It’s a tradeoff, as you say. Use the platforms and services you are comfortable with. Sacrifice privacy/security for convenience where you must. Your needs; your choice. It’s really individual.

Consider running both untrusted and trusted applications concurrently, where the untrusted one cound run in a sandbox, for peace of mind. Drop it once you feel you don’t need it any more.

Self-censor in forums you don’t feel safe in.

Consider hanging out more in places with less surveilance, if you are not comfortable.

It’s kind of a question of reducing your foot print, not completely eliminating it. Unless you wanna be a hermit.

If you choose Arch, you can say “I use Arch btw”, from time to time, in unrelated conversations. That is a plus and should be considered.

Taking the lead, showing initiative and being enthusiastic takes energy. People are lazy. So if you are expected to let someone else do it, then that is an easy choice allot of the time.

Yes there are women all over that enjoy this role from time to time. The more comfortable you are with your partner; the more you can expect to see this behaviour in them.

Males and females are not that different. Your local community might be used to theese roles though.

Worth noting; people offten act the way they think you like them to act. They might think they are expected to wait for you to take charge. As you get familiar, that might change.