How can people be late everytime?

[LimitedEditionLady]

AIBU to be really annoyed that my friend is literally NEVER on time?It is not even just five minutes,its usually at least an hour!

[Purple2012]

Fatfingers. You say you don't like getting there early and then having to wait around but you dont mind waiting around if someone else is late. That doesn't make sense.

I hate lateness. I have probably been late for work 4 or 5 times in 23 years, twice because my alarm didn't go off and the others unavoidable things like car accident or car breaking down.

I have never been late when meeting a family member or friend. I am always early and factor in time to get there. Its rude to be consistently late and expect other people to hang around waiting for you. People like this can be on time for important stuff like doctors appointments. So it shows a complete disregard for the feelings of the person they are meeting.

[LimitedEditionLady]

Weve been friends about six years.I dont even mind ten minutes late or if my other friends kids are makimg things a bit later I just hate that its every time for at least an hour.Thats no exaggeration.It's for no good reason,its just late for being late for picking shoes or sone dribble.i am late for nothing.

[CrapBag]

limited I would actually distance myself. That is disrespectful and rude.

[sudointellectual]

I have friends like this. They do it to everyone...Except they don't do it to me because I just leave the bar/serve dinner/get on the train. I don't wait for people more than once. And thus persistently late people are magically able to manage to be on time for me.

It is in their control, really.

[fatfingers]

I know that is a bit weird Purple - I thought it when I typed my post out! I don't understand why but I hate the thought of being early, it makes me anxious so I tend to think "ooh I've got plenty of time, I'll just do xxx" which makes me late. I think it might be to do with not wanting to appear over keen or needy in some way.

In answer to the OP, I would not be prepared to wait an hour for someone so I would have gone without her.

[MerylStrop]

10 means 10.

5 minutes late for an appointment means god knows how many other people are inconvenienced.

it's rude and inconsiderate, its not all charming and relaxed

maybe you latey types could all get some hypnotherapy or summat

fear of being early? take a book, or paper, or go for a coffee - enjoy your time, don't waste other peoples

[ithaka]

My sister is always late - it is self-centred, self -importantness and nothing else. Late people are selfish, inconsiderate and sneakingly feel superior - that they are worth waiting for, or as another poster said, cooler and not as regimented as other folk.

Well, they can think what they like, because I won't have late people in my life by choice, end of. I operate a zero tolerance policy to lateness.

If I have no choice (ie family) I ensure I am never in a situation where their lateness would inconvenience me or my family. Arrange to meet them at a place and just go in and carry on until they turn up, order food etc - I will never wait for them.

If it is someone who is seldom late, of course I would wait. But then, it happens so rarely that people who are not habitually late are late, so it is easy to forgive and move on. The chronically late can jog on with their feeble self serving excuses.

[Butterwouldnotmelt]

I know someone like this. She is over an hour late to meet me almost every time yet moans at me if I am 2 minutes late to meet her. I would ditch her as a friend but our DCs are close friends

[yamsareyammy]

How important is her friendship to you?
I have a friend who a group of us have been friends with for 25 years. She has always been a little late, nothing too major.

But lately she has been getting generally later, and not caring either.In other words, she is now going too far. We wont cut her out, as we have all be friends for so long, but one of us is going to be having friendly words with her!As she is letting other things slip as well. And we are all getting a little fed up of her rudeness.

[LadyClariceCannockMonty]

I don't really buy the 'some people are just like that' line. As others have pointed out, these people can most likely be on time for things like flights. They just don't bother making the effort to be on time for people/things they consider less important.

OP, I'd probably have ditched her by now. Persistent lateness is bad. Persistently being an hour or more late is unforgivable IMO.

[LimitedEditionLady]

She is important to me,weve grown up through our teens together and shes someone who i can talk to and would help me if i needed her( but prob be an hour late lol)it does make me think that she thinks i should wait around for her and that my time isnt important but because today my child was upset i was sooo annoyed.my friend has five kids and shes never late!annoys me more that its usually due to dolling herself up

[goodasitgets]

I am always early. To the point where if I'm not at work 20 mins early people start worrying about me

[EndoplasmicReticulum]

I do what ithaka does, if they're late they miss me. I am specifically talking about my inlaws. FIL thinks it's funny to be late for everything. Just before our wedding he told me several hilarious "when we were late for weddings" stories. I made it very clear that we would start without him if he was late for ours. He made it on time, oddly.

[LadyClariceCannockMonty]

I'd have a word, then, if ditching her isn't an option.

'When you're late ? and you're often late ? it inconveniences me and upsets the DC. Next time, if you're not here by ten/fifteen [delete as you feel] minutes after we agreed, I will have gone out/be doing something else instead and not be available.'

[LimitedEditionLady]

Thing is i could just say right im not waiting but what do i do when its a thing me and her are doing and shes meeying me at my house?I would feel bad for someone to get there and noone be there.In sone ways Im quite soft and tbh since being a mum friends have disappeared through the cracks in the floorboards.

[BringMeTea]

Agree with Eraser upthread. I annoy myself by being too early but that is, clearly, because i do not want to be late! Better to hang around a bit than be 'actively' late.

[LimitedEditionLady]

Goodasitgets thats me too,i get questioned "where have you been?" Im still fifteen early and get asked!

[LadyClariceCannockMonty]

Leave the house and go and do the thing on your own/with the DC. Just carry on. She can join in when she deigns to turn up. No need to feel bad that you're not there; she should feel bad for being shite late!

[chipmonkey]

softly I'm a bit like you. ds1 has ADD and although I was never diagnosed, I know I would score like him on the tests!

What I have found is that you have to have lists. And I mean very mundane lists. Shoes in our house must be found the night before and put in the shoe-rack in the hall, nowhere else. We don't have that thing which allows you to remember that they were under the kitchen table. My keys must be in my bag and my bag on it's hook in the hall cupboard. We have to remember that with children there is always a delay so allow an extra five minutes per child.

We have to change our idea of "on time" to fifteen minutes earlier. So if "on time" was 9pm, it must become 8.45 instead.

Don't get sidetracked by computers and phones and use the timer on your phone to go off when you need to log off the phone and go.

[MerylStrop]

meet her at the place you're headed?

text in the morning to confirm all arrangements and get her to confirm eta

assume she'll always be late and amend plans

[lessonsintightropes]

I used to have a couple of friends like this. CBA with it and eventually ditched both. It's selfish and shitty behaviour to repeatedly expect someone else to wait for you. Find new friends!

[HandMini]

YANBU. We've ditched friends over this. Particularly when you have children who (a) are not notorious for their own patient waiting skills and (b) need feeding/napping etc at certain times. It's a real shame, but I can't get over the feeling that someone who is late had something more important than you to deal with (usually themselves) and that's not a great sign in a friendship.

[LimitedEditionLady]

Most of time is not a DC activity and its a few drinks at the bar,i dont fancy the bar alone lol i might be sat there an hour x

[yamsareyammy]

It is not on that she is doing it to your child.
I think you are going to have to have a word.
If that doesnt work, I think, if your child is involved, you are going to leave home after waiting 15 minutes. And tell her, and tell your child that that is what you are going to do , and stick to it. And she will have to catch you up.

She may still be doing her hair or whatever, but at least she will know then, and to that matter, your child when she is older, that you are not prepared to be walked all over.

Does she have insecurity issues do you think, or is she a bit vain, that her hair needs to come first to her.