Greetings and Farewells at social events

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One thing that I have never been able to figure out about social events is how to do greetings and farewells. When you arrive, do you greet everyone? When you leave, do you first say goodbye to everyone? Or do you only do it to the hosts? What about when another person arrives or leaves? Do you greet them? Do the greetings and farewells have to be similar in intensity? I tend to get a bit hyper and may get overly excited when someone I really like appears, or is present when I arrive. Do I force myself to contain my exuberance? Or is it okay to demonstrate publicly how much you like a particular person?

I've watched other people at social events and cannot figure it out. I don't see any coherent pattern, and am always worried that I am over/under doing it.

I don't know how it's like where you are, but in France we greet women with two kisses on the cheek and men with a handshake. So whether it's someone you like or not, the 'standard' greeting remains the same. Then I think the host should be greeted first and then if there are too many people you only greet the ones you like. That's what I do anyway. In fact, I don't really like greetings, especially when they involve a physical contact, so I tend not to properly 'greet' everybody. I think it can be a bit hypocritical to greet someone you dislike.