Starting out your street photography in a larger city will probably help desensitise you a bit and get you used to stuff. Also, another way to think about it that might help…if people do look at you, they’re not really interested in you as a person but what you’re taking a photo of. I remember being in the Botanic Gardens taking macro pics of little vines creeping through other leaves. I wad tucked into the corner with my camera close to the wall of plants and was there quite a while. A man and his son came over, not because they were interested in me but because they thought there was something interesting in the wall I was picturing. They were standing close to me which would have been more uncomfortable if I’d not known they just wanted to see what I was photographing. So even though they looked at me, it was because I drew their attention to something potentially interesting they also wanted to see. I hope that little ramble makes some kind of sense!

But yeah, keep pushing yourself slowly slowly and it does get easier :)