I've been using BTC for a while. I've been using it at exchanges, to trade altcoins and to order goods over the Internet, but I've never exchanged BTC with someone in front of me. At a store or between friends, or family. This despite having had long conversations about BTC with various kinds of people, and attending a few meetups.
Who has exchanged BTC F2F?
Yes I have used a well known platform to do it, holds the money in escrow until you receive the bitcoin. Never had any problems. It feels a bit weird the first time though..
Of course we should not make exchanges for granted with any of useless platform, so if you hold your money then it will get wasted but if you will buy bitcoin then you will not face any difficulty but your profit will be high, at first attempt we should be extra careful because most of loses being done for scamming. So I am sure exchanges with face to face will be an amazing experience.