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There is a particularly uncomfortable kind of workplace tension that never becomes an actual conflict. A coworker answers your emails, supports the work, attends the meetings and behaves professionally, yet something still feels off. Perhaps there is a noticeable pause before they respond to you, your attempts at humor consistently fall flat, conversations become shorter when you enter the room or the casual warmth they extend to others seems to disappear around you. Nothing is sufficiently inappropriate to report to a manager, but the accumulated signals can leave you wondering whether a colleague simply does not like you.

That uncertainty can be surprisingly distracting because human beings are highly attuned to social acceptance. Work is not merely a collection of assignments and meetings; it is also a social environment in which people continually assess whether they belong, whether their contributions are respected and whether the people around them can be trusted. Gallup reported in 2024 that one in five employees globally experienced loneliness during much of the previous day, with the figure reaching 25% among fully remote employees compared with 16% among employees working exclusively on-site. Workplace relationships matter enough that Gallup includes having a “best friend at work” among its core measures of employee engagement. Globally, only about three in 10 employees strongly agree that they have one, yet Gallup’s research has repeatedly connected close workplace relationships with stronger engagement and business outcomes.

The problem is that sensing distance from a coworker is not the same thing as experiencing mistreatment. A colleague who does not laugh at your jokes, initiate small talk or seem particularly enthusiastic around you may dislike you, but they may also be introverted, stressed, distracted, socially awkward, protective of their personal life or simply uninterested in developing friendships at work. Some people are warm with nearly everyone; others approach work transactionally and reserve their social energy for people outside the office. Professionalism requires respect and cooperation. It does not require affection.

Before You Decide Someone Dislikes You, Look For Evidence

When a relationship feels uncomfortable, it is easy to start collecting evidence that confirms the conclusion you have already reached. A delayed response suddenly feels intentional. A short email sounds hostile. A colleague who walks past without stopping to talk appears dismissive. Once you believe someone dislikes you, neutral interactions can begin looking like additional proof.

A better test is to focus less on personality and more on behavior that affects the work. Does the person withhold information you need? Exclude you from meetings you should attend? Take credit for your contributions? Refuse reasonable requests while accommodating comparable requests from others? Undermine you with colleagues or leadership? Consistently ignore communications necessary to complete the job? Those are workplace problems because they have observable professional consequences. A person who simply seems less warm toward you presents a very different situation.

That distinction matters in an environment where genuine incivility is a significant organizational problem. SHRM’s Q1 2025 Civility Index estimated that U.S. workers experienced or witnessed approximately 68 million acts of workplace incivility per day, or about 789 per second. In the same research, 52% of workers who had encountered incivility in everyday life said at least one of those incidents occurred at work. SHRM has also found that 71% of workers believed managers or supervisors could have done more to prevent workplace incivility.

Those numbers provide an important reason not to dismiss actual mistreatment, but they also underscore why the definition matters. Incivility, exclusion and obstruction should not be confused with a colleague who is perfectly cooperative but does not appear interested in being your friend.

You Don't Need Every Coworker To Like You

One of the most liberating professional lessons is also one of the hardest to internalize: being respected at work and being liked at work are not identical objectives. Ideally, you will have both. In reality, careers bring together people with radically different personalities, communication styles, backgrounds, ambitions and temperaments. Some combinations click instantly. Others never will.

Gallup’s research demonstrates the value of strong workplace friendships without suggesting that employees must develop those relationships with everyone. Its research across more than 112,000 teams and 2.7 million employees has found that having a best friend at work is associated with engagement, customer outcomes and quality. Other Gallup research has found that employees with a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged. The lesson is not that every coworker must become a friend. It is that meaningful relationships matter, which makes investing in the colleagues with whom genuine trust develops more productive than endlessly chasing approval from someone who remains distant.

Professionals can sometimes waste enormous amounts of emotional energy trying to win over the one person who seems unimpressed by them. They become funnier, friendlier or more accommodating. They monitor every interaction. They replay conversations after work and wonder whether they said something wrong. Ironically, the harder someone tries to manufacture chemistry, the more strained the relationship can become.

There is nothing inherently wrong with allowing a relationship to remain professional. Be courteous. Respond promptly. Share information. Give credit. Offer assistance when appropriate. Say good morning. Then get on with your job. Professional maturity sometimes means accepting that a perfectly functional relationship does not need to become a warm one.

Can You Change Someone's Opinion Of You?

Possibly, but trying too aggressively can backfire. If you believe there may be a legitimate reason for the tension, examine your own behavior before attempting to change theirs. Perhaps your communication style is more direct than you realize. Maybe you interrupt, dominate meetings, overshare, joke at inappropriate moments or repeatedly approach a colleague when they are trying to concentrate. Self-awareness does not mean assuming you are responsible for another person's feelings. It means being willing to investigate whether there is useful information hidden inside an uncomfortable relationship.

If there is something concrete to discuss, address the behavior rather than asking the emotionally loaded question, “Do you have a problem with me?” A conversation about communication or workflow gives both people something actionable to address. A confrontation about whether somebody “likes” you can force a coworker to defend feelings they may not even have.

There is also evidence that genuine exclusion should be taken seriously when it crosses that line. A meta-analysis encompassing 95 independent samples and 26,767 participants found workplace ostracism was negatively associated with job satisfaction, belonging, organizational commitment and job performance while being positively associated with emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions. More recent research published in 2026 involving 477 employees likewise found a significant negative relationship between workplace ostracism and job performance.

The key word, however, is ostracism. Someone declining to engage in office banter is not necessarily ostracizing you. Someone systematically excluding you from information, conversations and opportunities that are relevant to your role may be.

Stop Auditioning For Approval

There is another danger in becoming preoccupied with whether a coworker likes you: you can inadvertently give that person too much power over your professional confidence. Your mood begins depending on whether they smiled that morning. A terse message becomes something to decode. Their enthusiasm toward another coworker feels like evidence against you. Before long, you are spending more time interpreting the relationship than managing it.

A stronger approach is to establish your own standard of conduct and stick to it. Be competent, dependable, approachable and respectful whether the other person reciprocates your warmth or not. Continue acknowledging their contributions. Include them when their role warrants inclusion. Communicate clearly. Do not retaliate by becoming cold yourself, and do not recruit coworkers into analyzing whether the person likes you. Office speculation has a remarkable ability to transform mild interpersonal distance into genuine conflict.

At the same time, invest broadly in workplace relationships. A healthy professional network should never depend on winning the approval of one colleague. Build trust across teams, develop relationships with people at different levels of the organization and become known for the quality of your work and how you treat people. Gallup’s findings on workplace friendship suggest that strong interpersonal connections can contribute substantially to engagement, but those connections do not need to exist with every person in the building.

Know When The Situation Has Changed

There is a point at which “I don't think this person likes me” becomes a legitimate workplace concern. If subtle coolness develops into repeated exclusion, obstruction, disrespect, withheld information, disparaging comments, retaliation or behavior that interferes with your ability to perform, stop evaluating the person's facial expressions and start documenting observable actions. Dates, communications, missed invitations, specific statements and business consequences are far more useful than interpretations of tone.

That threshold is especially important because workplace exclusion can have measurable consequences. Research has linked ostracism with emotional exhaustion, lower belonging and poorer organizational outcomes, while SHRM estimated in 2025 that workplace incivility was costing U.S. employers more than $2.1 billion per day through reduced productivity and absenteeism. Interpersonal problems are not trivial when they begin interfering with people's ability to work.

But until that line is crossed, there is considerable freedom in accepting an imperfect relationship for what it is. Your colleague may warm up eventually. They may never warm up. You may discover six months from now that their behavior had nothing to do with you in the first place. The objective is not to solve a mystery that may have no solution. It is to make sure uncertainty about someone else's feelings does not become a bigger professional problem than the relationship itself.

You cannot control whether every coworker likes you, and trying to do so is an exhausting career strategy. What you can control is whether you are collaborative, respectful, reliable and fair. If a colleague consistently meets those same professional standards while keeping their emotional distance, that may be enough. Sometimes the healthiest workplace relationship is not friendship, chemistry or even mutual admiration. It is simply two people who do their jobs well together and leave each other alone.

Sources

• Gallup. (2024). The increasing importance of a best friend at work. Gallup Workplace.

• Gallup. (2024). 1 in 5 employees worldwide feel lonely. Gallup Workplace.

• Gallup. (2024). Hybrid work needs a workplace value proposition. Gallup Workplace.

• Gallup. (2026). Why work friends matter: Unlocking powerful partnerships with CliftonStrengths. Gallup.

• Li, C., Xu, Y., & Kwan, H. K. (2021). Consequences of workplace ostracism: A meta-analytic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 641302.

• Howard, M. C., Cogswell, J. E., & Smith, M. B. (2020). The antecedents and outcomes of workplace ostracism: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(6), 577–596.

• Society for Human Resource Management. (2025). SHRM Q1 2025 Civility Index. SHRM.

• Society for Human Resource Management. (2025). How return-to-office mandates are affecting workplace civility. SHRM.