No, you can buy Bitcoins without having any.
So I will buy real Bitcoins with these IOUs I guess?
Exchanges are designed to facilitate trades between strangers...
That is what ZR does. Even if you do buy from a friend, you would not know. Every deal is "remote",
Zero Reserve is somewhat hard to explain - you need to use it. Just get the code and everything will fall into place.
So when saying 'friends', what you exactly meant is 'retroshare friends'?