Approach/mindset when rolling with new people?
Over the weekend I attended a seminar at my home gym that hosted a few visitors from outside gyms as well. At the end of the seminar, the mat was open for rolling and everyone from my gym that decided to roll paired up with people they knew and one lonely visiting purple belt was left looking around on the mat. I spotted him, felt bad, cut short a conversation I was having on the edge of the mat with friends and offered to roll with him, which he accepted. What I perceived will be a chill technical roll (as a purple belt myself), which I appoached and started as such, was approached like a comp roll by the visiting purple belt, who decided to ramp up the intensity mid roll, take it to the feet and initiate a full force takedown, get on top and try to maul me for the remaining 20 seconds, or so of the round. (for context things started on the knees and he decided to play guard and try to aggressively shoot inverted triangles at me but was getting nowhere and he ended up with his guard passed and in turtle position)
My experience was always that, when visiting new gyms or rolling with new people, it was understood that rolls would be more relaxed and exploratory until a relationship or level of trust was built. (unless otherwise stated) I was curious to get a wider perspective from the JJ community on here and see if perhaps I was wrong to drop my guard in such a manner and if my approach to these scenarios should change going forward..