To ask why some people can't be arsed to turn up on time, to meet their friends?

[bellagood]

Just that really.

I have experienced a number of people who are always late when we meet for coffee or for a night out. Anything from 20 minutes to 50 minutes late. (I am talking about when there was a specific time made, not a 'see you between 8 and 9' kind of thing.) Yet they seem to never be late for the doctors or dentists or hospital appointments, or for work.

So why are they always late for meeting with friends? Or turning up at your house? I am sick and tired of inviting someone around, and they roll up half hour to an hour after the agreed time. So you're sitting there like a muppet, with the food spoiling or going cool, waiting for the entitled princesses.

I even had someone the other week text me and say 'we're at a loose end, (her and her DH,) shall we pop around for a coffee?' I answered and said 'maybe just for half hour as DH has work this evening (he was on 8pm to 8am.) 'Be there in 10 minutes' she texted back. Half hour later, she still wasn't here, so I phoned her and said 'you still coming?' 'Be there in a minute' was her reply. It was another 25 minutes before she came.

There are numerous other examples. Like my daughter (now grown) used to have a friend who was constantly 20 to 40 minutes late. Sometimes more than an hour. Her bloody mother never got her to our house on time when she was coming around, and she never came on time when she was meant to be meeting her somewhere, and I was with her waiting. (I am talking about when she was about 10, and they were meeting in town.)

This one time her and her mother threw a massive strop when me and my daughter left the arranged meeting point in the town centre, after waiting for 35 minutes after the arranged meeting time, They were meant to be meeting to go to the bowling alley, and after over half an hour I said 'I am pissed off with this shit,' and my daughter said 'me too' and we went home.

Her mother was 'incensed' apparently, that she had taken time out of her day to go ALL the way up town, 4 miles away, and we weren't there when she got there. Errrr we were there actually, on time; YOU were the one who was late. My daughter's friend said 'we couldn't help being late, the traffic was slow.' My daughter said 'what about the other 25 times you've been late this year?' The girl and her mother were entitled little divas, and 10 years later, they still are.

I did the same to a 'friend' 6 months ago, who is always late to meet; (I mean often 30 to 45 minutes late.) After 25 minutes of waiting, I left. Shockingly, she texted me 45 minutes after we were meant to be meeting, and said 'where are you?' I said 'I left as I thought you weren't coming.' She got most offended, and said 'well you could have contacted me to check where I was and if I was OK, I could have been in a car crash, or something bad could have happened, and that was why I was late.' I said 'did any of those things happen? Were any of those things the reason you were three quarters of an hour late?' 'No,' she said, 'I just got tied up with something else. I am a bit pissed off you didn't wait, after I had driven 10 miles to meet you...' I said 'I didn't think there would be an actual valid reason for you keeping me waiting; there never has been on the other multiple dozens of times.' Then I switched off my phone. Haven't seen her since, or heard from her. No loss.

So why are people like this? How come they can get to work on time, and to important appointments, but can't get to arranged meetings with their friends on time? Are they just so self absorbed and self serving that they think everyone should wait until they are ready to turn up? Do they give that little of a shit about their friends? Do they think their time is more important than theirs?

Anyone got any clues, answers, responses??? Is there anyone here who does this, and why do you think it's OK to treat your friends like shit?

Flakier than a Greggs sausage roll is the term I use..im never late and I hate this trait in people

I can't abide lateness and have zero tolerance for repeat offenders. I don't wait longer than 15 mins (and that feels like forever) unless there is a compelling reason for the lateness. If you're running late and you're a repeat offender, I won't wait and I probably won't agree to meet you again.

What Mrskeats said. Exactly that.

It's annoying, disrespectful and highly self centred.

I'm not very good at estimating time, and it's the daft stuff like 6 minutes to walk over from a car park that tends to be omitted and mount up beyond the contingency time that I thought would be reasonable.

Things like getting the children to school have a routine that I can track progress of to within a couple of minutes. Meeting friends is not at a routine time or place and quite often a fairly last minute arrangement. The thought of meeting a friend is a much more relaxed concept than going to the GP, so I'm not in that stressed state of mind where I'm trying to impose control on things that distract me (oh look, the washing needs swapping to the dryer that'll only take a minute...) An arrangement that involves the family throws the goalposts even further although not so badly now we're past the worst years of tantrums over getting dressed.

I come from a family of disorganisation and poor timekeepers so timekeeping is not a habit that I learned before adulthood. My friends around the late teens/ student days tended to veer towards "fashionably late" and it really wasn't worth the self imposed stress to be on time then hang around like a lemon playing snake on my phone for at least half an hour feeling like an utter tit.
I'm also weary of turning up at a friends early and interrupting their preparations. I have ILs that turn up at some point between on time and halfway through vacuuming the house and I loathe it when they turn up to find me sweating like a pig and wrestling the vacuum away (when I should have had a few spare minutes to freshen up). Quite honestly I find that far more rude than mild lateness.

I do update people on where I'm at though and I seem to naturally gravitate towards people who treat timekeeping as an art rather than a science, so there's a fairly mixed outcome on who'll turn up when if there's no pressing deadline involved in the arrangement.

I grew up in a culture where people invited to an event, were invariably were to be seen walking up and down in front of the entrance, so they could ring the door bell exactly at the time they were invited. DH grew up in the UK, cue several disagreements about the time we should set off. He admitted that he hated waiting around for things, so preferred to get there when everyone else had arrived. And then we missed the funeral of a close friend, or rather had to mingle with the crowd outside the chapel where the services was held, having arrived after the doors were shut.

Since then, he is more tolerant of my preferred approach to timing, and makes sure that he has something read while waiting. Win:win.

I grew up in a Caribbean culture where lateness is a given. It's affectionately, or frustratingly at times, called BMT (Black Man's Time, as opposed to GMT). Not saying that all Caribbeans have this mentality but it is definitely a characteristic.

I am married to a Jewish man and in order to ensure my side of the family attended our wedding on time, they were told a time half an hour earlier than it was actually due to start. It did the trick for most guests, though not all.

YANBU. I can't stand it when people are late and don't let you know. I have ended friendships over this too. I always found the worst offenders tended to be total flakes too and would constantly pull out of, or want to rearrange, meet ups. It made me feel like I wasn't important to them at all and I also found it disrespectful to be left waiting 10/20/30/40 minutes at a time without a word as though I had nothing better to do! Incidentally, I do have a chronically late friend but he always lets me know where he is/ his ETA and does always (eventually!) show up. So it is possible to have poor time management but not be totally rude about it!

I had a friend like this......don't bother with her anymore due to lots of other reasons also.

She would be late for everything,I remember being at a football match and she turned up 30 min late with her daughter who supposed to be playing. She actually said omg have they started well you would think they would wait till all the kids were here.

When I made arrangements with her I rephrased how I spoke to her......if we were leaving from my house together I would say I am leaving at 1pm instead of saying be here for 1pm.......She turned up at my house at 2pm and phoned me and asked where I was,I said I left at 1pm like I said I was going to,I am not being late for this event just because you are.

I noticed that she came across as very entitled in lots of areas also so I ditched her.

My time management isn't very good if I'm honest, but that usually only means I'm 5 or 10 minutes late - and I always text to let the other person know. The only exception being when DD used to time up-the-back poos or sicking up just as we were leaving the house. It was like she knew. But even then I'd call or text with a new ETA. And it wasn't 45 minutes later!

Congratulations OP for leaving, after waiting for your rude friend for 25 minutes. It’s the only thing that works.

I was amused to note that you were also subjected to the fury of the person who kept you waiting, after you left. People like that always do this. It’s as if you’re supposed to congratulate them for being terribly busy and important and hence keeping you waiting at their pleasure, and if you veer off the script they hate you for it!

I am a late person. Part of it is that I genuinely have issues with time management (and I do struggle to be on time for appointments, work, etc) - it takes me an enormous amount of planning and effort to be on time, and sometimes I just don't manage it. It is easier for recurring events like work because I only have to make the calculations one time and then I can re-use them, but I do have to think to write them down somewhere the first time (so if you hoped to avoid this issue by always arranging to meet me at the same time, you would have to be explicit about why).

But also, most of my friends are also relaxed about time. TBH, this is kind of by necessity, because I tend to piss off anybody who is particular about time. The thing is that I spend ages trying to be on time for the occasions when it really seriously matters - the way I see it is that you should be able to be relaxed with friends, and I can't really imagine getting really pissed off at anybody for being 10 or even 20 minutes late for a casual engagement! It is different if you're squeezing into a small time gap of course, or want to attend something which starts at a specific time like a show or game. But generally, it works for me to have a more laid back friendship group and save the stressing for important things like appointments, work, and timetabled events.

DH and I had a fall out last weekend because he wanted to leave for the supermarket at 1pm and I didn't take him literally and started getting ready at about 12.55pm. I just thought he wanted to leave at roughly 1pm, not exactly 1pm on the dot and not a second later. I can't really imagine living to that kind of timetable - it's a supermarket, it's still going to be there at 2pm even if you're an hour late! (I wasn't planning to be an hour late, I just don't understand why it has to be so exact).

If we'd have dated rather than him just coming round to my house we probably wouldn't have stayed together long enough to be married, come to think of it

My DF and DB are notorious for this. We plan supper for 2 hours after the time we invite them for.

I’m late now and again. I don’t think my time is more important than other people’s, it’s usually due to having 2 small children and the fact that no amount of planning can prevent poo explosions, tantrums at the door, stopping for a wee, having to stay behind to mop up the glass of milk that’s weeping into the rug etc. I always text people to tell them I’m going to be a bit late. Someone’s life happens and it’s nothing personal to the person I’m meeting.

I usually go to the doctors and dentist on my own if I can help it.

I can’t really bear people who think there’s no good excuse ever for being a bit late. We went on a big family holiday this year and several of us planned to meet SIL and her family in a restaurant one night. A family member who really hates latecomers was there and SIL was 30 minutes late due to her eldest DC suffering a big anxiety attack. The relative huffed and puffed and shot them daggers when they turned up (even though we’d all ordered so didn’t have to stay hungry) and complained how rude it was to be late. Apparently MH issues isn’t a good enough reason

I can accept someone being late if there is a reason. I absolutely can't accept someone being late if they just decided five minutes before the time we're due to meet that they'll do a basket of ironing, or bath the dog or something.

I also get frustrated at 'well I'm very anxious and feel self conscious if I have to stand waiting for someone else'. Can you really be so lacking in self awareness that it has never occurred to you that the person standing there for an hour waiting for you might feel anxious and self conscious? Or does that not matter, because it's someone else and their feelings are less important?

A one-off is fine but I actually think it's appalling to be late for every arrangement

I'm one of those on-time people who's had to train themselves to turn up 15 minutes late because that's what everyone else does. I'm often still first though...

I have a family member who is chronically late and for him, I think it's specifically a technology addiction thing, and has been since he was a child. He finds it so hard to just put his phone/tablet/controller down and not do juuuust one more mission/level/piece of bollocks. Luckily I rarely make arrangements where I have to meet him at a specific time, as I would have throttled him. He is never apologetic and expects people to just hang round for him.

A friend of mine can be a bit like this and she has the 'not factoring in all the other stuff' thing. Like she used to insist that using the laundrette only took 50 mins, because the washing machine took 30 mins and the dryer 20 mins. I tried to walk her through all the other stuff involved: packing up clothes/right coins/detergent (5 minutes), walking there (10), loading and setting the machine (3), etc, etc...she saw my point but I still think, in her heart she believed it should take 50 minutes.

it's a supermarket, it's still going to be there at 2pm even if you're an hour late! (I wasn't planning to be an hour late, I just don't understand why it has to be so exact).

If you honestly can't think why it has to be so exact, you might like to consider what the other person in this arrangement is going to be doing, between the time you agreed to go out, and the time you are actually ready to go out. What about if they leave it a bit later, knowing that you are very likely going to be late, so that in the end, you find yourself waiting for them? How would you feel, having to wait until they are finally (sic.) ready to go out with you?

People are often late these days because it's so easy just to text and say "Running late, be there in 10 mins".

People are always late arriving at my house too if they're coming for drinks/dinner. Because they figure I'm at home anway so what does it matter. It DOES matter because I have steeled myself to talk to you from 8-10pm and then go straight to bed whereas it's now 8.35pm so it's going to look rude when I chuck you out at 10pm cos you've only been here 1hr 25.

Just another reason why I cba with humans tbh.

My old boss would say about our perpetually-late criminal clients "if they were handing out free heroin on the doors of the court, they'd turn up on time".

I'm most often late because I find it really hard to get up in the mornings. I also find it hard to motivate myself to leave the house because I'm such a home-body.

OP I think you are my hero! Love your direct approach

Latecomers are so bloody annoying. Irritating friend of mine told me to name a time to come for lunch at ours. I suggested 12. She said ‘actually we want a lie in so how about 1pm?’ erm, ok but why tell me to name a time? And of course then turn up at 1.40.

Finally - he'd be on the computer or his phone, watching youtube or something or playing a game. Maybe doing a quick job or something in the kitchen. Exactly the same as he would do when we got back, so it's not like it's lost time. And yes, I'd do the same thing if I had to wait for somebody.

It IS different if you've got plans for the afternoon and need to be back for a certain time or something but that's not the case most of the time and I just don't see why people are in such a rush when they have nothing specific to do.

I'm not as bad as my mum but I must get it from her. She frequently takes about half a day to get ready for anything and then is genuinely baffled that we only have a couple of hours to actually do something but by the end of the two hours is exhausted and needs a nap She isn't even old!