Ask HN: Where do you stand on privacy?

During my first quarter-century of life I've already lost money to a professional con artist while starting my first business (@ 20), quit a relatively high profile/responsibility position because of corrupt leadership, resulting in high tensions due to reputation risk for a political family (@ 22), and severed ties with a close business partner due to manipulation and dishonesty (@ 24). Last month a friend called one of my roommates to come over at 3 AM because a guy (casual acquaintance of all of us) was threatening to break down her door and rape her.

And I grew up in one of the smallest most conservative towns around, in one of the most sheltered and safe families I've heard of -- all of this has happened only since I left high school and had the freedom to explore the rest of the world. (Granted, I am not a normal human being. My understanding of risk allows me to safely undertake many activities that some would find terrifying, and I have a strong drive to have new experiences which ensures close contact with a great diversity of people, cultures, and situations).

Just yesterday I began removing all my info from Facebook, and was promptly greeted with 3 messages from my friends asking me who my new love in life is -- Facebook had courteously notified each of my loosely-acquainted contacts that I was "no longer listed as single". Last fall, I discovered that my cousin was divorced when his wife took him off her friend's list (I'd been out of the country at the time, and he wanted to tell me face to face). Surely my experiences here are not unique.

Neither of these online experiences caused me any physical or financial harm, but are they not examples of how these services can have unintended consequences, which could be dangerous when involving the wrong people? Think "Black Swan" here. It only takes one really rotten egg to spoil the rest of your life.

So I'm re-thinking my stand on privacy and have yet to come to any conclusions, but am being conservative in the interim. I used to be entirely "pro-exposure" -- I deliberately marketed myself aggressively online because I figured that that was the best way to "win the game" -- but these days I find myself taking as much personal info off the net as I can. Do you think I'm making a mistake? What sort of "happy medium" do you think might be appropriate? Where do you draw your line on privacy?

Like many people on this forum, there's a good chance that my professional ambitions will necessitate attempts to draw public attention to myself and my work in the future, so this really isn't an issue that I can ignore. I think it's important, and I want to be smart about it. Any ideas, experiences, perspectives would be much appreciated.

Cheers.