To think always being late isn’t a quirky personality trait

[CorianderDestroysFamilies]

I’m meeting my friend today and I already know she’ll be late. Normally she’ll message me at the time we’re supposed to be meeting saying she’s just about to leave so I’ll be stood waiting for 15 minutes, one time she messaged saying she would be an hour late I was already at the meeting point with my DC so it was a waste of all our time.
Anyway I’ve just seen another funny meme about how someone will still be in the bath at the time they should be going out and how hilarious it all is. I just think things like this normalise lateness and justify people like it’s some sort of quirky, unavoidable character flaw when it’s actually really rude and makes people like me less likely to want to see you. So AIBU?

@broomstickoflove exactly! And for me it only got better when I acknowledged that I just cannot understand time naturally.
People on here are getting exasperated with people doing the same things over and over and getting the same result and never being on time... but in the same breath not really believing that processing problems really exist and that if that person just did all the things they do to be on time then they would too be on time... which is encouraging people who have processing difficulties to just keep doing the same thing over and over!! It's not wonder it's so difficult to actually do anything about it.

All my life I've been in trouble and called lazy and entitled and told I was being stupid on purpose to wind people up.. I imagine this is the same story for lots of people with ADD and/or dyscalculia and Dysparxia. People cannot fathom that someones mind just does not work in the same way as their own.
It's so hurtful and demoralizing. And it does lead you to just keep trying in the same way in the hope one day it will all just click because you believe people when they say you just arent trying hard enough....and of course it never does click...

I can imagine people go through years of this just like I did. I'm much better now because I realised that actually I cannot process time at all and I need to factor that in rather than just hope that this time it's all gonna work... but it's taken me until my thirties to get there...
The pressure people put on you because they simply cannot understand that you dont think like they do is unbelievable.

They will demand you make precise arrangements with them 'let's meet at such and such a place at 9.45am' and when you are younger you just agree because technically it SHOULD be fine it's fine for everyone else to manage so surely you can do it too?
And of course you inevitably let everyone down and they are all very angry and you cant really explain why it's happened.

It took me till my thirties to be assertive enough to say 'I'm sorry I cant make specific plans with you because I find it incredibly difficult to be anywhere at a specific time, what would be better is if you just go about your day and I will contact you when I am at a certain place to find out where you are if you are still out and I will come and find you.' That's how I do social activities.
Some people still will not accept this and get angry anyway because they think you are just stupid and of course you can get there at an exact time....

If I have to take my son to school I have to plan it down to every movement. Its pauses that get me lost. I have to plan it down to switching on the kettle, moving the cup, opening the cupboard as I have times all these things previously with a timer... if i hesitate it all goes to shit though because i have literally no way of knowing how long the pause was. I have no natural sense of how much time has passed at all.
I feel time passing in emotional terms. So if I'm happy it feels fast, bored it feels slow.. but that's it. I dont also have the internal sense of units of measurement to balance that out.
I think most people are all on a spectrum with this so some people will have more difficulty than others.

For example if you stood in a room alone, with no clock for a certain amount of time and were asked to guess how much time you had been there afterwards. Some people would be much more accurate than others. I would have absolutely no idea.

Being late isn’t cute, it’s rude. It says ‘my life and my time are more Important than yours’

There are a lot of skills that go into being on time. People who naturally have these skills wouldn't perceive all the steps that are needed. They just do them.

When I started trying to work out how to be on time I had to break it all down.

- you need to be able to work out how long it takes to get somewhere

Once again, people who are on time know all this. They do all these things. That's how they manage to be on time!

Being punctual isn't something that some people are just magically born knowing how to do. It's a life skill, and like all other life skills, it has to be learned, and practised.

And things that are routine are easier to deal with.. so school runs and getting to work. You can time individual tasks then try and do them in the exact same way etc.. if you do that enough times you can be pretty accurate. But with social events that's nigh on impossible. So I do not meet up with people at exact times... if someone is somewhere doing something I say I may pop along at some point and join in.
If I do something like go and see a film i make sure it's in the evening and I've got nothing else on and i just go outside in the morning when I'm ready and make sure I'm within a few mins walking distance of the cinema and generally loiter about till I see people going in.... (theres a cafe next to my local cinema so I sit in there with a book). Things like flights again I will only book for the night or evening and then in my head I assign the whole of the day to catching that flight, make sure I'm at the airport sometimes ridiculously early like 9 hours... but at least I've caught the flight.
This is if I'm alone.
My husband is actually really good at being on time so I can rely on him if hes with me and he will get me places on time.

@AnnaCommena it actually IS something people are born with. People dont notice it because they take it for granted but you do have an innate sense of units of time passing. Not all people have this and it's not something that can be taught.

Yanbu, being constantly late is very rude and annoying.

However I don't think it's always a sign that the person doesn't give a shit. I certainly can be, but some people really do have a poor perception of time.

I've been guilty of being late, I definitely don't do it deliberately, it makes me stressed and embarrassed, but I am bad a judging time.

It sounds so obvious, like I need to leave the house at 7.30, I'm ready for 7.30, but I've totally underestimated the time it takes to get everyone's shoes on, an unexpected trip to the toilet, grab the bags, load the car, by which point I am of course 10 minutes late.

It took for me to read about it online to realise where I was going wrong, I've managed now to be on time, but even now it's hard to break the habit.

When I leave actually on time I always imagine I'm going to be really early.

I do think mobiles have enabled the chronically late people - it's too easy now to message someone and say "sorry, running late, meet you in the bar" or whatever. You used to have to make more of an effort to be there in time when the alternative was leaving your friend standing around waiting for you with no way of contacting you.

Having said that, the worst timekeeper I ever knew was at uni in the late (!) 90s. We would agree to call for her at, say, 7pm to go out, and we could guarantee that when we got there she wouldn't even have started getting ready. We'd then have to all perch on her bed while she got into the shower, washed her hair, dried her hair, faffed about choosing an outfit, put on her makeup, changed her mind about her outfit, and so on... sometimes we were waiting for her for an hour or more. She made no effort to hurry up and seemed oblivious to the fact that everyone was barely concealing their irritation. Inevitably, she didn't get invited out very much after the first few times that happened.

This thread has inspired me a bit, I have realised I'm just about on time for routine things as I know it takes me x time to get ready and leave the house.

So going to work is fine but meeting people and other things I dont do every day is much much harder. In my head I think oh that 15 minutes away so I will start getting into the car 20 min before. But I've actually not factored in 5 min getting the kids to put their shoes on and going for a wee, and 5 min getting them sorted at the other end, etc.

I'm going to make more of an effort to really try and think about all the things I need to do to get somewhere, and then add some time on for things not going to plan. And stop myself doing just one more job before leaving

It is not cute, it is very rude. I echo what others have said on here.

Me. Always late. Have a professional job. Just can't process time properly. Brain doesn't compute. I know, logically, that time has passed, but it just doesn't register that it's no longer the time I last saw on the clock.

It's an annoying failing. I hate getting trains, etc as i know there's every chance I'll miss it.

My friends and family know and understand, which is very much appreciated.

I hate hate hate lateness.

One friend was always 30 minutes late. Once I decided to be 30 minutes late also so I wasn't hanging around. The ONE TIME she managed to get there when we were supposed to meet. Bloody phoned me up, kicking off because I wasn't there.

A current friend is consistently late. I park on a timed car park now and always make sure I have some things to do wherever we are meeting. Shopping, library or whatever. Then when the time is up. If she is an hour late then we only have half an hour.

I have anxiety (diagnosed and receiving treatment) and the above helps me manage by feeling I have a bit more control of the situation. I find it hard to also get there late, also due to my anxiety. Friends know about it so it is even more hurtful as they know the feelings it causes me to have.

To echo most people, its rude and arrogance to drift in when you feel like it. If the meeting time is 6 pm then you are there for 6 pm. Not 6:25pm, not a text at 6:10 pm to say ”just leaving” because my text back will say ”so am I. Going back home again.”

It's not funny, not a cute quirk, its just rude.

My PILs are always late. They seem to think arranged times are optional. They were almost late for our wedding ceremony and they ALWAYS blame each other. They are inexplicably late for dinner reservations, and even missed DS's birthday lunch last year because they rocked up when we'd all finished.

I find it incredibly rude. Last week they were supposed to pick up DS at 10am. He was all ready, shoes on bag packed and looking out of the window. They rocked up half an hour later by which time he'd had a meltdown (he's 3). They'd even chosen the time!

I would never treat anyone like that. I'm always mortified if I'm late for anything. I can't understand why they aren't. It's not a personality trait it's a character flaw.

My friends are all like this and egg each other on with it. I'm now always late myself, although still always the first as I never know how late to be.

I once got to a meeting place to receive a message from one friend I was meeting that she was just at the gym. The first person there was 45 mins late. The gym girl was 4 hours late.

If you have processing difficulties, your friends and family will know that and will help and will make allowances. But if you are an adult, you should have the ability to realise you have a problem and put strategies in place to deal with it. That might be relying on your partner or setting mutiple alarms or writing a timetable for yourself (and I bet you do these things when it's important enough to you, like a job interview or getting a plane).

As the pp said, it can be horrible for people waiting around for you, not knowing if they are in the right place or they've got the right time or just thinking they've been stood up.

Oh and loved my birthday when I booked a restaurant for 7pm and several people arrived after 10.

@BambooB I'm the same. I like to have the time to sit with with a cup of tea and be leisurely
If I'm running "late" which is usually "5 mins early or on time" I ring my manager panicking and he's like "Er you're not due in for 35 mins?"
Me "yes but I MIGHT be late"

Oh and I plan. A LOT
So I know it takes me (example times!) 45 mins to get ready in the morning
I'll get up 1hr 15 before I need to leave which gives me 15 mins to sit with a brew and 15 mins contingency
Then I leave, if the drive takes 15 mins, I allow 25 plus 10 for parking and so on and so on

For work I need to be in the building at 7.45am, if I'm not parked up at 7.30am then I consider I'm "late"

Guilty, I'm late for just about everything... it will probably go on my headstone, 'could't even be arsed to get buried on time' but nobody died due to my lifelong lack of being able to organise shit

Just be on time!

Your time is notmore important than

Not more important than mine

Well she was late again - 25 minutes but inspired by the responses I left to meet our other friend and said she could just catch up with us because I didn’t want my other friend to be stood on her own when she was on time too.
I’ll accept it is a negative personality trait and I think the main thing that’s pissed me off today was seeing her share stuff on Facebook and Instagram about being late all the time so she knows she does it and doesn’t seem likely to change! I’m going to start stating an earlier meeting time or just tell her to catch up if there’s a few of us going.

My H is ALWAYS late. Mostly unapologetically. I absolutely hate it. It very much fits his personality to say that he values his time over anyone else's. He's the same with checking out of hotel rooms too, he interprets the check out time as flexible and will leave the room whenever he feels like it. I get so anxious/angry about it that I pack up myself and DCs and leave on time and just leave him there. It's SO rude and shows SUCH a lack of respect for the people waiting for him to leave to be able to do their job.

People have different personalities, skills and abilities. Being on time might be easy for some but that doesn’t mean it is for everyone. DH has a natural sense of time he can accurately estimate how much time has passed and how long things take. I’d love to have that as my life would be a lot less stressful but I just don’t. I’m a lot better than when I was younger and have strategies which help but I’m still late for things - I travel regularly with work and find it really stressful trying to make sure I get there on time for the train, plus I have a really crap sense of direction so struggle to find places.

I definitely don’t think my fine time is more important than everyone else’s though.