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.

Yes so what you are saying flights and hospital appointments are worth making the effort for. Getting your kids to school on time or meeting a friend on time (or within 5 minutes of when you said you'd be there) doesn't matter.

I’m saying the consequences of being late for the first two are very different to being late for something without a hard deadline. It’s really not that difficult a statement to interpret.

Then if someone else is late I worry that I have the wrong day, the wrong place, they have been in an accident

Yes this was me in the days before mobile phones! I think people come even later now because they can text you. At least you know you are in the right place, it is the right day and they are ok if they text you :)

I’m saying the consequences of being late for the first two are very different to being late for something without a hard deadline

Yes so the first two matter and your friends don't. It is very easy to interpret, as you say. Presumably you'd be miffed if you arrived 30 mins late and your "friend" had gone home again or gone off somewhere else because they'd received a better offer while they'd been waiting for you.

That just makes it sound even more selfish. You can be on time for flights and appointments because being late would inconvenience you. If it’s just other people you’re inconveniencing it’s not a problem.

My DM was not on time for work or anything where it mattered either. It makes no difference at all, she would turn up for work an hour late and wonder why people were annoyed. She worked for herself for a long time because of this. We used to wake her up on our way out of the door for school so that she could go to work

My SIL used to be continually late for things we'd organised until the day I was sat in a pub waiting for her and had enough. I left after she was 30 minutes late and went home. I'm not wasting my time waiting on people who can't be arsed to make an effort to be on time. She's never been late since! If there's a good reason for one off lateness I don't mind but I refuse to wait around on people faffing or because they can't organise themselves to be on time.

The folk I know who are persistently late for me are very rarely late for work related appointments or personal appointments which involve them spending money eg beauty appointments, life coaching etc etc.

From this I conclude that if they think it is important they will be on time.
But I'm not important! I generally stop arranging to meet people who are persistently late and the friendship drifts.

After reading this thread I'm going to make a much bigger effort to be on time for things.

With me its a mixture of things, i'm one of those people that's never chronically late, but i'm always 5-10 minutes late... my friends are used to me, lol.

1. Bad time management... I just really struggle to factor in enough time to get ready.. I feel like i'm giving myself more than enough, yet still always find myself rushing and leaving later than I intended. I do have ASD myself and I also have short term memory issues so I can forget stuff easily, and end up having to turn around and go fetch them!

2. Disabled child. DS is autistic, so if I have to get anywhere with him, not only am I trying to manage my own organisation issues, but i'm also having to micro-manage him as he HAS to be prompted into everything... he is also extremely likely to suddenly either meltdown, decide he NEEEDS something RIGHT NOW, or loses something he had in his hand 5 minutes ago that we have to look for.. or at the door randomnly decide he needs the loo.

I do try and factor in extra time, I know getting ready for school in the morning takes about 45 minutes, so I give us an hour.. the drive takes 20, so I give us 30...etc, but I suddenly find those extra minutes being eaten up with either mine, or his, difficulties!

I was always chronically early for everything. I was that person who, if I had an appointment at 2pm and a train that would get me there by 1:45pm, I’d get the earlier train in case it was delayed.

Now I have twins I still try to be early but don’t have as much time to waste being unnecessarily early, but something always seems to happen - eg we were totally on time for something the other day until the car seat straps decided to jam and it took 20 minutes to get it sorted. Or both boys decide to do massive craps literally between the front door and the car and then fight like feral animals when you try to change them.

I’m now the late person I’ve never been before. I hate it.

I have dyspraxia (and suspected undiagnosed inattentive ADHD but no adult diagnosing around here) and time seems to swim for me. Sometimes it seems to stretch out and other times it compresses. I can lose great lumps of it with no idea of what has happened. I have no concept of how long anything takes. I tick things off in my mind in an effort to keep on top of getting ready, eg 1 knickers, 2 bra, 3 and 4 socks etc. And then I'll have forgotten something I need to take and I meet every tractor in the county.

If I have to take a plane or train, it's an eternity of anxiety for at least a day beforehand, double-checking documents and luggage, sitting watching the clock on the bus and obsessively checking my itinerary to see that I've got it right, while my stomach ties itself into knots. The same with hospital appointments.

A friend once arrived an hour late for my birthday meal. All the tables were gone so there was no where to sit her large family and the rest of us had already ordered. She phoned to say just another 15 mins or whatever and I said there wasn’t much point coming now as there’d be no where to sit and we were actually going home soon.

She got upset and later text saying her kids were upset as they were looking forward to it. I had to stress that it wasn’t me that upset them.

I've got a friend who is always late, since we were in school. She can be up to 2 hours late, I rarely meet her anymore because it is so frustrating. Last time I organised to meet her at 12pm. She turned up at 1:08. I remember exactly because I had spent the whole time struggling to keep my ds who has ASD occupied. So when she got there I stayed with her for half hour out of politeness then left.
She's never been a morning person and stays up quite late at night. She doesn't seem to actually start getting ready to leave until the time she is meant to be somewhere. She gets to work on time I presume but anything else, nope.

Mymycherrypie, I'm so glad you made your point to her. Are you still friends?

Of the two people I know who are consistently late for things, one of them is just a bit stuck in her own world, easily distracted (I'll just do this little job before I go, I'll just make this quick phone call, ooh what's that on the radio...) and when I'm with her she does things to the last minute, underestimating the time left to get somewhere so I can see why it happens...but I have to keep reminding her we do NOT have time to "just" do this or that. However, she would never miss a bus or a flight so heaven knows how she can do that but not other things.

The other is an arrogant self important type, who would never ever be late for an important business meeting, but picking her kids up from school or clubs? Nah, the teachers have nothing better to do, they can wait for me to finish my call and mind my kids for free. We are not friends any more

If I found I was becoming late for things, I'd set the time on my phone and watch 10 mins fast or so. I used to do that for years and it worked. Can you even do that with a smartphone though? Would it just correct the time?

I had a big falling out with a friend recently about being her late all the time and I said that I found it disrespectful of my time. Her response was that she absolutely had no intent to disrespect me and it was all about her. So I was being unreasonable to feel disrespected as there was no intent to disrespect me.

Which I think is super self absorbed because she doesn't even give the slightest thought to how I feel about being made to wait for her all the time, even though I have repeatedly told her that it really pisses me off. Especially if she is giving me a lift and her lateness makes ME late too.

I simply don't bother making any arrangements to see this friend any more, I have told her exactly why, and she has concluded that this means my mental health is poor and I am depressed 🙄 because she does not think her own behaviour is unreasonable...

Regardless of the rights or wrongs of poor time keeping I think that incompatibility on this issue can dictate whether a friendship can last.

I don't get it either tbh. All these things that people say add up to all the time that it takes well they don't take that much tine . It takes seconds to put shoes on. Seconds to pee etc it just does not account for the length of time they end up being late.

I'm really disorganised myself but the bus times and train times etc are online to check and double check and triple check whenever you want. It never makes sense to get the later bus and worry when you could get the one 20 mins before. Somewhere along the line they decide they'd rather be waited for than do the waiting.

If I knew someone genuinely struggled and missed flights etc and it wasn't just me if be sympathetic I'd assume that's not a choice but even if being late isnt a choice, hitting costa for a coffee on the way or popping to a shop is

We don't have a car and rely on public transport. I am the least organised person, work, uni for self and Kids at school and now college have never been late, May have to dash to school for 5 year old but never late. On my phone I have different apps for trains, bus and also the bus times for the buses at the stops I use. Since kids were young (now 16, 17 and 19) have always maintained sense of punctuality - I haven't needed to remind, or wake kids up since they were in year 6.

I am always early, I hate being late for anything. That's not to say I'm never late but it's usually for things out of my control like the time I got stuck stationary on the motorway for 3 hours because of an accident.

I just don't understand people who are late for the same thing every week. So school for example. I have 3 kids who are away with the faries at the best of times so I factor in extra time to get them going. I mean what are these people doing. If they've got themselves dressed, kids dressed, teeth and hair done, bags together etc every day for the last however many years what else are they doing? Why do they lose their keys? Or forget to pack the bags? Or say to themselves "I've been late every day for 4 years but today will be different, but I'm still just gonna stop and wash my hair 5 minutes before I have to leave"????

My sil is always late. She used to live 45 minutes from us so if we go to see her, with our 3 primary school age kids we would be ready to leave half an hour before we actually needed to leave and would always factor in extra travel time. Yet we've had her due here at say 2pm, at 2.45pm we're ringing to see where she is only to find she hasn't left yet as she slept in, or decided to walk the dogs, or lost her keys or whatever. Typically we just tell her not to bother then. Many times we've rung and actually woken her up, because she never thinks to set an alarm is the girl can sleep for 24 hours straight if not disturbed.

She now has a baby of 4 months old and lives 3 hours away, tbh we never expect her to be anywhere close to on time. She was due here at 4pm a couple of weeks ago, arrived at 9.30pm. We give up.

ADHD. Google 'time blindness'.

People who are always 30 minutes late, or always late to the same things - its just not that important to them.

I have a consistently late friend and after many years I worked out that when I said "Come round at 6.30" he heard "Begin to start thinking about getting ready to leave the house at 6.30". I can't begin to explain it.

I'm another of the anxiously-punctual type. I'd say it was genetic (my father was the same) except I have a cousin who was once 3 hours late for Christmas lunch. I was ready to kill and spent the Christmas unable to even look at her.

@Satsumaeater

back in the days when airlines were nice and they booked me on a later flight without charging me extra. Just imagine that now

Don't want to derail the thread, but do you remember how much you had paid for the flight. In 'those' days, when airlines rebooked you without quibble, the flights costs a lot more and the profit margin was a lot higher, so airlines could afford to rebook.