I don't think it's actually safe to go about meeting people one-on-one to complete a peer-to-peer trade, especially when you don't know the person. If there is one thing I have learned and read from @o_e_l_e_o, it is that privacy matters a lot in this crypto community. Going into a trade with someone completely stranger and wanting to meet them physically is, to some point, dangerous because you don't know who the person actually is.
This is very sound logic from the theoretical level, but reality has other things. In countries where the use of crypto is prohibited, which is almost most of the countries in the world, especially those that cannot use peer-to-peer platforms for one reason or another (the most important reason is that he does not find many offers that he can benefit from), they are forced to carry out dangerous buying and selling operations as well. You described it in your quote. Personally i live in one of those countries and the only factor in reliability is that the person you are dealing with has a proven reliability history. I have been working in the same way for a long time, despite its dangers, and I thank God that I did not encounter any problems.
Everyone will definitely choose the option that is best for them, but in most countries where crypto is banned, I guess there are still a few P2P platforms where they can find somewhere and get crypto with the government detecting it, and that's that. About the face-to-face buying, I have learned to agree that it's also part of the best.
But talking about "realizability history," like you said, how do you justify that? Is it by recommendations from people who have traded with the person, or do you have some kind of platform where someone is highly rated by a few traders with whom he or she might have traded? If it's just from a mere platform rating, I can assure you that those kinds of ratings can also be manipulated.
The only thing here is that one should always be careful with whatever option you choose to trade with, either P2P or F2F. There are a lot of scammers out there, and you never know who is who. You just have to exercise caution when dealing with any and at the same time try as much as you can to protect yourself (your identity), as it's very vital.