Make direct connections with people through local bitcoins or through bitcoin meet-ups.. but local bitcoins does seem to work pretty well... real peeps with various experiences in bitcoin. Perhaps some of them similar to yours?
Done a couple of times. Hard to set up for a trade and wondering in the back of my head just who is this person.
I have screened a lot of people through local bitcoins, so perhaps I meet only about less than 1/3 of those who respond to my advertisement. In the end, I met a lot of people through local bitcoins, but I make them do it on my terms, since they are responding to my advertisement. Therefore, I never go to their place, and a large majority of the time, I don't negotiate beyond the terms of the advertisement.
If you are responding to someone else's advertisement, then I would suggest the same thing, just attempt to comply with their terms (and maybe just transact the minimum amount or near their minimum amount, just to get a feel for them). Once you meet them, then you can negotiate if you want to have a continued relationship.
No offense against the ATM; they provide an incredible service in promoting bitcoin and making a fluid market, it's just too wide a spread to buy and sell and even a bit high for HODLing.
There does seem to be a difference between ATMs and I suppose if you live somewhere in which there is a lot of direct buy/sell competition then the ATM terms may be more reasonable.
And after watching exchanges fold and implode I'm not too comfortable with those. If you don't own your keys, you don't own your coin is a pretty reasonable statement.
First world problems.
I still remain of the position that if you own 10 bitcoins, it might be reasonable to have 10% of that value (which would be the value of 1 BTC (whether in BTC or in fiat)) on exchanges, just for some flexibility. Most of the risk of exchanges seems to be securing your credentials rather than the exchange itself doing some kind of exit scam, but yeah of course, they set rules for their exchange, but if the amount that you keep there is smaller then you are probably less likely to butt heads with them.