¿Qué miras?
Ok so today at work I was doing the usual things in addition to working. I wrote down some word lists and was practicing with some Mexican friends when I had to use the restroom. There was a busboy in there, so I spoke to him in a friendly way ....but he just ignored me and gave me the old stinkeye. I said "¿Te encuentras bien?" to which he looked at me ugly. Then I said "¿Cómo estás?" to which he looked at me ugly. Finally as I walked around the room cleaning the sink etc.. I noticed he was just standing there looking at me. So I walked up to him and said "¿Qué miras?". He went through the roof ......he said "Yo no miro nada.! Solo me pelo!" Then he cursed me out in English and slammed the door and continued to eyeball me all day. Make no mistake, he was maddogging me hardcore for no reason....so I called him on it.. So how bad of an insult is "¿Qué miras?" anyway?
2 Answers
Qué miras, especially if he was already giving you weird looks, is not such a good thing to say as it tends to be like a "What are you looking at?" thing.
You can say it in a context of someone looking through a magazine, a painting, or something like and it will be taken in that context.
If, on the contrary, someone is already looking at you "funny" and you say "what are you looking at?" it's more of an affront.
It has pretty much the same as in English!
Hope this helps.
In my humble opinion, it could've been misconstrued as "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?" in a punk-like manner. You might have wanted to say ¿Comó estás? first instead of ¿Qué miras?, just a thought and I hope the gurus will weigh in on this soon. 
