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.

I wouldn't be doing anything different with my evenings. My day just runs earlier than yours. Get in from school at around 4. Have supper at 4.30 or earlier. Both DC are in pyjamas by 6.25, when I put a wash on. Bring uniforms in off the line and lay them out for tomorrow. Put today's uniforms on the line. Both DC have done homework if any and are in bed by 8.30. I'm in bed by 9.20. Any other preparation for the morning gets done while the washing machine's running.

I think there is a difference between a few minutes late from people who put some effort to be their on time or almost on time and the cheeky fuckers who call you when you’ve already been waiting for 10 mins to say they just need to jump in the shower and get ready then they’ll be leaving (from an hour away). They are the sort who think you have nothing better to do than wait for them to grace you with their presence. And they lose friends because of the way they behave ime (and don’t really seem to care).

Am never late

Well I think that sounds a terrible way to live but perhaps this comes back to " you do you, I'll do me". And you draw your own boundaries with people. If they're taking the piss and causing you grief you tell them, and if they don't change you adjust your own behaviour/how you do things accordingly - and accept in some cases you are just incompatible.

Omg lateness is my biggest pet peve. I hate it with every fibre of my body, I refuse to do late.

@philomena

See i think you are the one who sounds odd.

We get up at 6:55am for 7:10am departure. Works fine.

I need my chill out time before DS2 wakes up, DD's usually still getting dressed when I'm helping DS2, 3 people have to use the bathroom, I have to factor in a 7yo's tantrum, or an "oh no mum I forgot something" moment, etc.

We get up at 6:55am for 7:10am departure. Works fine.

That sounds awfully tight timing even for an adult only responsible for getting themselves ready!

I’d have real difficulty getting myself washed, dressed, breakfasted and out the door in anywhere near 15 minutes.

I'm much better now at being on time than I was even 10 years ago ... and I was a disorganised mess in my teens and 20's (I'm just the right side of 50)

I didn't have to think about time as a child .. I went to boarding school and was ruled by the bell. So it was a shock to me when I had to start managing my own time. It got easier as I got older and learnt better stratergies such as the ones up thread. I used to be in an organisation where we went around together so better at "keeping time" people managed the groups that I was in.

The hardest part was when I had kids and I ended up being either late or early all the time. Huge stress, huge worries. By the time the second hit nursery I had a rigid morning and evening routine that worked well for term time but we still struggled in the holidays

And yes, we lived/travelled often to Prague when the kids were in the toddler years, and yes I missed a plane (or two)

Having been diagnosed with dyslexia when a child, I thought that it might be a strange manifestation of that. And was completely unsurprised when constant practice, prioritising and refinement lead to better timekeeping .... s l o w l y.
I find that being late now is a weekly rather than daily thing. Usually related to losing car keys or the like.

Anyway my son has the exact same issues as I do. Really rubbish at timekeeping, organisation and managing multiple things such as several appointments/tasks together.

He struggled at school for ages, eventually in year 8 he was referred to CAMHS as his anxiety was rocketing and they referred him on to a pead. Finally after a year of scratching heads and OT appointments he was diagnosed with dyspraxia. A light bulb moment for us as a family.

Now I am passing on my stratagies and tips in the hope that he won't have to get to nearly 50 to get the being on time thing figured out, mostly.

I was often late for friends, but not always, and no it was never personal.

One of my DC’s has a classmate who’s got a tendancy towards school refusal
That has nothing to Do with this tbread.As its been sorted between school and the parents.

My friend was always late.She worked in a supermarket,5 minutes from her house.
I was going over to her at 7.She finished work at 6.She was still in the shop at 6.30 because i went in to get some drinks.We where supposed to be going out at 8.
She takes ages to get ready.We left her house at 8.30 because i chivvied her along.

Another time was supposed to be meeting her in town at 7.By 7.45 she still wasnt therr,no phonecall or anything.
So i went home.I just got so pissed off waiting..

8.30 she rings me,she only got there.
I told her i went home,cue tantrum.

And she had the cheek to ask why didnt i ring her,so i said the same back.Silence.

We are no longer friends which is a pity,but i just couldnt do it anymore.

I used to be late for everything, really because I didn't see that anyone cared that much about 10-15 mn, I never mind if people are late so assumed they would feel the same. So now I am more considerate and on time or early. Most of my friends are still always late! I still don't mind. Some people need to chill.

I am always always late, I do manage to get mostly on time for work (within a 5ish minutes window of lateness, which I gauge as "on time") and for planes (though I did miss one once) but that's because when taking a flight you know you have to get to the airport between 3 and 1h30 half before take off time and so I manage to tell myself I need to be there 2h30 early knowing full-well I will be late but at least will still be on time.

I don't think I have any excuse nor do I feel in anyway that my time is more valuable than my friends' time. I hate being late and the fact that I am constantly running everywhere due to being late.

I think I am just one of those who don't allow time for contigencies and think they still have time until they don't, and end up losing their phone/keys and else 5 minutes before they are meant to get out of the door.

I am one of those who says " you know how I am" as I genuinely expect my friend to not arrive on time because there is a certainty that I will be late, I always warn with lots of time but when making plans I usually already follow by a " don't worry about making it on time, everyone who ever knows me knows I struggle to make it on time."

Thankfully most of my friends are the late type and what helps a lot now is setting an aproximative meet up time, so let's say 8pm-ish and texting my friend when I leave my house so they know when to leave theirs so waiting time is limited. Which works well (even though it often means meeting closer to 9pm than 8).

See this is what I struggle with: if you know you have a problem, and you know where the problem lies, and there are lots and lots and lots of ways in which you could get round the problem, why don't you? People who are on time have listed in quite some detail the steps they take to make sure that they are not late - and none of those things require special skills, they really are mostly a matter of sitting down with a pen and paper (or smartphone and app etc) and writing down how long things will take and working backwards. Someone above even made the excellent suggestion that you actually time yourself doing things like having a shower so that you aren't constantly estimating wrongly. It's really not very hard, it requires a bit of effort at the beginning, but actually it is completely doable.
So why not do it?

I have to say that for me to be on time it requires quite a level of focus and organising. Things that some of my friends find realy easy and some moe difficult.

I do try and I am often on time, but when life throws a spanner in the works, like unexpected demands ... with kids, this happens, then I do get sidetracked.

Like I say - I get distracted easily and have to refocus, sometimes its just not possible to do in a timely manner.

Mobile phones.

They make being late convenient because everyone can be contacted easily to let people know about lateness. Without them you’d have no way of contacting people so they’d just leave

I don't understand when late people say it isn't personal and they don't value their time more than Other people's time.

It isn't personal because you are late for everyone so that makes it ok? Really?

And if you say you don't value your own time more highly but you have zero consideration for the time of others - how exactly does that reconcile?!!!

It just reads to me that you don't give as much as a thought for other people and their inconvenience which I find massively self centred. Happy to be corrected on this as I genuinely don't get it.

@Linning "within a 5ish minutes window of lateness, which I gauge as "on time"

No I'm sorry that's late...you're 5 mins late!!!

I hate lateness.

If you are always late it is because on some level you think your time is more valuable than the other person's.

In other words, you think that whatever you were farting around doing in the time you should have been on your way and weren't is more important than anything the other person could have been doing in the time they were standing around like a lemon waiting for you to show up.

The one bit people haven't really covered is how they carve out this contingency time though. A real life example. I had accepted an invitation to a barbecue in East London this weekend for 3pm. Google says it is 30 mins. Friend subsequently invites me to 40th birthday bash from 7 about 20 mins in opposite direction from home . I can see this is tight but I can probably make it for 8 and say so. Then BBQ gets moved to 5pm. Do I now say I can't go, or do I say we can go but only for a couple of hours? I decide the latter. But my DH is not well. He has a chronic condition that means he needs naps. He is sleeping at 4. Do I wake him at 3:30, knowing he needs this sleep for his health, or do I wait until the last possible moment- ie 4:30, which in reality means we get to bbq at 5:15? And then other people are later than usual and really only just arrived at 6, so BBQ is served late. So do I leave at 7 anyway mid food or do I push it a bit later, eating into my contingency? This sort of thing happens all the time. At what point would the on time people make the decision to safeguard the contingency? It doesn't help that I'm always getting lost due to my very poor sense of direction. Even with Google maps which always seems to fail at the worst moment, so I probably need contingency more than most.

@Thesnobbymiddleclassone

Obviously I am late, I don't actually believe I am on time, but that's to say that even for important things I am rarely on time and the closest thing to being on time for me is often 5 minutes late.

Obviously I am late, I don't actually believe I am on time, but that's to say that even for important things I am rarely on time and the closest thing to being on time for me is often 5 minutes late.

Have you thought about, you know, being on time?

The other thing people haven't really covered is why they persist in busting a gut never to be late for people who clearly dont expect this of them or appreciate it? I apply much more rigid timekeeping for friends I know would do this but really i would much rather they cut both of us some slack and were late sometimes. So this "consideration" isn't really proportionate in my case. But I'm still supposed to appreciate it more than I appreciate the understanding my feckless friends show when it's my turn to be last to arrive. Why? Why is tolerance such an underrated quality? As it happens I rarely leave friends in the lurch like you imagine because I do adjust my behaviour to the circumstances but I still judge your intolerance. 5 mins! Do you actually like your friends at all?

Uh, yes, and it does happen but like many have said, it proves much harder for me than others, not saying there is any excuse for it really.

Thankfully me being late is rarely an issue in my life because like I have stated most of my friends have similar habits (so I do happen to be late but still first one arriving) and I mostly work freelance so I don't have fixed work hours and can mostly work whenever I want as long as my work is done by the deadline given to me (or fixed by me) which might be slightly part of the problem (never having to stick to strict timings almost ever).

longestlurkerever

You choose as you can't manage it all.

Uh, yes, and it does happen but like many have said, it proves much harder for me than others, not saying there is any excuse for it really.

It's not harder for you than it is for other people. Other people make the effort, you don't.