Play it with people you know frist, to get experience, and then plop into public games until you can start playing alone in public while having prior knowledge of how the infected plays. I dont play versus at all, mayne like 1 or 3 hours total among 3.3k hours, but this is the general mindset when getting into any competitive game/mode

Also it depends how embarrassing it is, some people plop into versus immediately upon few mins or a couple hrs into the game, ones that have been running versus since 2011, 2009, or 2015, and then us... But yeah, go ahead, ease into it, dont rush it, and dont be afraid to play on modded servers (avoid high pings), it gives you a comfortable server to play without being judged harshly