drove an hour and the person who turned up was not really the person in the photos

Reporting a bad one so somebody else does not do it.

Drove about an hour on Saturday to meet someone. That was my choice, he was outside my usual radius and everything else lined up so well that it seemed worth it.

The man who came into the pub was not the man in the photos. Not in a catfish way, I want to be fair here, it was recognisably him. But the photos were at least a few years old and taken from angles that made a fairly specific impression, and the impression was not accurate.

He knew. That is the part that stuck. Within about two minutes he made a joke about the photos being a bit generous, before I had said anything at all, which means he had been braced for this and had a line ready.

I stayed an hour because I felt rude leaving after driving that far, which in hindsight is an odd reason to stay anywhere. Then I drove home irritated with him and more irritated with myself.

Where is the line here? Everyone uses their good photos. I use mine. But there is clearly a difference between flattering and inaccurate, and I would like to know how to catch it before the motorway next time.

The drive is what turned an ordinary disappointment into a trapped hour, and that is the fixable part. First meets happen somewhere you can leave from, which in practice means somewhere near enough that leaving costs you nothing. Sixty minutes of motorway removes your exit before you have even parked.

Also, and gently, a short video call would have shown you this in ninety seconds. I resisted calls for years on the grounds that they were unromantic and I have not skipped one since a very similar drive of my own.

old photos are not the same as lying though. people look different from four years ago. that is just time happening to a person

I agree with that in principle and I want to be careful here. It was not the years. It was that the photos were taken in a way that made a fairly specific claim about height and build, and the claim was not true, and he clearly knew because he mentioned it before I did.

That distinction matters and it is worth keeping hold of. Nobody is owed a current photograph of you taken this month. What people are owed is that they will not spend an hour on a road under a false impression, and someone who apologises before you have said anything has already told you they knew that. The tell was never the photos, it was the pre-emptive apology.

the other half of your post is the guilt, and i would let that one go faster than you are going to. staying for a polite hour was kind and it was also not required. you can leave a first meeting after twenty minutes for no stated reason at all