It's taken me a long time, but I have successfully gone from being extremely shy and introverted to a state where I'm fairly outgoing and can converse /mingle with strangers with relative ease. I'm still not the best when it comes to dealing with girls, but I think that's as much because I'm simply a quirky, geeky guy at heart, as any residual shyness. I do approach attractive women in bars and clubs, or bookstores, or cafes, or at the grocery store, and talk to them, and sometimes get their phonenumbers and later go out with them. So yeah, it can be done, if that's what you're wondering.

Don't expect miracles overnight though. Just keep working at it, and take any "small victories" you can get. Something that is somewhat effective is to go to a mall and walk into all sorts of retail stores and talk to the sales people... they're basically paid to be nice to you, so unless you're so socially awkward that you say something totally inappropriate, or unless you smell funny, or something, you should be able to chit-chat for at least a few minutes. Just keep doing that and over time you'll find it easier and easier.

Talking to guys is important too. The stuff on fastseduction.com is good, but don't forget that you'll want to be able to be sociable with everybody, guys and girls. That has all sorts of applications... the more comfortable you are making small-talk and shooting the breeze with other guys, the easier it will be to meet girls. Sounds counter-intuitive, but trust me, it's true.

If you really want to experiment a bit, you can try something that Ross Jeffries suggests. The idea is to try to start a conversation in a way that should get you rejected and totally blown off... it's conditioning to get used to the idea that talking to people is just a game and really no big deal. It goes something like this... go to the mall, walk around, and approach somebody and go "Excuse me, my name is Manny the Martian... what's your favorite flavor of bowling ball?"

There are also a lot of good books on how to make small-talk and how to deal with people. You'll usually find them in the "self-help" section at a bookstore. Something like "How to Win Friends and Influence People" would probably be useful to you.

But yeah, unless you have some serious deep-rooted psychological mumbo-jumbo going on, simply going out and putting some effort into talking to people should help, eventually.

Oh, one last thing... make it a point to keep up with what's going on in the world, so you'll have stuff to talk about and so you'll understand comments other people make. As stupid as it sounds, a quick brush through and issue of Star or People every now and then isn't a bad idea, just to know a little "celebrity gossip." I don't mean get addicted to following that crap, but at least have a vague notion of what people mean if they say "So, what about that thing with Brad and Jen?" or whatever. Maybe check the headlines on Google News or a local newspaper before going out as well. If you carry a smartphone with 'net access, just check the news while you're out and if there's an interesting headline, there's your conversation opener. "Hey, did you guys see this... BP's CEO was found hung in his home last night!!" or whatever.