You can step up from being “totally anonymous” to “almost anonymous.” How? Arrange situations where you are interacting with people but they are not necessarily seeing you as “you.”
Take a part-time job as a cashier, delivery person, valet car parker, or one of the dozens of other jobs that entail constant interaction. You can practice eye contact, smiles, and small talk with people. And the beauty of it is, they’re not judging you. They’re only concerned that you give them their correct change, bring their groceries on time, or don’t bang up their car.
In high school and college, I worked as a cashier in a drugstore, a waitress in a greasy spoon, and a shampoo girl in a hair salon. Each job had increasingly longer interaction with the customers. I wasn’t being judged on my personality or looks. I was being viewed as the anonymous cashier, waitress, or girl who shampooed hair.
As a shampoo girl, I got quite comfortable talking with some of the patrons. Maybe it was because the women weren’t as intimidating when they smelled like permanent wave solution and had dozens of little pink rollers affixed to their heads. Whatever the reason, the shampoo experience was one more step in washing away my shyness.
If your schedule doesn’t allow time for a part-time job, go for a weekend job. Restaurants and stores often hire extra help for their busy Friday evenings and Saturdays. Simple conversations build courage. “Do you want mustard and mayo with that burger?” “Would you like that gift-wrapped?” “Do you want our nine-dollar new-looking jeans or our hundred-dollar pretorn ones?”
I’m a pretty big guy, five-foot-eleven and 220 pounds. That makes it all the worse being shy. A buddy of mine owns a disco, and one night I got this call from him saying that his bouncer didn’t show up and would I fill in. I did and I didn’t feel shy at all that night. People thought of me as “the bouncer” that night, not as Freddie. I’ve filled in a couple of weekends since then and I think it’s helped.
—Fred H., Baltimore, Maryland
If taking a part-time job isn’t feasible for you, the next chapter has another no-painer to achieve similar results.