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 had a friend like this. We both had young children and she would be ridiculously late for every single meet up. She used to hon about how difficult it was leaving the house with her wee girl. I just felt like she was rubbish at organising herself and it was incredibly rude as it meant my wee ones waiting about til she appeared. I stopped meeting up with her altogether as it really bothered me.

Yes, of course if you found timekeeping challenging, then you would put more effort into days when being on time was crucially, life-changingly important than meeting your friend in a pub. Of course you would.

This is such a dumb argument.

Yes, if you offered someone a million pounds, they would likely make an extraordinary effort to comply. So what?

I do that so she arrives at 7.30...
but in fact it was around 8.15 ...

I know, I end rushing to do things so I can be on time and end up hanging around for at least 30 minutes..

I can understand that, I have a friend who arrives early to everything whereas I tend to arrive 5 mins early or on time; she will constantly message me...quite irritating really

That they can make it happen if they want to 🙃

Mobile phones do make it easier for the habitually late.

YANBU. I have ADHD and am autistic, and I have literal time-blindness: an hour and ten minutes can feel exactly the same to me. BUT, this is no justification for keeping other people waiting. It's a disability I have, but it's not right to keep other people hanging around, wasting their time, etc. I accommodate myself by making arrangements in such a way that allow for me to be a bit late (i.e. perhaps not arranging to meet someone at night in the dark in an outdoor location where they'd be waiting alone if I was late, but rather meeting them in the event within a certain timeframe, or telling a group I'll find and join them, for example), or making sure I have AGES before I need to leave (so, not planning to meet someone if I know I'll only have ten minutes to get ready beforehand).

Basically, knowing myself, and ensuring I put things in place to make me be on time. Sometimes I will still end up being a few minutes late, but that's as bad as it tends to get these days. If I really mess up and run late, I own it. So yeah you're not being unreasonable at all, OP. You need to look after yourself and your own time. Stop meeting with her if she keeps doing this.

I’m an early person, can’t be doing with being late so that’s me, I’m happy to wait if I’m really early 5/10 mins late (after agreed time) is fine or if it’s unusual or n accidental lateness but I had a friend who didn’t value anyone else’s time whatsoever she doesn’t cheek train times and just takes her merry old time to get you even if she knows you’re there waiting.

she manages to get to work on time though or if she has a ticket for something, is on time for airport/bus holidays etc just makes me feel like she’s not bothered.

she also gets annoyed if I can’t meet, am single parent with 4 kids, nurse etc so worked shifts and she’d text last minute and get annoyed because I had plans/the kids/couldn’t make it even if I was working. Drove me mad 😡 she managed to arrange things with other friends in advance so I decided I’m the back up for when no one else is free so I’ve just left her to it. Rather have no friends than put up with that crap

I'm a bit like that. Not that bad, but still.
It is really hard for me to be on time. And If I really try to be somewhere early, it doesn't help, as I just do something interesting at the location in that spare time and ...
I'm not proud of it, just aware.

The worst is when it is combined with anxiously early types. So meeting someone "between 5 an 5:30" end with me being there in 5:31, them waiting since 4:45 and annoyed.

Yes, I can be on time in very special circumstances (flights), but it takes absurd energy to happen, so I don't do that for appointments, job interview or school exams, it isn't worth it, I am typically there just in time and things often start a but late anyway.

What I'm doing whenever possible with friends is planning meetings closer to the other person's location, so they would leave for the meeting only after I confirm I am on the way. It actually makes me more predictable (not sure how that works) and the whole situation less annoying for anyone.

No good advice on "how to deal with my lot" here, just sharing the observation that planning things in a way that time precision matters less leads to me being more precise.

People who are usually late, are you up front about this when making arrangements with other people or do you let them assume 2pm means 2pm? That would make a difference to me.

I have a friend who is always late. She has got better and I have said something but I have generally not stayed friends who are always late or cancel plans persistently.

I have a few friends like this. Tbh we usually tell things are starting an hour or 2 earlier and just work on Caribbean time. Don't organise stuff that they're timekeeping will cause a stress, or have enough other people that you can stick to the schedule and they slot in when they arrive.

I know someone like this. The last time we met up I had to change the table booking slot 3 times in the hours leading up to meeting, and when we eventually did get there it was at minute 14 of the 15 min grace period you get at the restaurant before they give your table away, so stressful. In her case it seems to be that she spreads herself too thin, and says yes to too many things, and is not from a place of ill intent or laziness, so I just suck it up.

On the flip side I had another friend like this in the past who wouldn’t communicate she was going to be late, she would simply wait until you got to the destination to let you know that she’d just got out of the bath, or that she’d missed the train and was now waiting on someone who could give her a lift in half an hour opposed to just calling a taxi for a tenner. She wasn’t skint either so it was just pure disregard of other peoples time and she’d never apologise or be remotely bothered that I’d been sat on the steps outside a tube station for 45 minutes waiting on her. We are no longer friends.

I have big anxiety around being late so I’m always early. If I’m ever caught in traffic I message as soon as I can. People are used to me being on time or early and even if I’m meeting someone who’s always late I’m always on time still!
i suppose the reverse is true of someone who is always late in that they can’t manage their time whereas I over-manage it and like to be really early for a flight/train etc. The thought of running to catch a pre-booked train/plane brings me out in a cold sweat.
i stilL hate persistent lateness though & I don’t think adhd is an ‘excuse’ as if you have that condition you can build in support around it as some posters have explained.

I have struggled with this in the past. I found that I tended to underestimate timings to actually get out of the house. So if I knew I needed to leave at say 12:00, at 11:55 I'd be "ready" and then think, okay, I'll just put that load of washing on.... except, a) the washing takes more than 5 minutes to put on and b) I wasn't actually as ready as I thought because I still had to put on my shoes, find my hand bag, grab my keys, lock the back door, put on my coat etc... all things that in my head, because each one took no more than a few seconds, I was discounting in my time to get ready.

I am much better now at realising that no, I cannot put that load of washing on. I still struggle a little with the reality that being downstairs, mostly dressed etc is NOT in fact COMPLETELY ready.

OP - your friend is a twat.

@Livelifelaughter
It is a form of arrogance for someone to be perpetually late- and very disrespectful to the person who is left hanging around-
It’s not on- It’s definitely not how any friends should be treated.

If someone is legitimately held up, that’s one thing- Eg delayed train, that’s different- but generally being flaky and late?
Not on.

Conversely, being more than 5 minutes early is extremely rude, particularly for an appointment as it puts the person providing the service under pressure (and they feel they must see you early so can't grab a cuppa or nip to the loo under your judgemental gaze).

If the behaviour is ingrained, either late or early, you're unlikely to change the person. The question is whether their behaviour is worth the stress it causes you.

Time is not my friend and I am late 8 times out of 10! Like pp I think I have more time than the reality. This morning I was checking everything before leaving and realised I hadn't emptied the dishwasher, rather than leaving it for later, I put everything away; meaning I was 5 minutes late leaving the house! In this instance I wasn't meeting anyone and I work for myself so was late into the office!

I have a friend who was always late and what annoyed me was the 'well you know what I'm like so why are you mad?' attitude. No apology or explanation when they turned up over an hour late and I just had no faith in them. As others have pointed out they could make planes, trains, get to work on time etc.

She's actually really improved on that but ironically another one of our friends who used to have good timekeeping is now late more ofen than not. We walked to the train station without her as she was running late and as we sat waiting for her the old late friend said 'I'm really stressed waiting for [friend], is that really how I made you guys feel?' YES!!!!

I do agree it can be a mind set thing but if with 5 minutes left to leave you've decided to do ad hoc tasks and made yourselves late more than once why keep doing it?? A couple of times I've gone to leave on time and thought 'oh I didn't mean to wear this dress, oh well, never mind, too late now' whereas some people would just go back and change - WHY!? If it's not important then just leave it.

My high school friend was like this but worse. We’d arrange a time for say, 7pm & I would still be sitting around waiting gone half eight. I ended up cutting her off completely. After years of it. I just cba with it. YANBU

I had a housemate like this once. Eventually we said we would tell her when she needed to start getting ready. We did and she got very angry at us and insisted it didn't matter and we were wrong and she didn't need to start yet. Then she'd be horribly late, to meet people, catch trains, whatever.

I still don't understand why, when we had all agreed that we should tell her when it was time to get moving, she would be so angry and insist we were wrong. Clearly some sort of issue was at play but I can't imagine what.

Do you try and do anything about this when it impacts other people?

In that case I would be understanding, if not and is just habitually late then she is basically saying ‘my time is more valuable than yours’ - nothing quirky/cute about it, just arrogant & self centred