to think that if you are invited for dinner at someone's house you should follow their cultural norms for arival time?

[froken]

We are invited for dinner tonight at our lovely Spanish friend's house.

I am English and my dp is Swedish (we all live in Sweden.)

When we have our spanish friend over for dinner and say come at 6 (for example) she often comes at 7 ish.

The last time we were invited to dinner at her house we were 20 mins late, we were so worried that we were very late but when we arived the only people who were there were a our friends who are Dutch. Her (the hostess) Spanish friends turned up about half an hour after us, her Brazilian friends came about 2 hours after us.

The Swedes like to be on time. A Swedish friend called me to apologise for being late. He was 3 minuites late and we were meeting me at my apartment (and we both have babies.)

We are invited at 7. They live 10 mins away. I have suggested we leave our house at 7 (arriving at 7.10/7.15 ish) Dp is not coping well with the suggestion of being late on purpose.

AIBU?

Me too. Fortunately I live in London where most people seem to be on time. I have one friend who is late but I can tolerate that.

I do understand. There is a sort of implied time. I just find it really annoying. And I hate eating late.

Oh I'm Irish Maryz but I just value my alone time too much to have people dropping in unexpectedly. I don't even really like people coming round my house expectedly!!

I remember being invited for drinks at a mum from school's house for the first time after I moved over from Ireland. She said 8, so naturally I showed up at 8.30 thinking I was really early.

They were all waiting for me, and worried I'd gotten lost

Even nights out at the pub mean everyone has to be on time. Baffling.

And I think Irish people really do care what other people think but just in different ways than English people [generalises wildly also]

Ha ha good point Maryz. But I don't invite anyone either so I never have to clear up!!

But you think coming an hour after the stated time is doing it properly.

I live in Ireland. If an event is scheduled for 8 no one will arrive until at least quarter past. It's a habitually late culture here.

My dad and I are dutch. 8 to us means 'no later than 8, preferably before'

My dad's Spanish mates used to arrive at least an hour after the stated time.

Getting back to the op, yes I'd follow cultural norms to an extent but find it hard to be more than 10 minutes late so there are limits. I was once delayed on the way to a child's birthday party and arrived over an hour late, I'd texted to apologise. Finally got there and the hostess hadn't even realised we were running late, and we weren't the last to arrive!

Yeah Maryz if I was going round for dinner or something is ask what time the dinner was at so wouldn't be late but no need to be on time for a drinks party. It does annoy me when people are late when it's for a drink or coffee but most people are mostly on time I find.

That's it exactly. I like being on time. But I'm also aware that to Irish people 'on time' generally means 'turning up at some point' so I adjust my plans to accommodate expectations.

I'm often late to school in the mornings (SN kids losing their shit as we're about to walk out the door) but what I consider late most of the other parents consider 'bang on time', the gates are busier after the bell goes than before and the teachers have no intention of starting class til at least 10 minutes after the bell.

I think the Irish attitude sounds great! I do like to have a heads-up people are coming round, though.

This thread is making me miss home! I die a little inside when I think about the possibility of being late.

Scottish people also tend to arrive at the time specified

How the hell do you ever get anything done if you all arrive at different times? Surely if dinner is at 8 then you just say "we'll be eating at 8 but please feel free to come any time after 7 and have some drinks and nibbles with us"

I arrive at the given time, never ever before and never more than 15 minutes late.

I don't understand anything else and I don't like wasting time so I get annoyed at late and late meals and late events etc.

If I know someone is different to this or I'm not sure of what to expect I just ask them directly.

And gossiping

Our parents' association meetings involve more chatting and conversation than anything school related. One of the dad's was trying to hurry things along last week, every time he tried to wrap it up he was just thrown withering looks and the chatting continued

I am Irish but am inveterately punctual. I can't help it. It made me deeply uncool growing up in Ireland but I just can't be late even when I try.

On the other hand, when I lived in Germany (thinking it would be my spiritual home due to my inveterate punctuality), their obsessive punctuality annoyed me. You would suggest going for a coffee to someone casually and they would get their diary open and try to 'book' you into a free slot six weeks out or something.

It made me appreciate Irish spontaneity where I would meet a friend by chance in town, go for an impromptu lunch and end the day at 2am in the pub (this is pre-kids, obviously).

I still can't help being on time for everything though, can't seem to shake it, even now with DC in tow.

I'm starting to wonder if everyone thinks we're weird; we work to the five minute rule in our house "five minutes early is on time, on time is five minutes late". Its usually more like ten though.....

I hate trying to work out the correct time to arrive. If the invite is for x o'clock then that's what time I aim to tun up.

I have over the years though learnt that actually that's not what time people mean at all. Drives me potty trying to second guess everyone though.

I think I read in an old etiquette book once that in polite society (in the UK) you should arrive very slightly late. And that being early was a complete no-no.