To be annoyed with a friend who is perpetually late

[Livelifelaughter]

I have a friend who is great, fun, interesting, kind. But she is literally late to everything...if I say meet between 7.00 to 7.30 she will arrive at 8.15 ...Or ask to change the time at 7.25...I can put up with it to an extent if I am in my flat but it's when you're waiting to do something like this evening outdoors and instead of doing it in daylight your going to do it in the dark. She doesn't have reasons other than just not getting her act together. How do I mention this or should I suck it up?

I am part of a walking group. We walk a couple of times a week.We have a member who lives closer than everyone else but would always arrive with 30 seconds to go/ 5 minutes late / 10 minutes late.He would roar into the carpark, gravel flying. I think it was a kind of personal challenge to see how fine he could cut it. He would then need to change into walking boots, pay for parking, fanny about with his wanky walking poles. The rest of us got there on time. After the third time we left without him and sent him live location updates through watts app. He was very red and sweaty when he caught up. We do it everytime now. He is rarely late. Funny that.

Habitual tardiness with no reason is just rude behaviour. I mean I'm happy to accept the odd 5-10 minutes but 45 minutes after the latest meeting time offered is taking the piss.

Of course you could give your friend and earlier meeting time and not turn up until later/the actual time.

Funny how people aren't late for things that are important to them.

If your friend is late to everything, not just meeting you then it's likely there's something else going on.

If they're just careless with time when it comes to meeting you then it could go either way. Either they can let their guard down because you're close enough to see this weakness in them or conversely, that they can't project your needs above their own (in keeping with the rude, disrespectful opinion from posters here).

Some people genuinely are time blind and this is often linked to ADHD and anxiety and depression. Sometimes it can be an act of self sabotage which is contra to those who believe those who are late value themselves above others.

There's a massive difference between someone who (perhaps due to an undiagnosed or undisclosed disability) cannot be on time for anything and an arrogant person who treats you in a disrespectful way. You know your friend in real life. Which is the more likely situation?

I know I've stopped meeting a friend who was focused on meeting on time and became anxious if you were late for any reason. I found I couldn't cope with the anxiety of not making her anxious and for me it sucked all the enjoyment out of our meeting up so stopped.

It's extremely rude and selfish to be persistently late. If people are very late I tend to just carry on without them. I gave people who do it to me and they seem to think it's a funny quirk, it's not.

To be honest I was always a late person, so I understand, my mum is a late person and we were late for school every day, I do genuinely think that some people are naturally bad with time keeping. So just say that I had to be somewhere for 8 o'clock, I know it takes 30 minutes to get there. I would be ready for 7.30. But what I would never account for was getting my shoes and coat on, forgetting something and having to run back inside, unexpected traffic, not being able to find a parking space quickly. End result, you're 30 minutes late and where the fuck has the time gone 🤷‍♀️

It seems so obvious, but it could potentially take 10 minutes extra to actually get out of the door if let's say you need a wee, can't find your other shoe, forget your phone, suddenly you're late. I couldn't register it.

These days I have to really have a strong word with myself not to kid myself about the time. I'm very rarely late now but it doesn't come naturally but it is much better to be on time than be stressed and let people down.

It's very rude and you need to train it out of her.

I think a 10m window is reasonable personally as long as someone lets the person waiting know. Decide on your own reasonable window.

From now on, any time she is past that window, get in touch and say 'hey, I think we'll leave today after all, let me know if there are any dates you're free to meet up in the next few weeks where you can be sure you're available. Take care!'

Stop meeting up with her when she's super late. Just stop it. You're rewarding the behaviour.

😆 it works both ways then!
Some folk aren't compatible as friends 🤷‍♀️
I can see how two on time people can be friends but no idea how two late people manage it! The people I know who are always late are very intolerant of waiting around for others, which I don't really understand.

I have ADHD too. I could easily slide into chronic lateness but because I know this I write a schedule for myself, use alarms and prompts. I don’t want to piss everybody else off. I have to peddle quite hard to do all this but I want to be credible in my professional life and home life. I’d be interested to know if your friend is late to her job every morning and misses her GP appointments etc or is it just you who she’s late for? I think it’s selfish to be constantly late and you should say something. If she is a nice person and a good friend she should take it on board and realise it’s not endearing, just irritating.

Tbh while being late is annoying I give anyone with small children under the age of 7 a lot of latitude. Getting children out of the door on time is near impossible.

It's very rude and you need to train it out of her.

FGS is this for real? Are you taking about a friend or a dog?

agree with PP, it works both ways and if you’re constantly berating your friend for being late the friendship becomes about that. I would feel anxious about being late again and on edge and I’d slowly ditch the friend with the stopwatch.

It's really ok to decide that xxx minutes of standing waiting for someone is all you're prepared to do, and to leave/go ahead without them.

They will then have to weigh up if they would prefer to socialise with people prepared to deal with their persistent lateness and happy to spend their time waiting around wondering if they're going to turn up, or they will decide that the friendship is worth holding on to and they will make reasonable adjustments to be there on time going forward.

I have a friend like this, he does have ADHD but it's still infuriating and he gets so angry if you bring it up. In the end I decided that if we were going to remain friends we'd have to try a different approach, we don't do anything together that needs a specific arrival time, he just informs me when he is leaving, and gives me updates in the run up so I am not sitting around waiting. It works quite well.

Or they can leave more time?

I know a number of people like this, friends and family. What I have noticed is they all tend to be easily distracted - for example, at the time they need to actually leave the house to get to a venue on time (with no room to spare, or already potentially being late), they will decide a wash needs to put on, or they need to make a quick phone call - or will take a phone call and chat away as though there is no urgency at all.

I am someone who is usually early - my priority would be to get the venue on time and anything non critical (like putting a wash on or answering a non urgent call) would not be prioritised.

It is a totally different mindset. I think each mindset can't understand the other. I often get told to calm down it doesn't matter if we are a few minutes late, the world won't end if we don't get there on time etc.

It's bloody rude. The majority of people who do it just think that their time is more important than yours.

I had a friend who'd do it constantly and in the end if she was more than 20 minutes late, I'd go home. She stopped being late.

I had a friend /neighbour who was always late.
Her son was on same football team as my son so I would sometimes give them a lift to matches etc.
Always got a text night before....what time does match start ?
Didn't matter where the match was being held she thought turning up at my door 10 mins before kick off was enough to factor in travel.

I started answering the question with I am leaving here at whatever time instead of saying when kick off was.
And I meant it,I left at the time I said weather she was here or not.
....very entitled person,turned up late for a match with her son and complained well they could have waited

I hate this.

I have ADHD and total, complete time-blindness. I really struggled with timekeeping when I was young. I still do, actually, but - because I'm a grown adult woman - I find strategies and habits to help me step up to the challenge.

That's the thing with disabilities, it's fine to be honest and say "I cannot do this" and it's also important to find what you CAN do to keep your relationships with others ticking along. It's not ok to dither in the middle and not communicate.

I'm being a bit flippant but yes, it's the same whether they're a human or a dog.

People will keep doing whatever they want to do regardless of the impact on others until it no longer benefits them.

So if every time she's late OP accepts that and the friend gets to both be very late and have a nice social time, she'll keep doing it.

I can tell this thread is dividing between the people who value timekeeping and those who prefer a more loose approach to time by the 'wow, I'd ditch her for that' vs the 'wow, I'd ditch OP for not tolerating lateness' responses lol.

Yep! I stopped seeing a friend because I was so sick of her persistent lateness and total disrespect for my time, but I noticed she managed to be on time for things like appointments and work.

Ooooh, it's a massive pet peeve of mine as well.
For me, it stems from secondary school, when my then-best friend was always late. One time, we agreed to meet outside the local swimming pool, and she was 30 minutes late. I later calculated that she didn't even leave her house until 10 MINUTES AFTER we were meant to meet!

My now best friend (we've been best friends since we were 16) used to be bad for being on time as well. But in the end I said to her how it made me feel, that I felt disrespected and unimportant. And now she's loads better. She's rarely ever late for things, but she's certainly never early either. If you say get here for 2pm, she'll arrive at 2:02pm, but I can handle that!

I was brutal for time keeping. I still can be sometimes.

I have had to seriously train myself. I put the clocks in my house 5 mins fast. I tell myself I have an appointment 15mins before I actually do. I write it all on a physical calendar in the kitchen.

Alexa is is brilliant for getting me to do things. I WFH she tells me when to go to my desk.

When I worked in an office I was brutal, work was a 40 minute drive, I would leave 40 minutes before work started. Assuming everything would be fine, that nothing would stall me on my commute.

With flight - I don't think I have ever missed one. But that is because I arrive at the airport about 5 hours in advance and sit there.

Poor DH has had to do a lot of training with me too

If you mention her lateness she giggles and says, ‘what am I like’

Say "Unemployed", @Busbygirl, then hand her her P45.

terribletwos
I should clarify - I missed the flight back when I was mid 20's.

I have learnt to manage my difficulties and now use multiple alarms etc and work really hard to be on time so would be unlikely to be late for a flight now.
I just wanted to stress that I wasn't late on purpose, I don't think my time was more important than others and that I find it really really hard. I don't think people understand that for some of us, these things just don't come naturally. It's causes me enormous anxiety.

I find it really rude. I know some people have ADHD and I have a hyperactivity diagnosis but manage to make things on time. However if people cannot respect my time is precious and I don't want to be left waiting constantly for them then I don't make plans with them. Obviously as a one off I am fine with it but I don't make plans with people who are never on time now or unreliable.