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.

@Nacreous

At least you have recognised it and are trying though.

Oh and want to add ex admitted he liked knowing people were waiting for him. I guess it made the silly man think he was important

One day I decided to have a little walk up the road at the time he was due. He was sitting in his car in a side street. He still arrived 30 minutes late.

What a fucker, thank goodness you divorced him!

For me it’s all about control and lack of respect. If you respect someone you will meet them at the time you agree to. If you don’t respect them it really won’t matter if you’re half an hour late. You’ll assume they’ll be there waiting and therefore you will believe you are in control.

I definitely believe this is some people's mentality. My response is to wait 15 minutes and then leave / go somewhere else. I appreciate that's hard with exes and children and contact time. But it seems to me that after 15 minutes it would have been worth taking the children out in the car to the shops to get a pint of milk, and letting him wait on your doorstep when he deigned to show up.

Brown paper - sure. And actually, as I said earlier, I was actually the party who unilaterally had this approach foisted one because I used always to be on time- and still am if I am going to piss someone off otherwise. But as it turns out I kind of prefer it. It means I don't cry if I'm lost and getting more lost by the minute any more. I have lost the moral high ground but gained an appreciation for friends' understanding.

Because they have stopped to drop something off with someone who needs it? Or spent 5 minutes listening to someone who is having a really difficult time rather than rushing off and ignoring them? Or made time to fit in a visit to a friend or relative who is unwell or do a job for someone else?

😂 This is comedy gold.

In fact, they've spent the last half hour faffing over lost keys and misplaced nectar cards.

Sounds like me Waitrose. That's exactly how a friend described my morning routine.

I do try and that actually probably makes me less tolerant of lateness! Because I have put So Many strategies in place that I feel like if I’ve tried that hard everyone else should too. I don’t mind if there’s no consequences really but I hate it if it means dinner is over done or we are running late for something like a wedding where being early is VASTLY VASTLY better than being late.

My father has actually missed planes before and would do things like start painting the house 30 mins before we needed to leave so I am fighting nature and nature here!!

longestlurkerever
sleepstanding I think we would get on!
Me too, I'd bring a book though 😂😂

Nacreous that sounds like me, my brain always trying to do a million things or one thing to the exclusion of else. I'm always working on getting better but I'm simply not

I remember reading about "bumping" on airlines, and how it has developed to factor in the fact that so many people miss flights. I found this quite bizarre--how on earth do people manage to miss flights? Reading this thread, however, I am beginning to see how it happens.

Never missed one yet. But I am ridiculously early for them.

It doesn't really work well either if both of you normally run late.
My ex would also start having a shower once all the rest of us were in the car waiting to set off. I was not much better - if I was left waiting I would have to find something to do, and then have to finish it before we could go.

If we went on out somewhere - shopping or visiting a place - we had to stick together like glue. If we tried to separate and meet somewhere later, it always ended in disaster. We would both forget the time and get there early or late, neither of us had the patience to wait there longer than a few seconds before we had to dash off to do something else.
This was on the days before mobile phones - it was a disaster. It could take 2 or 3 hours to meet up again.
Neither of us enjoyed it, but the only way to avoid it was to stay within sight of each other.

Never missed one yet. But I am ridiculously early for them.

So when a deadline is personally important you are capable of making the effort not to be late?

Can everyone stop jumping on Sleeping please and read her thread? A lot of us do think she has an underlying condition.

I'm one of those annoying ppl who are late for everything. It's not that I don't care, in fact I find myself stressing out almost daily from running late. I just can't seem to estimate correctly how much time I need. Say for example I'm going out with DH & we have table booked at certain time, he will say "we need to leave at 6:30pm, to get to restaurant for 7pm". I'll give myself an hour to get ready but I guess in reality I'll need longer. Or an hour will be enough, so then I start doing something else in between, thinking I've got enough time. Then I don't account for the getting out the door stuff, like finding right handbag, putting stuff I need in, getting shoes/coat, shitting all windows/locking doors/lights on etc, which adds another 10-15 mins on. So then we leave at 6:45pm, which makes us get there at 7:15pm, hence 15 mins late.
I'm pretty organised generally but honestly always underestimate time. It's something I'm trying to work on.

Just to add, if I'm meeting a friend in a public place & they'll be on their own, I tell myself that the meeting starts say 1/2 hr earlier, so I'm there on time or early. I wouldn't leave a friend on their own. You'd think that I could just do this for everything but I couldn't manage this multiple times, every single day.

No Pan, for Holiday, Wedding etc I would book out the whole day. It'd totally incomparable to coffee.

Not, paranoid father.
check in for flights is 3 hours. My Dad could never get there at 2 hrs 40 for example, we'd have to be even earlier than that.
So we once had a 9 hour flight with gates opening 3 hours before. Coach options were to get there 2 hrs 30 or 4 hr 30 before gate. Dad picked the earlier one. So we had a 3 hour coach transfer before that and were at the coach depot 30 minutes before it was due. We built contingencies into every single step, nothing went wrong so we were crazy early for everything and it was one of the most horiffic journeys of my life, with a 4 hour transfer at the other end.

If you said your wedding waa at 12 I'd work out the time to get there for 11.30 and then catch the earlier train. So I'd potentially be an hour or more early. I'd find coffee or something.
If you said meet me down the local coffee shop at 12 I wouldn't book out the entire morning to do a 20 minute journey. So, as previously stated, whilst I would aim for early to get there in time, there's more chance of an error impacting on arrival time.

It isn't hard to comprehend that you plan more for one event in a day where your going straight from home than a day full or little bits. I also know my friends are like longest and that they'd expect me to be 10 minutes late over getting a taxi to be in time if it was just a coffee, although I've done the opposite too when there's been a start time for a show etc.

PhilomenaButterfly thank you. I opened myself up to the criticism by not being able to let go / attempting a light reply but I know you've tried to stick up for me a couple of times and I do appreciate it 🌸

You're welcome Sleeping. They say SN excepted and then flame you. Have you found your keys yet?

I think what people are struggling with is other people saying they wouldn’t want to be early meeting for coffee because then they’d have to sit waiting which is exactly what the person who you are meeting is doing when you are late! In fact if they are a punctual person then they may well have arrived a little early themselves to ensure they were on time - something unthinkable for some on here.
By saying oh yes I can manage to be early when it’s important to me or when the person I’m meeting will be annoyed with me if I’m late it only reinforces that it is only your own convenience that matters to you and your friend/relatives wasted time waiting isn’t your problem so you don’t care.

And saying you don’t want to get there too early because then you’d be waiting around is nothing to do with sn. You could be on time but would rather be late and leave whoever you are meeting waiting than even the possibility of being early. That’s not a result of sn it’s a result of selfishness.

PhilomenaButterfly no, nor my amazing cow key fob. Spare key is now on a bright pink narwhal keyring on an extender cord. Doctor die to call for a chat Monday.

PorkFlute yes but I didn't say I hate being early. And yes clearly some people are selfish and some people aren't, but assuming every one who is repeatedly late is a selfish arse who doesn't care doesn't help any one, especially when some people who have additional needs might not realise anything but their failings

YY Phil it does make me laugh (when I'm not having a shit day) at how people on these threads fall over themselves to say oh of course SN is the exception, but then go on to explain how the SN is an excuse

Or how a person with SN should rearrange their lives so that they can conform to X social expectation. But would then probably froth at the person not being able to manage to shower or help their child with homework or eat non-junk food.

I give up PorkFlute.

Good luck with the doctor Sleeping . 😊