Masks were helpfully explained to me as follows:

If someone aims a hose in your face you are going to get very wet. Put a net curtain between you and the hose though and some of the water will fall to the ground before it reaches you. (Ok, not much.) Any reduction in hosing has to be a good thing.

In the face of that I gave up trying to convince him that masks were at best a placebo.

There's good solid data showing social distancing decreases infection.
There's no data at all showing "non-surgical masks" used by untrained people in a non-sterile environment does anything to reduce infection.

I am making moves to stop wearing a mask. Its nerve wracking. I am hoping I get braver and braver with every experience. I went to the big Tesco in my town without one a couple of days ago, I was the only one in there not wearing one, I avoided eye contact but I felt most people didnt have an issue and the staff were all kind. I got one aggressive passive aggressive prolonged eye balling from a very tall older man (I'm female), but he was clearly a bully. This situation has brought out all the bullies, they feel they can bully people because they have the government on their side or the moral high ground.

I really hope more people start removing theirs too.

Thanks for the replies, folks
Ms Chocolatemalteser- Keep going. I wore a bandana to start with but was ripping it off after a few minutes. Purchased an Exempt card from Etsy (as mentioned on this site) . So far no probs.
All our local shops accept it.
Did have an issue yesterday- in Tesco with wife ( who is also exempt). Was aware of an elderly
bloke eyeballing us. I moved away to a different area, when said bloke questioned wife as to why no mask. She showed him her exempt card- response - 'Oh? one of those!' He'd gone by the time I returned. A pity, I could have given him a full broadside of RN invective
You will find that smiling at people makes a lot of difference. Shop staff seem to be on your side
Keep the faith!!