distracted?

Or do you mean two people were talking amongst themselves?

We are all ghosts driving bone mech suits covered in flesh armor. Our only knowledge of the universe is our own interpretation of the data provided by our input sensors. In other words, we can only experience the life in our own heads. You do not know what life others lead, what experiences they navigate or what they think of you. Odds are great that your existence does not really carry much weight to them because they are busy and primarily concerned with the existence they deal with. You are the main character in your story, nobody else’s.

None of us are in your shoes so it’s really tough to say what your coworkers’ motivations are, but at the end of the day you are yourself, you are in charge of your mental and physical well-being. When someone else does something minor and it affects you strongly it’s time to stop thinking about them and start thinking about what’s happening in your own body.

Unfortunately your emotions, like being offended, aren’t entirely in your control. There are a lot of brain connections rustling around up in your noggin that don’t pass through the filter of your consciousness.

The best advice I can offer is to redirect yourself when you start to get offended. Pick a favorite topic, something that you like to think about often, and “switch” to it when you feel yourself getting triggered.

As for how you should act when you aren’t greeted directly? I see no reason for you to change your behavior, just act as though nothing happened, because nothing did happen

Stop caring. Seriously.

These people aren’t your friends. You just need to get along well enough to do your jobs without hating each other.

If they are so miserable that they can’t engage in simple social queues then it’s their problem. If they want to be friendly then be friendly. Otherwise fuck em. Move on.

If it were me I would stop greeting people. Stick to myself. Concentrate on what is important which is putting food on the table. Be cool with the people that are actually cool and leave the rest to be miserable.

The americans I used to work with would always make a big performance out of leaving at the end of the day, but the Russians just pack up their shit and leave without a word.

Just remember that you all are cogs in the machine, and also nobody owes you anything - including a greeting.

My guess is your workplace has a low personal life/low banter culture or even policy. If thats the case, you may be talking to people who know this and dont want to get in trouble, or to people whose souls are crushed and theres no life behind their eyes.

Don’t take it personal.

I’ve worked in both kinds of environments. I prefer high banter/high friendship environments but i work fine in either.

meh, don’t let them play mind games.

Bring in some donuts, keeps saying hi, don’t let it get to you. Let your happiness outshine their standoffishness

The worst thing you can do is reciprocate that just lets them win.

If this was a single occurrence, I’d try not to read too much into it. Maybe they were discussing something private and got all weird when interrupted. Maybe the greeting was non-verbal and you missed the cue. If it’s the beginning of the day, they might not be all awake yet, I dunno.

But if it’s a pattern, or this ever happens and it bothers you, you can try to make the most of it. Imagine they wished you their fondest greetings in a Muppets style voice. It costs you nothing and you can’t change anyone else’s behaviour anyway, might as well do something to put a smile on your face.

Greet them first. Move on with your day.

They’re starting at you because you’re attractive, but also too crazy to befriend.

Why even be offended by such a small thing? What’s even the point of greeting though? I can see it makes sense when you want to talk to someone. The “hey”, “hello” or whatever can work to grab attention and they can acknowledge that by responding back as opposed to immediately talking and the other person missing part of or the entire first sentence, if not more.

But otherwise, there’s a good chance it’s distracting or even distressing.

I usually try to greet back unless it’s awkwardly late because I didn’t expect it, as such it caught me off guard and I was thinking what I am supposed to do and what they want from me for too long.
But this generally makes me forget what I was just thinking of or what I was doing and makes me anxious. Then I may even be thinking of how I handled that for the next few minutes. I hate that.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not mad people for greeting me, I know they just do that, but I’d rather not them do it. And as such I won’t greet anyone either unless I need to talk to them. I don’t want to cause same issues to others only to say “Hi”.

they looked at me, said nothing, kept talking to themselves.

Yep. Sounds familiar. “Am I supposed to say something? I am paying attention, I am looking at you. Go on. Oh, nothing, OK…”

Your options are essentially to deal with it or ask them what’s up.

Personally I wouldn’t waste time with co-workers who are being rude.

They could be jealous of your position for some reason or taken offense to something random you did. They may just be assholes.

At the end of the day you’re there to work and if it doesn’t affect that I wouldn’t bother.

If they are increasingly hostile maybe have a quiet word with HR.

Lots of people are giving you good answers given the context you’ve provided in this post. However, I glanced at your post history and saw that recently you’ve had an outburst at another employee where you shouted at them. It’s likely that your coworkers are looking out for themselves and trying to avoid setting you off by interacting with you as little as possible.