God, lateness really winds me up. Why are people so late?

[pointing]

If you're a late person, why?!

But for those of you who don't mind being late, what do you think about if your friend is sat for 10/ 15 mins wondering where you are or if you've forgotten etc, what do you expect them to do while they wait?

YANBU, I can’t abide lateness, I am never late, nor are my DH or DS’s.

I always tell my friend when on my way but like I said above- my best friends are always late too!

But for those of you who don't mind being late, what do you think about if your friend is sat for 10/ 15 mins wondering where you are or if you've forgotten etc, what do you expect them to do while they wait?

My friends wouldn’t think anything if I was 10 minutes late, it wouldn’t even register with them as being ‘late’. We text a lot so they would know I wouldn’t have forgotten. Our friendships are very easy going.

I’m usually late because I’m hanging the washing out before I leave and the children take about 300 years to put their shoes on.

I agree that being more than 1/2 hour late is really rude and I would find that disrespectful. But most of my friends have small children and busy lives. Often we are driving some distance to see each other. I don’t take it as a judgement on our friendship if they are a bit late. I also find it really painful if people arrive early at my house. I’m usually still cleaning/tidying and need that last 15 mins!

Usually it's due to poor executive function. I have ADHD which means my executive function is all kinds of fucked up. I have got better since starting medication and learning coping strategies, but it's a serious impairment - it's not always possible to "just account for it and work around it". Similar to how somebody dyslexic can't "just focus on spelling things correctly".

I tend to be friends with people who are relaxed about lateness because let's face it it is a flaw of mine, but I've learned in adulthood that it's better to be friends with people whose flaws you genuinely don't mind and who genuinely don't mind yours - life will be extremely stressful if you're always worrying about your so-called friends judging you and/or if you keep insisting on trying to be friends with people you are annoyed with half the time. There are enough people in the world for this to work, everyone doesn't have to be one specific way.

It can also be cultural/learned if it's the way your family has always behaved for example and/or your social circle doesn't have any penalties imposed for lateness. In certain cultures (much of Latin America for example) timekeeping is not considered very important. Of course this is quite unlikely if you live in Britain and have done all your life, but it goes to illustrate I think that timekeeping is not quite so crucial as many seem to think. It is considered important in British culture, but that doesn't mean that it objectively is important.

@AravisTarkheena They weren't 15 minutes late, they rang at 5.15 to say they were running late but they didn't actually turn up until 7 pm, so two hours late.

I used have a chronically late friend who would arrange to meet at say 7 pm and always insisted that I waited outside for her so she didn't have to walk into a bar on her own. She was often up to half an hour late.

I wouldn't have minded if I could just go on inside and got a drink and waited for her but she was insistent that I wait outside. One evening we were due to meet it up at seven she rang me at 7.20 to say she would be there shortly. I said I'll meet you inside and she said no if you're not outside I'm not coming in.
I gave up at 8. Apparently she arrived at 8.05. She was very cross I hadn't waited. Haven't seen her since 🤷🏻‍♀️

I used to be perpetually late to meet friends and I definitely didn't think my time was more important, it's that I was always (unrealistically) optimistic about how quickly I could get ready and how quick it would be to get there. Nevertheless I fully recognise this must have been infuriating for the friends I kept waiting, and I felt permanently stressed rushing places and hugely guilty. I have in more recent years got much better at this though and am largely on time now (and always on time / early for work) - I think smartphones with maps (I also used to get very very lost in London which added quite significantly to my lateness) and apps to calculate your journey, and a DP who is a stickler for punctuality have helped me improve.

It is considered important in British culture, but that doesn't mean that it objectively is important.

Ok, so in the grand scheme of things no, nobody died because you were ten minutes late. And other countries don't mind at all. However, everything is objective, isn't it? In some countries, please and thank you aren't necessary. Queueing is seen as a strange thing. Wife beating is acceptable. In some cultures it's considered polite to belch loudly after a meal and shitting in the street is the done thing. I'm not going to start doing any of those things though, just because other countries do.
If your friends don't mind then it doesn't matter, does it?
I hope this doesn't sound patronising as I really don't mean it to be, but that's great that you've seen improvements since starting medication/strategies; hopefully things will start to get a bit easier/less stressful in time.

Well once I figure out someone is perpetually late and what sort of time i can expect them i usually start suggesting we meet up an hour before. Or just arrange other people to meet up and they can then turn up when they like.
If it's something like a bike ride or a class I just go on without them.
@Justkeeprollingalong that is very annoying. I would wonder if they were taking the piss massively and even like you. However, some people have social anxiety which they need to deal with themselves and can't ever do something alone. Not your problem to prop them up though.

I really hate being early. If i'm waiting for someone or something to start it feels like wasted time.
I like to be punctual but it doesn't always leave room for error!

There's a happy medium. My Dad was too far the other way. If you were 30 seconds late you were in trouble, but 30 seconds early would be frowned upon too. Tricky to get right when driving 200 miles for a visit.
But my in laws are regularly several hours late for things and it drives me insane.

Why are you meeting with people?

😄

I would add: If you have poor/weak executive function you will have to teach yourself (or be taught, note people with late-leaning DCs) the specific skill of being on time, which is made up of several sub-skills such as estimating time needed accurately, preparing in advance, prioritising in the event of unexpected delays/distractions, leaving buffer time plus extra for contingencies, aiming to be early, and so on.

If you have a disorder like ADHD that screws with your executive functioning then you'll likely struggle even if you know how to do these things in theory, because the brain processes that allow you to put that kind of knowledge into practice are interrupted, but for most people you can learn and it does help (and if you have ADHD and you don't know these things then you'll likely be even worse).

Some people are just hopeless at either getting up early, or getting ready, or misjudge time. I do find it annoying when people are absurdly late and don't even seem to acknowledge it.

Well pp may not think they’re rude or entitled
Or whatever - you might think your ‘just disorganised’
But persistently late people are definitely seen as rude or entitled by everyone else

Every.single. Time

My husband is a late person. He always massively underestimates how long it will take to do things and is also king of the faffers.

My SIL is very often late & we learned to give her a different time to everyone else eg if we wanted her to be somewhere at 12, we’d tell her 11.30. Couldn’t believe it when she announced once that she hated lateness!!

But persistently late people are definitely seen as rude or entitled by everyone else

No, they’re not. Pps have said it doesn’t bother them. I don’t mind people being a bit late. Being mega uptight about people being on time can be very irritating, you know.

I used to have a friend who was always late to give lifts, so I'd subconsciously factor it in. One time she turned up dead on time and I was still on the loo.

Optimism that the shortest time possible is enough.
Although starting to think it’s adhd in my case.

I think persistently late people being seen as rude or entitled is much like poor spelling being seen as a sign of low intelligence. Some people think that, but plenty of people would be aware that some people find (spelling, timekeeping, etc) more difficult than others.

for those of you who don't mind being late, what do you think about if your friend is sat for 10/ 15 mins wondering where you are or if you've forgotten etc, what do you expect them to do while they wait?

I try not to be friends with people who don’t have the imagination to occupy themselves for 15 minutes.

I expect they’d do what I would do if I was waiting for someone. Daydream. People watch. Social media. Buy a drink. Sit in the sunshine. Shelter from the rain. Browse in a shop (imagine when we can do that again!) Surely it depends entirely on where you are.

Here we go again.

All sorts of reasons but those people who think the world begins and ends with them will think it's about rudeness or inconsideration 🙄

Those saying it's just a personality trait or that it's cool (?!) aren't really speaking like adults in the real world.

No-one said being late was cool.

I said people who are sometimes late are more likely to be a bit cooler than judgey uptight clock-watchers who think they get to choose who is a proper adult.