What did I miss? I wasn't done dumping yet.
I did a Localbitcoin's buy of nearly 5 bitcoins, and then I was going to sell back right away with nearly a $30 spread - however, I had another urgent matter in the real world that I needed to deal with, so I thought that I should take care of the real world matter first, and prices have been pretty stable for a couple of weeks.. so no big deal, and then I would sell the coins that I had bought after I finished up the real world matter. Next thing you know, I turn my head, and my $30 spread turned into a $15 spread... and therefore, I just locked in the $15 spread.. and a bit irritated by my having had diddle daddled around in my distraction.
Had stuff happen to me a few times. Sometimes I would break even and wonder if it was worth the time and gas.
But every good trade builds your reputation so it's good in the long term.
When I started trading through Localbitcoins, almost everyone was buying coins from me.. .I had almost no situations in which I was buying coins. Strange, that in recent times, I have contacts in which I buy coins, and the ones buying from me have disappeared ( I don't know if they have gone somewhere else, but they had been my regulars).
No matter what with those local bitcoin trades, I lock them in fairly soon after conducting the trade. So if I buy through local bitcoins, I sell right away somewhere else, and if I sell, I buy right away.
Like you said, sometimes, I do not mind jumping through a few hurdles in order to keep the relationship, because it allows me to continue to stack my bets on both sides and then to immediately fold profits into my total BTC trading portfolio allocation. Frequently with my trades on exchanges, the amounts are very small back and forth, but with Localbitcoin's there seems to be a tendency for the amounts to be larger, and that is why I prefer to lock in soon after the trade.
I have gotten screwed over a couple of times, and there is a pretty large number of non-serious folks that contact me, either to buy or to sell and they want to "work out a deal." These days I tell them that as long as they do the first transaction in accordance with the terms of my advertisement in Localbitcoins, and I meet them, I may be willing to work out deals for the future.. but I am not going to "work out deals" or negotiate with them about my terms until after they at least perform one transaction in accordance with the terms of my ad, which I believe is more than fair. Probably less than half of my new contacts comply and the majority disappear (In the end, I think that they are looking to scam someone).
So, generally, once I have some regular traders that I like, it seems to be good to hang on to them and to be fair with them in order to have continued direct trading relations.
) 
