Masks are a highly-visible sign of compassion. It's a sign that you don't want others to suffer due to your own actions, especially if you're suffering already. So when a person who has no compassion (but doesn't want to admit they have no compassion) sees a mask, they feel the need to defend themselves and attack the mask.

Some people are so sucked up in a COVID denialist media bubble they can’t help themselves. Seeing a mask isn’t just seeing someone minding their own damn business, it’s evidence of an existential threat to society.

Yeah, it’s stupid as shit, but that’s how they function. Nonreaction or minimal reaction as you’ve been doing is definitely the way to go. Anyone confronting you over a mask in public is probably not stable enough to have a discussion or argue with.

Yesterday, I was in the local Aldi to get some groceries and the cashier was sick. Coughing constantly, blowing her nose between customers. People complimented her for her strong will and eagerness to go to work despite being sick and found it admirable to act like this, I found it disgusting and was questioning my sanity.

Why is it socially acceptable to spread your bullshit disease everywhere instead of just staying at home and recovering quicker? Humanity learned nothing from covid.

Trump made masks political, so wearing one is a political statement to these people.

They have made their political beliefs their entire personality to compensate for their low self confidence and so have to aggressively display their beliefs like a peacock anytime they think somebody is challenging those beliefs, regardless of how benign or irrelevant it is.

Just tell them you have cancer and are immunocompromised. That usually shuts them up. Irrational people are not worth arguing with and sometimes this makes them think twice about harassing other people.

A lot of them got sucked into the whole "the government is forcing it on you to control the population", and they simply can't comprehend that anyone would voluntarily wear what they now consider being the symbol of submission to the government. In their mind it doesn't work and never worked and you're just virtue signalling your support of the government. It's wild and a lost cause.

I'd expect it to get much worse now.

There are a lot of sociopaths out there

Ill give you the term for it at the end because everyone hates the term. Its the same reason those people hate vegetarians, and gay men, and renewable energy, and small cars. Wearing a mask is consideration for others, its compassion for the vulnerable, its protecting yourself. Its weak, effeminate, unmanly. The whole of conservatism boils down to: toxic masculinity

I also mask. People don’t generally talk about it here, and masking wasn’t even very common back when the pandemic was taken more seriously.

Never faced any aggression but people do give you a wide berth which is kind of hilarious to me, but it doesn’t bother me at all.

You could try coughing uncontrollably next time. If they don't get the point then, there's no way they could be reasoned with.

I live in Taiwan, people here wear masks for whatever reason and no one bats an eye. You can wear a mask if you are sick, have too much acne and want to hide it, or because you are a medical worker and need to protect yourself and patients like OP, etc.
It also helps that we all went through the SARS pandemic, which could be seen as the previous version of COVID. Unlike COVID, SARS transmits via respiratory droplets after symptoms like fever arise, so everyone learned to wear masks during that time, and it worked. When COVID came, we knew what to do.

The fabric of society and basic belief in science has been made a villain to fascist rubes.

Probably drank from the Kool-Aid during Covid times.

because they're fucking morons. they see someone wearing a mask and think: "look at that idiot, he thinks he isn't gonna get sick? who fucken cares, it's just a cold, anyway, pussy."

People are fucking stupid, and if the few people they look up to say masks are bad then that's just how it is, regardless of facts or logic.

Due to immunocompromised people I regularly interact with, I masked and isolated much more and much longer than the average person in my area. I still keep a mask in the car and on my bike. They also come in useful when you don't want to be recognized or bothered by people. I'm not sure if they cause problems for some facial recognition tech, but that would be a welcome bonus.

Just say you are protecting them whether they like it or not

I'm just freestyling here and I'm sure someone with a professional experience or academic background in psychology can tear it up for arsepaper, but I wonder if it's an innate fear?

Like the uncanny valley with autonomous human-style robots or how AI generated pictures of faces are sending primitive recognition patterns haywire, I wonder if covering up half of the visual cues to recognise someone as friend or foe provokes an in-built negative reaction?

I mean, it's not rational, but then chucklefucks who complain about it don't do rational even if it's in their interest.

Isn't it about five years too late to be asking this question?

It's not because of masking itself. It could be anything as long as it has an association with a group, the opposing group will get riled up.

Two angry men on separate occasions have made comments to me about masking and how I don’t need to do it. I just stare right through them and ignore,

I just say thanks, I prefer wearing it and I'm more comfortable with it on. That generally works.

but why are they so angry?

Might go back to the conflicting and stupid instructions we got when the pandemic started. The public health establishment lost all its credibility and continues to mess up.

So consider it from their position: fuck everyone else