Help me understand people who are consistently late

[Namechangemum100]

I'm.meeting a friend today, I have deliberately told her the meet time is 30 minutes earlier than it should be as I know for sure she will be late, she always is.

I am one of those people who is always on time, I get ridiculous anxiety if I'm running late and it's just the way I am, but I find myself constantly waiting around for other people, and I just don't understand it.

If you are the type of person who is always late (15 minutes plus and excluding unavoidable traffic etc ), whats your reasoning? I have some friends who will actually say "oh I'll be late to xyz, you know me"...what does this mean?! How?! You know the time of meeting, why is it so hard? Some people will actually let me know they are "running late" at the actual meet time...how did you not forsee this situation 10-15 minutes ago and give a heads up?!

I'm not trying to be goady, if I understand the reasons why I think I might find it less frustrating.

Pathologically punctual person checking into this thread!

I am a nightmare for this, no excuses. The clocks in my house/ car are deliberately a quarter hour fast, for this reason. I'm getting better at it, though.

The people I know who are consistently very late are the people who are very disorganised. I find this level of disorganisation hard to understand and deal with, particularly when there is an important event such as a wedding or funeral

Yes, I am very disorganised; I envy those who aren't.

But what patronising bull shit to just "get over it" ... And the rest of what Giles said.

The late friend, I wrote about above - I enjoy her company. We have shared experiences, which I enjoy reminiscing about. Professional/academic and leisure interests in common, which I enjoy talking about. We might plan to have three or four hours before one of us, usually her, has to leave for another commitment. If she's an hour late, that cuts down on our time significantly.

We then don't have time to talk about the things we'd planned - sometimes things she'd expressly said she wanted my input on.

And I'm left feeling that she doesn't value our friendship as much as I do. That she doesn't enjoy our meetings as much as I do. Because if she did, she'd want to make the most of the time we had available, wouldn't she? She'd be on time, wouldn't she? And it's pretty shit to be made to feel that way by someone who is supposed to be a friend.

We have friends in common, so I now don't arrange to see her unless another friend is also going to be there, and we just get on with our plans and late friend catches up with us when she gets there.

But it has meant that we've really drifted apart. And I'm sad about that, but I'm fed up with being made to feel I come somewhere near the bottom of her list of priorities.

jassy

We no said befire..I don't think struggling with timings is a choice.

But knowing you are late and doing stuff that can wait or knowing you are always late when you do XYZ and then doing them anyway is a choice.

We no said befire..I don't think struggling with timings is a choice.

But knowing you are late and doing stuff that can wait or knowing you are always late when you do XYZ and then doing them anyway is a choice.

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about the nature of whether it’s always a conscious choice people are making -‘Giles or the dog bowl’ - or whether it’s more complex than that for some people. You think it’s clear cut and that they are making a conscious decision, I disagree that your continued use of ‘decide’ is reasonable.

Yes, I am very disorganised; I envy those who aren't.

But people who are organised, are, mostly, that way because they work at it. They put in the effort. They don't waft through life saying 'I'm always punctual, it's just the way I am because I'm so organised.'

^But people who are organised, are, mostly, that way because they work at it. They put in the effort.

There is zero evidence that different people find being organised equally easy or equally difficult, and that it takes an equal amount of effort to reach the same end result - and plenty of evidence to the contrary. This ‘if only you’d put the effort in’ totally discounts big differences in the amount of ongoing effort and level of difficulty different people will experience.

It’s like someone who is naturally well coordinated smugly telling a person with poor hand eye coordination that they’d be just as good at catching a ball if only they’d put the effort in.

It’s like someone who is naturally well coordinated smugly telling a person with poor hand eye coordination that they’d be just as good at catching a ball if only they’d put the effort in.

Well, I was always shit at games involving throwing, hitting or catching a ball, and I might well have been better if I'd put more effort in. But I didn't care, so I didn't.

Yes, there are some people who have genuine, diagnosable difficulties with organisation and time management. And then there are the people who are always late because they never know where their keys are.

Yes some people with lds cannot be on time. I have known adults who require a relative or career to prompt them to get ready and collect them to go places. The difference is these people literally can’t hold down a job and yes they would miss a flight if left to organise themselves because they can’t just decide that that’s important and will cost them money so they’ll be on time.
The vast majority of people who are late all the time don’t fall into this category. If you have no cognitive impairment and you are meeting someone at 12:00 you know that by running a bath at 11:55 you will be late. Some people just don’t care.

Well, I was always shit at games involving throwing, hitting or catching a ball, and I might well have been better if I'd put more effort in. But I didn't care, so I didn't.

The point is that even if you had put acres and acres of work in, your probably never have found it as easy as the person to whom it came more naturally with less practice and effort, and there would have been more chance you’d fuck it up every time a ball was hurled at you.

It’s the same for organisation - for some people it’s a lot more work, with more scope for errors and lapses, than for those of us for whom ‘in door, shoes on rack, key in key pocket in bag’ is a more natural task. They’ll get distracted as they walk in the door by the post, or one of the kids will demand something or make a fuss about their shoes, or they’ll be juggling the shopping and go to put that down in the kitchen first. And then tomorrow they won’t be able to find their keys.

Of course some people who find it hard will put in more effort than others. People are all different. But decrying them all as just not being willing to make an effort seems overly simplistic.

Regarding the argument
"If you don't miss your flight but are late for meeting a friend, it shows you CAN be on time if you only choose to, so being late for friend means you choose not to do whatever it is you need to do to be on time, which is a sign of disrespect."

Sometimes people CAN do something (like, being on time), but only at considerable personal cost. I would not expect my friends to make any big sacrifices just for 'being on time' when meeting me.
E.g. someone needs to catch a flight the next day. Knowing how hard it is for them to be on time, they will be suffering huge anxiety. Not sleeping all night. In the morning they will be terribly tense and overtired, shout at the kids, feel hugely guilty for shouting at the kids. After arrival they will crash out and maybe make costly mistakes that they wouldn't otherwise have.
I do not expect them to live through so much pain in order to ensure they are on time to meet me. I do not think they should sacrifice their relationship with their children in order to be certain that there is no risk they will leave me waiting. They are making an effort to see me, that's what counts; I prefer them being late, if feeling they MUST be on time would cause them so much pain.

The thought of being late, and actually being late, makes me hugely anxious. It makes me feel sick.
In fact, the anxiety about being late is what used to cause me to actually be late all the time.
So when people think that late people 'don't care', for me it has always been the opposite: The more I do care, the more likely I am going to be late. Because managing my anxiety about being late takes so much (mental) energy that it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I manage better these days. Knowing how I will be anxious if I have to be somewhere at a set time, I do my best to arrange '-ish' times instead. Result -> no anxiety about being late -> I arrive on time. Still, fixed things like medical appointments and flights, I manage to make, but it is not a question of 'putting the effort in when you really want to', it is a matter of accepting that I won't sleep the night before and me and my children will have a miserable, shouty day. And if someone supposedly a friend expects me to pay that cost in order to be 100% sure I won't keep them waiting for 15 minutes, then I'm sorry, but I will put my family first.

That is probably why I have got better at not being late since having children.
In the manner in which I probably should have been putting my own mental health first but didn't, I now put my family first. Which means I don't care as much if someone might feel personally aggrieved if I arrive late. Which means I get less anxious about being late. Which means I am not late (not regularly, consistently - sometimes shit happens).

Well if it’s going to be such a huge personal cost to you to be on time then why not just make fluid arrangements like meeting in a group at a place you will stay for a while or have people to visit you? If it’s really too much effort (literally) to get places on time then don’t leave people hanging around for hours with kids, or trying not to burn the food they have prepared for you like people have said on here.
Though I maintain that if people manage to get their children to school on time and get to work on time EVERY morning it’s likely they could manage to meet a friend for a coffee at the agreed time if they wanted to.

Maybe this is a skill that could be worked on in schools? I have 'always late' and 'always early' people in my family. I cope by never agreeing to meet in places that mean that I am left alone in public places. I usually try to arrange things so I can get on with something while I wait.

Having worked on project planning, it was quite clear that some people have genuinely no idea of how long something will take. Even if they have done it hundreds of times!
I would sometimes manage to estimate by suggesting times for them. If I said times that were clearly wrong, they could tell me that I was being ridiculous. I could narrow it down to what they really thought by doing this repeatedly, but they couldn't or wouldn't do it themselves.
Is it an inability to take responsibility for themselves underlying it for some people?

PorkFlute, as I said the first time, that is exactly what I do - I work very hard at reducing the lateness-anxiety, for example by arranging '-ish' times where possible (and obviously we choose meeting place & time accordingly). And as I put that effort in, based on a lifetime of learning how I function and with the aim of NOT leaving people to wait, I am now very rarely late.

I know my issues and work very hard at not allowing it to become an issue for others.
But if someone insists on meeting at x o'clock sharp despite me explaining and asking for a more flexible arrangement, then I will be hard put not to think of THEM as selfish and inconsiderate.

Totally agree with Brilliotic. It's another example of where I think consideration for others is given unwarranted premium over tolerance of others. To me these are two sides of the same coin and equally valuable. Bit somehow the considerate but intolerant person always feels morally superior to the inconsiderate but tolerant person. Whereas in actual fact a bit of give and take means a smoother ride all round. I prefer meeting my disorganised friend because she doesn't make meeting up with her feel like an assistant course. My very organised friend gives me a rigid time slot but to make sure I'm not late I have to put in so much contingency that I'm stressy all morning and have to allow twice as long as the journey normally takes and then like as not hang around in the car so as not to be early. It's a pita quite frankly and I consider it a character flaw every but as much as you consider mine to be.

How do people insist on meeting at a certain time? Surely when you arrange to meet it is agreed between 2 people? You just need to say ‘sorry, I can’t make that time’
It’s great that you don’t expect people to hang around for hours waiting for you but as you can see from this thread a lot of people do!

It’s like someone who is naturally well coordinated smugly telling a person with poor hand eye coordination that they’d be just as good at catching a ball if only they’d put the effort in

Well that's exactly what we were told in school PE lessons...

Who says people get to school/work on time? My work doesn't have a rigid start time and I always get there later than in an ideal world I'd plan to be. As for school, we are quite often late too. Not by ages because it's only 5 mins down the road but I'm quite often flapping at the kids stressing them out of the door. Again, I can do this to meet you, and do for certain friends, but it isn't that nice, you know? Wouldn't it be better for us all to cut each other a bit of slack?

The people who I know who are always late are never late for work. But they are late for every social event/meeting. They just don’t see other people waiting for them as a problem. If they wouldn’t get fired no doubt they’d be late for work every day too.

PorkFlute,
It's not about 'I can't make 6 o'clock, let's say 6:30 instead'.

What causes my anxiety (which then in turn causes me to be late) is the precise time that does not allow for being late. If we arrange to meet at 6-ish in a warm and safe place that is appropriate for children if children are going to be there, etc, then I can quite easily be there at 6 sharp.

If however the other person insists on meeting at six sharp at a bus stop, then I will be so stressed out by the thought of being late and leaving them waiting in the cold with their kids starting to get antsy and potentially in danger from traffic, that my organisation skills disappear like smoke up the chimney. I might not sleep the night before, and being tired does not help with organisation when organisation comes hard to you. So I will be running around like a headless chicken, mislaying things, forgetting things, shouting at the kids, and end up arriving late.

Believe me, some people won't accept '-ish' times, as they believe this gives the other person licence to be late, and they believe the other person is only asking for the '-ish' time because they fully intend to be late. Whereas I for one ask for '-ish' times because I know they will help me NOT be late.

One good thing about finding it so hard to be on time myself is that I never, ever worry that someone is making a point of disrespecting me if they turn up late. So that is one less thing for me to be anxious about ;)

Well that's exactly what we were told in school PE lessons...

And at what point did you figure out that it was bollocks and that different people have different levels of ability, and different results from practice?

I get annoyed with this. People who are disorganised and late also tend to be the kind of people who find it hard work to think through all of the things you need to do to get somewhere on time, maybe it's just too much mental effort for the always lates and they'd rather put other people out than put themselves out by doing the extra thinking!

I think there's a lot of negative mindset and "I can't help it" going on here. If you don't like being late, you don't have to be. If you want to get better at PE you can. Being on time isn't like different ability levels in sport. We're just looking for a basic level of achievement and that's it. Nobody gets gold metals because they're the most on time person in the country. It's just a life skill like getting the washing done so you have clean clothes to wear or getting a shop in before everyone is starving?

If you are late for something once then you know you need to leave earlier next time, which translates into getting up and getting on with it earlier, usually.

And at what point did you figure out that it was bollocks and that different people have different levels of ability, and different results from practice?

Jassy I figured it out immediately I had intended to put a wee emoji on that sentence because I was being sarcastic, but I forgot

I do agree that being organised doesn't come as easily to some people as it does to others. I do however get frustrated when people assume that anyone who is more punctual than they are must do it all naturally and without effort. (Which I know is not something that you have actually said on this thread, I just mean in general).

I think there's a lot of negative mindset and "I can't help it" going on here. If you don't like being late, you don't have to be. If you want to get better at PE you can.

Well, I’m reliably punctual, and I got better at PE through a lot of effort but it’s nonsense to say that I don’t find it naturally easier to be organised and punctual than some. Therefore, I’m less likely to make an error that will lead to me being late. Similarly, even though I got better at PE I’m still not as good as those with natural aptitude, who put in less effort and concentration. I’m more likely to screw up in the heat of the moment than they are, partly because I don’t have their natural ability and partly because the pressure not to fuck up is stressful. Therefore I am a less good sportsperson.

A little bit of misrepresentation goes an awfully long way...

And so does a small amount of trying to understand other people. I’ve done holier-than-though punctual person. It’s boring and lonely on that pedestal. Flexible and understanding (but with boundaries) punctual person is a lot more fun.