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?

You see.... if I knew I was prone to being late, I would literally add on one hour to getting ready. An hour hopefully not needed, but there so I wouldn't be late.

If you’re someone who knows you’re always late, do you warn people about that when making arrangements with them?

YANBU - it's bloody annoying when people are like this. So inconsiderate.

Yanbu. I really hate being late and I eventually stop making plans with people who are habitually late.

It annoys me when late people say prompt people find it easy to be on time. I don’t find it easy. I put a lot of effort into it. Because I don’t want to keep people waiting as I find it so disrespectful. Texting someone to tell them, 30mins after you’re supposed to have met, that you’ve only just got out of bed, or the shower, or you’re making a packed lunch or whatever, so you’re running late, is just saying you couldn’t care less that I’ve put in effort to be on time, been waiting for you for the last 30 minutes and probably got another 30mins to wait, because my time is of no importance to you.

Why are some people on here assuming organisation comes naturally? It doesn’t! You have to want to do it to be on bloody time!! Lateness is the height of rudeness.

Dh is a late one. It is infuriating. In the mornings before work he dithers and faffs and loses things. No concept of get things organised the night before.

I’ve left without him a few times.

On the way home from work I pick up ds and then pick up dh. If he’s not at the car by 545 (he finishes at 530) we go home. And he’s makes his own way.

I worked out once I spend on average 3.5 hours a week waiting for him. 10 minutes here 15 minutes there. No.

So HugoBearsMummy, leaving the house pristine and spotless, is more important to you, than not being late?

but I have a problem with leaving the house unless everything is pristine & spotless & I often do things that could wait till later... it's not always as cut and dry as people not giving a shit.

I'd say that is the definition of not giving a shit, because you know it makes you late, that the person you're supposed to be meeting will be hanging around waiting for you, yet you still do it.

Ribbonsonabox People dont notice it because they take it for granted but you do have an innate sense of units of time passing.

But we keep an eye on the time, we don't just "know" that 20 minutes have passed, we keep checking the clock, so it is a learnt skill. Children don't have it, they have to learn it.
Also, everybody experiences time going by faster or slower, depending on whether they're happy, or bored, or dreading something.

grannieanne 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

So, you don't give a shit, just because someone didn't die? Nice.

I get the ire about people who literally don't care. But it is a bit harsh to be just as angry with people who have difficulties and can't help it. And yes, of course, it's possible to pull everything together for an important and/or rare one off and over time learn the routines for things like work/school (with more errors than most, though, while getting there) but the thing is you can justify writing off an entire day for things like that, not so with a coffee/dinner date. And to be frank yes I could put the same amount of effort in and be on time, but I can't do that AND attend to every other thing that random MNers who have never lived my life have decided are necessary for me not to be "rude". Sometimes it's a case of prioritising and other things come in front of being on time.

TBH, I don't last very long as a friend with anyone who is overly bothered by lateness and in the bigger picture - that's fine by me.

BTW, if you do have time management difficulties it's not usually the case that you haven't bothered to try and learn how. We do also try to learn those things, many many times, the problem is that it doesn't stick. So please forgive us if we sometimes come across that we don't believe other people have had to work at those habits. We forget that part because we have usually spent so long trying to learn it we have forgotten when the beginning of it was and it does very much seem like it "magically" sticks for others. The thing is that in wider society these really are considered very basic skills so it is extremely frustrating to find them very difficult to master.

A genuine question for those people on the thread who say their lateness is due to difficulties processing time and planning.

Why don't these difficulties as often result in you being too early?

Lateness is so rude and inconsiderate. As everyone has said, why is their time more important than yours? Why should you bother to get somewhere on time just to hang around and wait for them!!? Very annoying. I have a friend who does this every time we meet for dinner, as a result I never leave on time anymore and either turn up at the same time as her or later! Thankfully she takes it well as she knows her lateness annoys me.

They do result in me being too early! But that doesn't usually piss people off, so nobody notices.

I’m always either half hour early or half hour late. It’s not done on purpose so why whinge?

I think people who find planning easy really don't get it and assume because they find it easy, it's just lack of effort on behalf of anyone that struggles.

Nobody finds it easy, normal people will check things like Google maps, the weather forecast or traffic reports before travelling. They will pick outfits, pack bags and google ticket prices so they know how much cash they need and save time on the day. They text as soon as they realize they'll be late (or at the meet up time) rather than well after they are late like chronically late people in my life seem to do.

There are all sorts of reasons people can be late and not all of them are within the person's control.

On any one occasion? Sure. I arranged to meet a friend last week. Normally takes 20 minutes to get there, but was blocked in by a builder’s lorry delivering stuff to a house in the village. So it took 30 mins and I was 10 minutes late. No big deal.

But if I’m 30 minutes (+) late every time? Totally different scenario....

And I am sick of people making excuses like they have problems with misjudging time or 'anxiety.'

Do they also have these 'issues' when they have to catch a train, or a plane for a holiday abroad, or if they have an appointment that they have had to wait several months for (like a hospital consultation or dental appointment?)

You can bet your bottom dollar they don't.

Same question when it comes to cinema times, theatre shows, and job interviews. I bet they manage to get to THEM on time.

Umm yes I have been late for/missed trains, planes, job interviews, Drs appointments etc. I almost didn’t make it to the office to hand in my masters dissertation! I’ve been this way my whole life. Dyslexic. Really struggle with telling the time and time keeping. I honestly try so hard to be on time for stuff. It’s stresses me to the point of tears regularly despite being late 30s I’m still late for things. I try to plan around it and don’t book appointments/sign up for groups for say, first thing in the morning. I try to work out how long each thing will take me and work backwards as to when I need to start getting ready (my DH who is a human clock/calculator helped me develop that strategy).

I’m seriously already so so stressed about how I’m going to get DD to school on time every morning come this September.... as she got older it got a little easier getting us both out of the house but since DS came along adding a baby into the mix means we are always late again

I always apologise profusely and usually look like a hot mess/close to tears when I turn up so hopefully people don’t think it’s because I don’t give a shit/up my own arse or whatever

Lateness is just rude. It drives me mad too so no, YANBU.

And it’s not because I’m not organised! If you ever met me or came to my house you would see that I am basically like Monica from friends! I despise mess and chaos and like to have things organised probably to an obsessional degree but I also just cannot keep track of time and am always late even though I hate this about myself.

Absofrigginlootly

Great post.

My son is also dyslexic, he has regular detentions for lateness, he really can’t help it, he has little concept of time. I don’t see any other condition punished .... and guess what? It doesn’t make him early!

It’s one of the few disabilities that isn’t truely understood and people have little or no tolerance for them as a group.

I appreciate your honest and personal take in your condition.

Some of us get it! We know he’s late, we give him an earlier time so he’s not over ‘late’ we make exceptions. Because we live himforbwho he is and what he offers, he’s everyone’s best friend and worth waiting for.

I hate lateness, just rude as suggests your time is more important than the other persons however I know that some people are just rubbish at being on time. DH and I have been together 14 years and he is only on time as I make sure he is. He genuinely doesn't leave enough time to get anywhere, he'll think that X venue is 30 mins away so plan to leave home 30 mins before. Obviously not taking into account getting into the car, parking,getting out of the car, getting to a gig then showing tickets, getting to seats. It would easily make him late by 20 mins! I wpuld arrive half hour early

@GreenTulips I did not realise that was a symptom of dyslexia,DH is dyslexic so maybe that makes sense. I do find it odd that he doesn't understand this by his age of 52 though, but maybe he does have a genuine excuse.

@ReleaseTheBats I said in a previous post it often does as that's the only way I'm ever on time... I've been 9 hours early to catch flights in order I dont miss them... if I want to see a film I make sure it's in the evening and I have the whole day free and I go out in the morning and spend the day loitering near the cinema. This is not achievable on a regular basis though because I do not have whole days to devote to getting to places often. It's actually almost as inconvenient as being very late it's just that no one gets angry.

A lot of people just dont get that it really IS an innate sense. Of course time is a mathematical construct and you are taught it but for most people they just get it and it slots into place with their natural understanding of time passing. Obviously that is a spectrum so some people find it easier than others... but some people find that it makes absolutely no sense at all.
As I've said it's not about checking the clock.. that involves having a sense of time doesnt it in order to think 'it seems like a fair amount of time has passed I better check the clock'... if you have no sense of that time passing you will not check the clock in time. Unless you are stood directly in front of a clock or looking at your watch continuously. So people who are checking the clock know internally that some time has passed... I find it hard to understand why people will not accept that this is a processing issue.
You would not have this attitude about people who find it very difficult to read written language. You understand that it's not an issue of intelligence that for some people reading is very difficult as they dont have the natural instinct for it... they may come to love reading very much but they will always need longer to work out what is written in front of them.
You would not have this attitude about someone who was colour blind.... you wouldn't say 'well I see those colours you must be lying just try harder'

For some people this is the case with numerical sequences and units. That can be part of many other conditions that people have.
Until people actually accept that this really exist all these people are going to carry on being late all the time and being very stressed and down on themselves because they wont know how to deal with it.

Yes the colour blind analogy is perfect.

It’s like a sense of rhythm. My DH is a human calculator/talking clock (seriously!) but he genuinely cannot hear the beat/rhythm in a song or piece of music. Even if I tap it out for him alongside it in time. His brain just does not compute!! It baffles me because to me music, sound, rhythm is so intrinsic it just flows through me I can’t not hear it. But he can do long division and large multiplications in his head within seconds and knows what the time is without even checking his watch which to me I just watch dumbfounded

l have a friend who, when her children were younger, and we lived close to one another, was invariably late when we arranged to meet up. l'd get there first, pay for parking, then hang around waiting for her. The excuses were along the lines of "XXXX was crying, and l had to find out why." (XXXX was about 14 at the time, and her dad was at home too). "l got stuck behind a tractor." (This is why l used to leave home early.)
The straw that broke the camel's back was when she was 45 minutes late meeting me. l'd arrived a bit early having given myself plenty of time to allow for traffic/delays etc, so by the time she actually turned up l'd wasted 1 hour of parking time. She lived about 20 minutes drive away from where we'd agreed to meet, so no way could she have left on time. l was furious and she knew it. This person is a teacher. l don't imagine she rocked up late for work using these excuses.

I found out I have dyslexia in my 30s. I have spent most of my life massively struggling to put a string of tasks together and working out how long they will take. I am that mum who was notoriously late for the school run (these days I delegate that task to someone else, one of the best moves I have made). Every day was started with massive stress, agitation, anxiety over getting there on time. It affects me a lot. Driving somewhere I haven't been before gives me a massive sense of dread. I have techniques in place to help but they don't always work out.

When I first went on medication for my ADHD I was astonished to find that I stopped losing time - as in a normal state of being for me would be that I'd do a couple of things, eat breakfast, feed DC and suddenly it was 3pm and I would have no idea where the day had gone. On the medication I was finding that I'd look at the clock and it would only be 9am, I'd already have done stuff, and then later I'd look and it would only be 11.30 and I had time to start preparing lunch rather than realising it should have been hours ago. It started to make sense to me how people manage to fit so many things into their days which I'd always found impossible. Unfortunately the medication will only do so much and I still have 30 years of terrible habits and unhealthy coping mechanisms to un-learn, but it's a start. That must have been a huge factor in my lateness.