how are you? well

today someone said to me "how are you"?

i said "well"

he looked at me weirdly

did i do something wrong?

In the United States responding "well" is atypical. You didn't do anything wrong, the person you were speaking with wasn't intending to be rude, he just wasn't sure if he should "correct" you or not. In this context, especially in the United States, you would want to say "i am good." now if he had asked how you were doing and you had said well, he probably wouldn't have looked at you funny (although depending on where this person's from, he might have).

In BrE, it would be more usual to modify the "well" (e.g. "very well", "quite well", "not very well") and add "thank you".

Best wishes,

MrP

Intonation could potentially have added to the confusion. If you said "well" with a rising intonation instead of a falling intonation, the other person would have taken this to mean that you were going to elaborate on your mood.

i said "well" with a rising intonation.......
and he seemed to wait for me to say something......
but then i said nothing and just stared at him and it was so awkward..
after 10 seconds of staring at each other he just said "oh.." and walked off. heehehe
english is a weird language ... :( why cant you just say "well" when you can say "good"

Maybe he thought you meant 'Well? [What do you want?]' That's rude, like you didn't even pay attention to his concern for your state of mind and body.

You can say well, if you're intent on swimming, salmon-like, upstream against common usage. All languages have their quirks and one is not free to substitute a word which seems to be an equivalent, when a native speaker doesn't see it as such. The only context in which your answer would have sounded "native" would be if you had been ill...