anthropological engagement and our "true" selves

So this is probably mostly for the anthropologists who read my blog but I've been thinking a lot about the anthropological method and the ways in which we use our bodies/our selves as the medium of investigation. I've been really struggling with what sometimes feels like paralyzing shyness over the past couple weeks, partially I'm feeling burned out and partially it's just really hard to continually feel like I have to introduce myself, to put myself and my project out for others' acceptance, and trying to figure out the trigger to get past it. And today I was thinking about John Jackson who writes in his introduction to HarlemWorld that he was an incredibly shy person who was prone to getting stuck in his head about his project and informants etc, so he invented AnthroMan. And John might be too shy/ too overthinking to approach people's doors and ask them to participate in his project, but AnthroMan (and he would try to channel the early greats, Ruth Benedith, Boas, Meed, Sapir), he had no self-consciousness about asking people to let him into their interior lives.

So I was thinking about my own personal anthro-superstar alter ego and what that would feel like as a mode of engagement. But then, if so much of our method and the implicit promise of our engagement with communities is a reciprocity of self (that we are open and honest in our engagements just as we assume they are as well), how does that stand-up if I'm channeling an altered ego? I mean to some extent I feel like I tell white lies to people (or perhaps its better to characterize them as partial narratives), I talk about my close relationship with my parents and my nieces/ nephews (not elaborating that many are part of "chosen" family), I occasionally tell some people I'm married (it's just easier), I tell everyone that of course I want to have kids someday-- I tell my life and myself in very safe and expected gendered ways, leaving out the parts that seem so foreign or counter to their assumptions about a woman of my age and stage... sort of like the stories I would imagine telling a grandparent I was less close and open with. So, I'm really torn with what it would mean to not be shy (to channel another, making rejection less personal) in this instance.

It doesn't help my desires to hide from the world when it seems like lately when I walk around downtown a man strikes up a conversation with me and wants to be my new best friend-- somehow my non-newbie blase veneer must have worn off and I look like fresh bait... time to bring back my wedding ring and fictional children.