To think consistent lateness is pretty rude ?

[Username109876]

Every time I arrange to meet with friends, "sorry might be a bit late" virtually every time. Ok it's not hours, but at least 10-20 minutes.
I have only been late for work once in several years because my alarm didn't go off, otherwise I am always on time.

Same with meeting friends, if we arrange a time, I get there for that time.

It's just very annoying and it feels like they don't respect your time. At work my employers know I am reliable, but with friends it feels like they just take it for granted.

Anyone else feel this way ? I know sometimes things can come up, but when it's virtually majority of the time that's different.

I'm always early. It's not that I'm particularly organised - as a PP said, I just drop whatever I'm doing and leave if I've left my own stuff to the last minute. I'll just pull on clothes and go because I hate keeping people waiting. However I don't really mind if people are 5-10 minutes late unless I'm in a huge hurry or have somewhere else to be. I think social outings are supposed to be relaxed occasions unlike work/medical appointments and if you're in a hurry and 5 minutes of lateness will frustrate you, maybe it's best to do it another time. That being said I do think there are some people who do get caught up in unnecessary tasks and keep others waiting, and while I don't take it personally, the underlying attitude could be read as one of not caring about the other person's time.

I do think some people are just really disorganised and bad with time and it takes a lot of effort for them to be timely. I have a friend like this, she constantly is late for work, hurries and often gets speeding tickets/parking fines because she gets herself all flustered. I do think that people like this may have undiagnosed ADHD and I tend to cut her a fair bit of slack.

“It's pretty obvious the world doesn't revolve around punctual people since they're the ones who are kept waiting.” So true!

Why does it matter?

Because it’s disrespectful and hurtful

Because your being late can make the person waiting for you late or have less time for something else they’re doing after their meeting with you.

Because your being late may affect the event you’re attending

Because your being late may impact a businesses profits

Because your being late may long term affect your relationships with the people you keep waiting.

Nobody likes falling out with friends or family but as myself and other pps have said there comes a point with consistently tardy people that it just becomes too stressful, too inconvenient and too troublesome to keep making allowances for them.

It also reaches a point where it’s self abuse because you’re allowing these people to mess you about.

Life IS too short which is why everyone’s time is precious, not just tardy people’s.

I'm the same as you. I'm always. On time and find constant lateness an indication that my time is of no value.

If it's just me, I'm much better than I once was due to not having the aggro of organising a child with dyspraxia and ASD out of the house (although the other child's instinct for personal organisation isn't vastly better). I do suspect that I have dyspraxia for a variety of reasons (my PE teachers couldn't grasp the concept that I could not throw or catch a ball) and my way of organising myself through secondary school was to lug everything every day. I ballsed up my first GCSE coursework, and the hardest part of teacher training was organising myself and my workload. Job interviews are stressful to the point of intitating IBS attacks (not conducive to feeling on form and displaying myself at my best)

I find organising myself ahead of time very difficult, I'm not in the right headspace, frequently make errors, can't remember what stage of planning I was at and consequently make a bigger pigs ear out of it than out of my usual " just-in-time" approach where pressure makesme more focused. I tend towards being in the nick of time with a risk of being a few minutes late. I have family members that spill into hours. From growing up in that culture, I'm not doing so badly.

I can learn routines for getting to places like work, and learn what stage I'm at and how that will affect punctuality and know if I'm slipping behind. Getting ahead at an early stage is a critical error as it creates room for distractions and faffery or I get complacent and time seemingly evaporates. Meeting friends at random times and places has no routine which makes it harder, and because meeting a friend is a pleasure, I'm not driven by fear and I need external consequences as my internal motivation is very weak, even for things I enjoy. I also find transitions difficult. With friends, I try to organise a time zone e.g. 7pm to 7.30 and meet ahead of something time critical so that there is flexibility. Therefore if I aim for 7, and still balls it up, I'm still in the right time range and ahead of the critical time e.g. film at 8.

When I plan, I'm not great at estimating time and although I add on contingency, that does get used on stages I forget like waiting to pay and display. Longer distances tend to be better as the longer contingency time tends to be more effective. I do warn people if I'm running more than a few minutes late and I do naturally bond with other scatty people who struggle to be bang on time too.

I did manage to arrive at a restaurant one month early though My brain mistook Jul for Jun and it went in the calendar wrong-the dates visually looked very similar written down. It is exhausting battling stupid errors all the time and when you spend your life firefighting, it's difficult to pause and reset against your natural rythums.

I think social outings are supposed to be relaxed occasions unlike work/medical appointments and if you're in a hurry and 5 minutes of lateness will frustrate you, maybe it's best to do it another time.

@Openroad yes to this. As I have said, I am not saying that it is okay to always be super late, but it does frustrate me when people compare it to job interviews, work etc. Or saying "I bet they reply to their boss straight away". As far as I am concerned, my friends are not my employees, nor I theirs. We are not duty bound to each other. I do not feel the same level of panic when I am 10 mins late to meet a friend as I do when I am late to an appointment, not because I don't respect my friends, but because I would have thought that my friends value me for more than my ability to turn up within 30 seconds of an agreed meeting time- they might be (understandably) annoyed that I am late, but they won't think I'm rude and disrespectful because they know me better than that.

Lots of the posts on here give really extreme examples, and I think everyone knows that regularly being 20 or more mins late and not texting or apologising in any way is rude, but I also have "friends" (more acquaintances) who seems to hold the view that a fair few people on this thread hold, which is that me being 5-10 mins late, even if it is regularly, means I am somehow morally a lesser person that them, and I am fannying about my flat saying "I could leave now but I'd like them to wait around so that they know that I don't respect them as much as I respect my boss" which is a bit extreme for my tastes.

@LuckyLickitung reading your post was like reading my own life- you described everything exactly! Especially the dangers of getting ahead early on 🙈🙈🙈

Odd time late grand but it becomes a bad habit.. I made it clear to friends if they late I have go at x time as I temp in offices. Bad trait to give kids if they get jobs if they bad timekeepers

On the inability to work out timings correctly - this was my ex-friend to a tee. The straw which broke the camel's back was when she and I agreed that she would take her DD and my DD to dancing and I would collect. Fine. Dancing started at 7.15pm. She would collect at 6.50pm. Around a 10 minute drive. Fine.

Except between collecting DD at 6.55pm (because she was never on time) she first had to go to the local pool to get her other DD from a swimming lesson, get her out of the pool, dressed, into the car and then drop her at another club before taking DD and her child to dancing.

Anyone with half a brain cell knows it takes more than 20 minutes for all that. DD late to dancing three weeks in a row before she told me what was going on and that she was sitting in the leisure centre car park for however long before friend came back. Just lunacy.

And I think social situations are just as important. If I have a table booked for lunch at 1, I expect you there at 1, not at 20 past or quarter to two. Because otherwise I'm sitting looking like a lemon twiddling my thumbs. Or similarly if I've arranged to meet in the park or in Costa or wherever - I will be there at the time we've arranged. It is downright rude to waste MY time by being late because you've decided to put a wash on, make the beds or pop to Tesco first.

My mother is chronically late to everything ... she is just very disorganised really. She almost missed my wedding and her partner left without her as he was so angry. My placid sibling even lost their temper that day. She was also late to a family members funeral

How deeply unpleasant Unavoidable reasons excepted you'd think that, just for once, these folk could think of others' needs but apparently not

And why do the chronically late so often turn up with a waggly hand, a tinkly laugh and an "Ooooo aren't I awful"? It isn't clever and it isn't funny, so please don't expect others to appreciate the "joke"

Honestly, I think that 90% of the time people are late for one reason only.

They don't really want to be there.

It might be subconscious, but that's the reason.

And why do the chronically late so often turn up with a waggly hand, a tinkly laugh and an "Ooooo aren't I awful"? It isn't clever and it isn't funny, so please don't expect others to appreciate the "joke"

Before I ditched ex-friend, her go to phrase with the tinkly laugh was "What am I like?!"

While the rest of us are standing there seething, thinking "You're a fucking nightmare, that's what you're like".

And yes, this person can be on tine for flights and work.

There are a few lovely lovely people in my life (both friends and relatives) who I either no longer see at all or rarely see because their persistent consistent and significant lateness is a huge issue for me.

When people are late it feels like they don't value you or your time - late people deny this is the case but it just feels so disrespectful and ruins my plans. When people turn up late I am usually in a crap mood and no longer want to spend time with them. I still love the late people on my life but I never make any plans to see them as there is simply no point.

Maybe I'm weird for having never felt a late person didnt value my time or me. I have just never taken it personally as I assume they are late for everyone not just me. It surely cant be about them not valuing me?

I find it highly rude! Unfortunately I always seem to attract the consistent late offenders whereas I am always early or on time never late.
Giving later times has never worked for me, they always end up going over that time too so I find it even more highly irritating.
Now I have a 4 month DS I can’t explain the importance I find to stick to times as for me I have to ensure he has had a timely nap so he’s not grouchy for the meet, fed and content. When people are late it eats into his awake time so I have to cut short which leaves me feeling guilty! But, if I can get a baby napped, ready and sorted, myself ready and sorted and still arrive on time or even early why am I sat waiting because a friend NEEDED to mop that floor at the actual time they should be in the same place as me?

I hate lateness too. I’m always early for things as where I live (outskirts of London) traffic is a mare or trains are cancelled so I’m always hanging around early. Much prefer that than keeping people waiting. I get in a panic if I’m late and then I don’t drive as safely

They don't really want to be there.

It might be subconscious, but that's the reason

I truly don't think that's the case with my friend.

Start turning up 30 mins late.

Solved it!

I can’t find the post I wanted to reply to but how can a parent not understand another parent running late? I don’t find it so bad now my wee one is a bit older but right off the top of my head I can remember nappies needing changed when we’re about to leave the house and I have a picture from one morning when she point blank refused to get dressed and she’s crawling across the floor with one sock off and the other half off at the exact latest moment we needed to leave by. It happens and sometimes even building reasonable extra time in doesn’t make that much of a difference. Shit escalates 😂

Exactly. I couldnt be friends with a pedantic time stickler. No way! Even though my own time keeping isnt too bad these days. I just feel a relaxed attitude to others' behaviour is healthier.

I mind waiting because I am busy. I have lots of things to do and to juggle. If I've made plans to meet someone and they turn up 20 minutes late then it invariably means that I'll either have a shorter catch-up with them because I need to leave on time, or I have to reschedule whatever else I have planned.

I have very little tolerance (time?!) for people who are persistently late, with the exception of one friend. She has additional needs and really struggles with time-keeping. We've found the best way is for me to visit her at home - I don't mind if she's pottering around whilst talking to me, and it takes the pressure off her to try and plan and travel as they are two major stresses for her.

I tend to be punctual rather than early - but if you are an 'always 15 minutes early' person, please don't start your timer going until the agreed time to meet has passed, nor count the 'minutes late' from when you arrived 15 minutes early...

It's really annoying to arrive on time and receive 'you're late' vibes from the habitual early arriver - I'm bloody not!!

It doesn't bother me, they always arrive within a short period of time. Sometimes it's worse if friends arrive early, especially if you're hosting it in your own home, as my DH and I are still busy with last minute preparations. So in those circumstances I'm quite happy if friends arrive a bit late.

It's polite to text, though, apologising and let your friend know what time you expect to arrive.

I wouldn't bin a friend off because of lateness, unless there were other signs that they're taking me for granted. (Although if they were regularly an hour late and not bothered to apologise then I would feel that they weren't worth the trouble. I wouldn't worry if it was only 10-20 minutes, because that can be to do with heavy traffic or narrowly missing the bus.

I do think life is too short to take offence, especially if in other ways it was a good friendship. You only need to read the threads posted by other people on Mumsnet who have no friends at all.

@Walkacrossthesand no you're okay, I'd take punctual all day long!

I'm loving all these "I'm not doing it to be selfish" comments.

The fact that you don't feel selfish in being late, is probably the root of the problem.

I'd be pacified with a text to say "X happened, I'll be X minute late sorry" IF it was a one-off.

My four closest friends are all habitually late. I have been known to do the fake time thing.

Really can't stand lateness in other people - they clearly don't respect your time. A friend I have was regularly late - about 30 minutes each time and after a while I started leaving after 15 minutes and meeting up with other friends instead. She soon took the hint and started arriving on time. The one time I was late (5 minutes) she was on the phone straight away!

I am being assessed for ADHD at the moment and one of the things I suffer with is Time Blindness, this is apparently very common for people with ADHD. Underestimating the time things take and getting distracted for example. I lost an hour yesterday whilst getting ready! A whole hour!! For that reason, I set a load of reminders on Alexa, get everything ready the night before and try to focus on the task at hand. It can take me 30 mins to get downstairs to make a coffee because I get so distracted by other things on the way.