Feigning Confidence

I left the house today for the first time in a week. Lately I've been having this irrational fear of public places. I'm one of those people who feels like everyone's looking at them, all the time. All I did was visit Kroger, but as I walked through the store, I took note of my own behavior. Forcing myself to look directly at people, even when they look at me. Watching them break eye contact first makes me chuckle. I never realized it, but other people's confidence in social settings is just as fragile, if not more so, than mine. I'm not really the kind of guy to keep eye contact with a stranger. Hell, I hardly ever keep eye contact when talking to a friend (I really need to fix that.) But if I force myself to, I find that I boost my own self-confidence, if only a little. Feigning self confidence. Another thing I force myself to do is walk with long, quick, deliberate strides. It makes me look confident. What sickens me, though, is that I don't have the confidence to walk around without any fucking clue where I'm going. I feel insecure... vulnerable when I'm just wandering around with no direction. Fucking stupid. Anyway, as I leave the store, I begin to laugh to myself. "I sure fooled them", I think, "Pulled the mask right over their eyes. They think I'm tougher than I really am." One moment later and I come to my senses, realizing just what I'm doing. In the end, the only person I'm fooling is myself. I don't know why I need to become someone else when I'm out of the house. It doesn't make any sense. I need to get over it.