If you're someone who is never on time, please can you explain why?

Its desperate op. My friend improved but no joke the waiting round. Our friend moved house. It would put me off doing trains with this friend as everything is chaos/last minute.... so I be doing a solo trip I think. Think its inbuilt in some people

Whilst I can understand why you don’t understand chronic lateness, this really isn’t true for us all. I’m sure there’s a proportion of people who simply don’t give a shit and that’s why they’re always late but I often get worked up prior to plans as I don’t want to piss anybody off by being late. I think I generally have a loose concept of time - I remember at school we had to put our heads down and then silently raise our arm when we estimated it to have been a minute. I was always out by an embarrassing amount. I’m not sure if perhaps that’s connected.
I can guarantee I wouldn’t win the money at the timed prize collection.

I just don't have an internal clock

Neither do I, and in fact a lot of people don’t. That’s why we use watches, clocks, phones, timers, alarms etc, instead of just shrugging and saying I just don't have an internal clock as if there’s nothing we can do to help ourselves.

I’m the late one, I absolutely hate it. I’m suspected AUDHD (on the nhs waiting list) and yes I’ve missed hospital appointments, flights the lot because of it. I actually genuinely don’t know what happens to me and I wish I wasn’t like this- it’s genuinely a big stress and struggle in my life. And in regards to missing flights and appointments it’s cost me a fortune or had me had to be re referred to be seen again. It’s awful.

ADHD also, was chronically late for so many things in my 20’s and 30’s (even if I had hours to prepare) and I’ll be honest I’m still not perfect, I missed a train just this weekend - but time blocking has basically changed my life.

I’m generally overwhelmed by my life, responsibilities and never ending task list.
The idea of being late fills me with anxiety but I rarely manage to not be.
This morning, for example, I woke up at 8am as I had to be somewhere for 12pm at the latest. So I consciously gave myself 4 hours. For context, I only had to go 5-10 minutes away.
I checked the time constantly and repeatedly worked out the time I had left to make sure of my timings. Almost obsessively.
I managed to get there only 1 or 2 minutes late which for me is a victory.
I understand why so many people put it down to laziness or selfishness but for me it’s really not the case. The old adage of ‘oh I bet they’re not late for flights’ is always trotted out but whilst I, by an absolute fucking miracle have never missed a flight, I’m always running through the airport for final call.

It is simply selfishness, a lack of consideration and not valuing the feelings or time of person they are going to meet.

You can guarantee if they were told they had to be somewhere at a set time to pick up free £££s they would find a way to make sure they were there on time!

I don't see time the same way

I am either an hour early or run so late I cancel... infact I used to be so late I had to cancel so now I don't book appointments unless it is the only thing I need to do that day and it has to be before midday.

I no long go to our sons hospital appointments alone because of this.

My life is heavily restricted because I hate letting people down so I've retreated away from the majority of any events that are time sensitive.

I don't think my time is more Important at all, I'm not an inherently selfish person either, infact most people would say I'm overly generous, I just don't have an internal clock, I get distracted by the very long repeating list in my head and then other stimuli around me.

It has to be the only thing other than getting showered and dressed or I WILL be late.

I can understand why people take it personally but I can honestly say I hate being like this, it's not you it is genuinely me and at the moment I don't have the cognitive ability to put things in place that mean I can keep all my plates spinning AND be on time.

My Dad was like this, so if i needed a lift from him to go somewhere, I'd deliberately tell him an earlier time so we would actually arrive on time!

Personally, i think it is disrespectful, rude and arrogant. It's funny how these folks can turn up on time at an airport, get to the train station on time etc.

Not everyone is like this though, and I don't tend to have much time for persistantly late folks. I don't mind a one off with a genuine reason and apology.

But that kind of breezing in every time as if it's no issue, no. I don't keep people like that in my life really.

I'm like a PP who is always early. I hate the idea of people hanging around waiting for me. If someone was consistently late, for no reason other than poor time management, I wouldn't continue to make plans to meet them.

He told me he'd had a sudden realisation that it was basically selfish and he was essentially telling all his friends and clients that his time was more important than theirs.

That's exactly how I feel about people who are consistently late. It's rude and inconsiderate.

I've never read so much self-serving bollocks in my life.

Pretty typical of these selfish people to come up with it though.

I worked for a boss who was late for everything. He always said it was because he was over optimistic about how long it would take him to get places/how long the previous task would take.

I worked with him again years later and he'd fixed it, and was now always one time. He told me he'd had a sudden realisation that it was basically selfish and he was essentially telling all his friends and clients that his time was more important than theirs. Not rocket science, but previously had never considered the impact on others and he was essentially a very selfish person

@susiella my bl…. husband is like this, he thinks it’s funny little realising that everyone else thinks he’s a prat 🤷🏼‍♀️

My mum has been late for everything all her life. She thinks her time is more important than anyone else's time. She just thinks that people will have to wait for her. Getting her to a restaurant, for a booked table, on time, is impossible. I don't think it's ever happened. She's 90 now. Not going to change.

I'v got issues that mean I have a tendency to be late for things, usually 10 mins max. I think an hour late as a regular occurrence is really pushing it though.

The reason I'm late is the same as @Lemonadeand plus I tend to see things that need doing as I'm leaving the house and find it hard to drag myself away.

Also the reason for the appointment; meeting friends or going to a hospital appointment etc doesn't necessarily make any difference unfortunately.

Yeah adhd people who haven't managed to form coping mechanisms? I mean, learning new habits and having the wherewithal to realise the need to do this is kind of adhd catch 22.

I think also the person really isn't trying to be rude or anything. Mostly.

I’m the same as you. My partner is always late and I get so stressed and anxious about being late. Always give myself plenty of time in case of delays. He meanwhile always cuts it right to the wire and usually ends up sprinting to try to be on time.
We had a conversation the other day about how he thinks he’s not that bad because he only misses about 1/4 trains he plans to take. 🤦‍♀️

@Lemonadeand ..but what are you doing in those last 10 mins ?

I honestly don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I plan to leave in good time. I check the clock, I have 30 minutes left: I’m running on time. Then I do a few last minute things, get a bag together, probably child needs the potty or spills a drink on himself or something and needs to change or I’ve misplaced my keys. Suddenly it’s ten minutes after we were supposed to leave and I don’t understand why. The time just disappeared. I planned and left plenty of time.

Time is weirdly malleable to me like you have ten minutes left but then it goes in an instant. I’ve always been like this.

They are usually just disorganised with very poor time management skills.

The way to handle them is to be late yourself. If you've arranged to meet at 1 turn up at 1.30 then you probably won't have to wait too long.

This is the most insightful thing I've ever read about my type of lateness. I am a CLIP (Chronically Insane Late Person)

https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/07/why-im-always-late.html

My MIL is always late. She was even late for her MILs funeral and drew attention to herself and pissed everybody of my basically running up the aisle and asking people to move over on the pew. Everybody was just looking at her.

When we got married I told her the wedding was an hour earlier than it was to make sure she was ready.

I'm someone who is always super early for everything, I don't mind waiting half an hour/an hour for appointments. I leave enough time so everything could go wrong and I'd be on time.

My husband on the other hand (I'm pretty sure he has adhd), is very last minute. I say we need to leave at this time, and that's the time he starts getting ready and sometimes gets distracted by the most random things. Sometimes even getting a game to run on his pc. Drives me absolutely insane and I do get snappy with him as being late makes me so anxious and so stressed.