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?

I think she would be aware that you usually arrive on time and expect you to be on time.

If you have different cultural norms and you are quite good friends would it not be better to say What time do you really want us to turn up? when they invite you, and to say We want you to arrive between these times when you invite them?

I'm Irish and would say that for things like work, school etc we're pretty punctual, I hate hate hate lateness. But yes, saying a party starts at 7 means come anytime after 7, if there's going to be dinner it'll probably be served around 8. I'm always bang on time (is early) for work, cinema, coffee etc but if the host said 7 for a house party, I'd aim to arrive 7:15 - 7:30 so as not to be first there.

I'm in Ireland and it just depends in the occasion.

If I'm meeting friends out for dinner/lunch/drinks then I'd try not to be more than 15 mins late.

If its a party that starts at 8pm (grown up party) then I wouldn't arrive before 9.30pm. We went to a 40th birthday last night and arrived at 9.45pm and there was hardly anyone there. We had to leave at midnight and met lots if people arriving as we left.

If its dinner then I always ask what time we will be eating so I know what time they want me there for.

Irish people are just more relaxed about this sort of stuff. Going out before 9pm is odd to us!

Yeah Stokes I think it depends if there's a dinner or not cos that can change the dynamic. Ie big house party with no food and just booze people can show up at midnight if they want. Dinner party would be different as you need to be there for the dinner at least! Which would be at least and hour after the time stated.

X-post makingdoo!

I'm Scottish and always on time. Our last party was to start at 8. All the teens were present by 5pm, the adults by 8:30pm.

I need to move to Ireland.

I am very relaxed about what time people arrive when they come to see us, expect I cannot stand people who are early.

DH's family are all early risers, all up at 6.30 every day for no apparent reason.
The first time we invited them to come here after we had moved in they arrived an hour early! We'd invited for 11.30, they came at 10.30 - in the morning!! We weren't dressed and I freaked completely.

Interesting. In Norway, when invited to our Eritrean friends, we always arrive to a full house, and a meal half eaten, when we arrive on the dot the time they have given us.

Somebody who has already eaten will move from dining table to the sofa to make room for us, and we (as the only Europeans, lol) will have a room full of people excitedly watching us handle <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Alicha_1.jpg&imgrefurl=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injera&h=600&w=800&sz=208&tbnid=5FAMPZrRmYzqMM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=122&zoom=1&usg=__SiKzMkVFMnusewnpZWEWHjbhvbs=&docid=SLMVpcsuqkw9dM&sa=X&ei=ZL4-UsW3F8774QTOpYGoBA&sqi=2&ved=0CDoQ9QEwAA&dur=295" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Injera without knife and fork. It is HOT, but I love it.

i need to move to sweden!

But, if you dont want people early, why not invite them for later??

Because then they won't come for another hour after that!

I don't think we can necessarily be expected to know other cultural norms...unless one has lived in a particular culture...

It's difficult living in multicultural London though... and it's caught us on the hop, with children's birthday parties, more than once. You get some families arriving before you've downed tools and others turning up ten minutes before the party ends.....

Not sure what the solution is.....

I am a control freak and pathologically on time for everything. Despite this I am often invited to friends' houses for dinner (7 for 7.30) and even I make sure I leave a "decent interval" of five minutes before arriving.

I got used to the concept of "rubber time" when living overseas - for many cultures, time is elastic and just doesn't matter that much. Those who are saying "why don't you just say a later time if that's when you want people to arrive" are rather missing the point!

I've also lived in a culture where punctuality is prized, and people tend to arrive early for anything. I liked the predictability of it all, and it was easy to plan ahead, but I kind of missed the more relaxed approach to time elsewhere.

Now I'm back in the UK, I tend to arrive 10-15 mins late generally. Bang on time seems rude to me, the hosts might not be quite ready. If we're going to something in DH's culture, though, we're generally at least an hour late!

Snowynight, I get where you're coming from. I think it's the British 'culture' not to be precisely on time but a few minutes late....but only a few minutes...

My dad is always late for everything. He just has a really optimistic view of how much stuff he can get done before a given time "Oh on the way I just need to stop at the office, then we'll get gas and oh yes, your mum said we need to stop and buy flowers, and then just a quick detour to my clients' who need to sign something, won't take more than 10 minutes so we'll leave 15 minutes sooner" and then he's surprised when everyone is halfway through the meal when we arrive. He's going to be late for his own funeral, I swear.

Canadian, by the way, but most Canadians are more or less punctual so don't think you can blame it on cultural mores.

Scratch that, actually. There are so many nationalities in Canada that it depends if you are talking about English-Canadians, German-Canadians, Chinese-Canadians, Vietnamese-Canadians, Punjabi-Canadians, etc. Oh, and which generation they are!

gazzalw I was just thinking exactly that. Amongst our close-ish friends here in London we have:

Canadian-Canadian x 2
English-Irish
Canadian-Irish
American-Italian
Guyanan-Greek
Swedish-English
English-English x many

and quite a few others! If we are having people round for say 7, I will make sure we are ready for 7 and expect folks to turn up any time until about 9 or so

As others have said I find it does depend on the type of party, time of day and whether kids are involved or not.

I have friends who I invite for an hour before I want them there - knowing that they'll then arrive on time to eat etc. As I was brought up in a family where the mantra was 'Better half an hour early than a minute late' (and no, we're not Swedish, we're English ) I'm just used to being the first arrival at any gathering...