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___Daily___

I usually lock eyes and say "hello" or "hi" to everyone I pass by in the corridor at work, and am always met with a greeting back.

There's this girl who locks eyes with me but never says anything back since I've been worked there. The paranoid part of my brain starts to spin up with thoughts like:

"Does she not like me?" or
"Has she heard bad things about me? She doesn't even know me!" or
"There is sizeable faction of your peers who know of your previous misdeeds and are either giving you the cold shoulder, or are conspiring against you."

___Background___

That last one flits into my mind a lot. During my first job in this field, I was woefully under-qualified and naively over-promised on tasks, resulting in a lot of under-delivering at a pretty public level. I've come a long way since then, to actually become pretty competent, but even so there are enough people out there in my field who probably are not singing my praises.

___Defeating the Paranoia___

There are also people I don't like. Do I try to sabotage their lives, give them the cold treatment, gossip about them behind their back?

That last one: probably yes. After a beer or two in good company, information is exchanged among friends, and even the bestest of friends cannot be reliably tasked with keeping an event secret. So people in the building may know of my previous public failings.

The first few: no, I simply don't care enough and I have other things distracting me in my life to take the time to act against my so-called enemies. So chances are, no one really cares.

___Conclusions___

Maybe she says "hi" back, but it's too quiet to hear under a mask.
Maybe she's just shy, or doesn't like interacting with people she doesn't know
Maybe she knows you, and doesn't like you.

That last one I just have to deal with, and I manage it by being polite and civil with everyone in my building. Kill your enemies with kindness.

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~sonam wrote:

I will take your advice (about killing enemies with kindness) to heart. It's just hard sometimes to understand that you can hate and love the same person at the same time.