Calling all LATE PEOPLE

[scoobycute]

Have a few genuine questions for people who are consistently late...(not strictly an AIBU thread)

What is it generally that makes you late? (e.g no time awareness of how long things/travel takes, being slow at tasks, poor planning??)

Would you be offended if a friend pulled you up on your lateness? (Consistent 15-30mins late per social meeting say, not the odd 5mins)

Do you get annoyed when you have a friend that "out-lates" you? Or do you just accept that time isn't an issue?

I'm really struggling with a late friend these days and just don't know if/how to address it. She is the sweetest girl ever but her time keeping is shocking and usually has me frustrated by the time she arrives thus setting the get-together off to a bad start.

Are these people who are always late, also late for a wedding, a funeral, a job interview, a live concert or theatre show? Or is it just the “less” important things?

How you feel about it is irrelevant. Do you want your friends to be waiting around wasting time every time they see you?

For me it was lack of time management. Now I use a book to map backwards from the time I need to arrive, how long it will take to get ready, wash, clean the thing I need to before. I factor in every activity and give each one an extra five mins. Then I usually end up ready before time, have a little sit down, and get there on time.

If I didn't do this/when I didn't do this I ended up late every time because I couldn't work it out in my head accurately.

Just in response to the pp on writing lists and why adhd aren't early instead of late:

1. Lists can worsen my lateness because sometimes I will enter a phase of being hyper fixated on completing the list and won't be able to leave or prioritise until the list is completed.
2. time blindness makes you think you have more time than you do. I kind of feel sometimes my life is like when you are a student and you have a deadline but you leave it till the last minute because you have loads of time, but actually you don't. It's easier to manage on days that you are not doing anything else, but meeting up after work or first thing in a morning when I have to accurately assess how long it will take me to get ready, is impossible. The only reason I make it on time for work is because my parents come over at 6am and get dd ready for school so I concentrate on getting just myself out of the door.

Yep my friend is late for everything. School meetings he put her to end of queue. If we say meet at 2 I show up at 2.10. She has improved but god the hang round for her.... i dont think she manages her day great in that regard

I have ADHD although I would never be that late. But I can explain to you why people with ADHD struggle with time and are often late.

There is a misconception in the UK that the 'H' in ADHD stands for hyperactive behaviour and applies to the overactive child born as male being disruptive.

But the 'H' also applies to hyperactive mind - and children born as females are more often likely to have this characteristic - they are people who tend to have their minds thinking all the time and they can have what is known as 'inattentive' ADHD - these girls have very busy minds.

For example, a Neurotypical person during a conversation would be taking photographs of that conversation and slotting them neatly into a photo album in their mind so if they ever needed to recall information they can go back to the relevant page. However, someone with an ADHD hyperactive mind would start off doing the same - but then they would open several other photo albums at the same time - effectively thinking of several things at once and their brain starts darting around taking as many photos as possible and slotting them in the albums as quickly as they can; but in managing several photo albums at once they are bound to miss a few photo opportunities and this is why people with an ADHD hyperactive mind forget things and misplace things - they also have trouble sleeping because they have to convince their mind to shut all the photo albums at once.

So while getting ready its likely this friend is being distracted by other things and ends up leaving late.

Another reason we are late is we keep misplacing things we need before we leave that we need to take with us like car keys and phones. We do this because our minds get distracted and we put these things down in odd places. Its a bit like if you have driven somewhere and I asked you can you remember everytime your hand put the indicator light on - you would not be able to remember because its likely you were thinking of something else and your hand did this automatically. Unfortunately we are so often thinking about other things are hands do things automatically like put our phone or keys down on random surfaces...and then we need to spend time searching for them.

I'm so pissed off with it with 2 friends I now give 15 mins and leave if they haven't let me know that something has happened. It seems to be working so far. It's just rude. All our kids are grown up, so that's not a reason.

I have ADHD, as does DH and one of our DCs. Yes we do try to be on time but it's hard to impossible. People without ADHD frankly don't get it. I'd be very offended if a friend pulled me up on it, because the implication is it's on purpose or something I can control.
I don't want to have to tell all and sundry that we have ADHD, for one thing they'd still not get it. So those saying it's rude, frankly you're pig ignorant.

medicine..but then I felt like I was just as bad and had joined the "late person" club and I hate being late. Like I was stooping to the "being late" level which didn't sit right 😂

This is very revealing, were you brought up to believe that lateness made you a bad person and you will be judged on it? Might be why you are reluctant to discuss with your friend, because you know she is a "good" person and you feel you are labelling her a bad person if you bring it up?
Might be worth delving into those feelings a bit, how did the adults in your life make you feel if you were late as a child?

But fwiw I agree there are many reasons for lateness and you do need to have a discussion, but you might need to start by looking at yourself.
Good luck!

I grew up with disorganised parents who were chronically late for everything, I only started getting to school on time when I was old enough to organise myself. So I never had decent role models. Saying that, I do struggle with time management, I suspect it’s possibly undiagnosed ADD. I have strategies in place but it’s stressful. Absolute time deadlines make me anxious, I’m much better with ‘see you between one and two’, it takes the pressure off.

I had a friend who was always late when I was going to hers for dinner. I’d arrive and she’d be in the middle of cleaning the bathroom or making a dress. She was never late for dinner at my place though, and it was always ready ten minutes after she arrived. I realised she didn’t think she had to make the effort for me. Ex friend.

OP "I'm really struggling with a late friend these days and just don't know if/how to address it. She is the sweetest girl ever but her time keeping is shocking and usually has me frustrated by the time she arrives thus setting the get-together off to a bad start."

I would certainly talk to her about it. And is she that sweet? And what does she say when she arrives?

@johnd2 No this is not my problem if I'm being completely honest. And lateness drives me mad, I think it's rude. My family are generally organised and on time to things - it hasn't had any sort of detrimental effect on me - if anything has taught me well.

I feel awkward addressing the issue because I don't want to hurt my friends feelings or make her feel more stressed. As I've said she is very sweet and kind.

Great description, thanks.

my mother is always late.

for her it is s control thing.

she can be punctual if life depends on it.

but in daily life she thrives on being noticed because she is last in the room and thrives to annoy everyone around her with unnessecary faffing.

wouldn't work with my mother.
this would result in a temper tantrum because we lied to her.

I'm always late, I think I have ADHD, although not diagnosed. (on a waiting list, but always score 'extremely likely' in all the pre-tests).

I mainly forget how long things such as putting on shoes/getting into the car/making sure we have everything we need, going for a final wee takes. I drive my husband mad.

In my single days, my friends got used to me and would tell me 45 minutes before the actual time, however, on the rare occasions I was early, I never used to mind waiting, I realised it was a major, irritating flaw of mine and was grateful to my friends for putting up with me.

I am slowly getting better than I used to be, due to my dh's influence and organisation. having children has also hero somewhat as I really don't want my behaviour to impact them.

Interestingly here is a conversation I had with my friend the other day when she was booking an event I had booked:

Her- Did you book the 2;20 or 2:40 slot?
Me - 2:40, that way, I will have 2:30 in my head and I won't be late. Does that make sense?
Her - not to me! I'll be there for 2 either way!

It bought me up a bit that someone would plan to get there 20 minutes early for something, but when I actually think about it, it makes perfect sense. I can see that by arriving 10 minutes early, I have not planned for getting everyone out the car, coats on (it's a Christmas thing), getting from the car park to the place, booking in etc.

I should probably point out that I am nearly 50, and this is the first time it has sunk in. This is what I mean by "I am getting better' it's just taking a loooong time to learn. 😁

However it is not down to arrogance, rudeness or 'me thinking my time is more important than others' as has been suggested in previous discussions on this topic, I think its down to an inability to see the bigger picture, which I appreciate makes me narrow-minded/thoughtless in this way, but I hope I make up for it in other ways to my friends and family.

@hilariousnamehere, is it working out better for you now that you're self-employed? TBH, I'm amazed your employer put up with that amount of lateness for such a long time. I suppose it depends what kind of work you were doing.

I'm dyspraxic. Im almost always late. I hate myself for it. Have tried putting on alarms hours/hour/half-hourly/minutes before I have to be somewhere but im still always rushing towards the end. It causes me so much anxiety.

Just show up 30 mins later than planned and you’ll be fine.

I'm always late, to everything, it's not about the other person at all. I used to really beat myself up and have metldowns about it.
Now honestly, I've just stopped caring. I warn people that I'm always late, I text when I'm leaving and I give updates. If you're a real stickler for time, just don't be in my life.
You 'pulling me up' wouldn't make it easier for me to be on time, it would just make me want to see you less.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g yes, much! Still stressful but don't constantly feel like I'm letting someone down, and don't have to run through believable excuses in my head every single day 🙈

My manager in that role was part oblivious and part brilliant - she genuinely didn't notice whether I was in or not 70% of the time due to her own schedule of meetings and off-site visits, but she was also one of the very few managers I've had who hired me for a role and trusted that I would do it until she saw evidence otherwise - and I am conscientious and good at what I do, so I did. And the role itself was a team of 1 - me - so no one else was picking up phone calls or any other work when I wasn't in the office. A culture of email and IM rather than phone was definitely helpful for this though!

I wasn't client facing so I could make the time up in the evenings - and I did the work to a high standard which was what she cared about more than whether my bum was on a chair at an arbitrary time.

But have definitely had roles in the past which were not this flexible, and being on time for them meant I just didn't do anything else except work - which was not great. It's nice knowing why this is such a struggle, but I still work very hard to try and minimise the impact my time issues have on others.

I hate lateness.

I am always early - and that's on me. But I get really anxious if I'm waiting on someone who is late. Have I got the date/time wrong? How long will they be? How does that impact the rest of my day?

So for me, I cut out meeting the people in my life who were persistently late. I decided to be kind to me and look after my anxiety as no one else would. Their lateness meant spending time with them was just too stressful.

And that's being played out on this thread - with strategies being given to these who are on time to cope with friends lateness. Rather than acknowledging that having friends continually turn up late can also be stressful to these who are kept waiting. It's all about how some find it stressful to be on time.

It's one of the many, many reasons I'm not having children :) I did the school run for my cousins for a couple of terms in my twenties and it was horrendous - there is no way I am voluntarily signing up for that for years on end!

But have never wanted children so this isn't a tragedy - just recognising that I would definitely be the one making the kids late!

For PPs who asked about flights - when I was younger my parents managed me getting to places either because I was flying with them or because they were my lift to the airport (and they are brilliant and organised!). The last time I flew, I got to the airport seven hours before check-in opened to make sure I wasn't late and didn't miss it - thereby missing an entire day of work each side of the trip. I know I don't speak for everyone but honestly it is a bloody nightmare and I wish so much I could find a solution! If it was as easy as "set an alarm and go earlier" clearly I'd have already been able to do that :(

As a consistently late person, I can confirm that lateness in my case applies to everything, not only meeting with friends. I admit I have never missed a flight, but I end up dangerously close every time. I have missed train/coach tickets before. I don't remember if I've ever been late for an interview. In my uni days, I was late to quite a few exams and regularly late in submitting coursework.

I can't quite give an exact reason for my lateness, it's probably a combination of factors. Poor time management, a laid back personality, procrastination etc.

I also hate being early and having to wait, so I try to arrive exactly on time which obviously very often doesn't work out as planned.

Luckily I have a few friends which also suck at being on time, so in the cases that we meet up, we end up arriving a few hours late s we try to "out-late" each other 😂