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?

Does she have ADHD? It's something I have struggled with my whole life, being late that is. It's embarrassing and I have tried so hard as I know how annoying it can be and costly I've missed trains, planes despite once staying at an airport hotel. The agony of being so early you have nothing to do,and then the something you find to do makes you late.
Ask your friend if there is anything you can do to help her be on time.

But surely if you have time blindness you don't make arrangements with friends that leaves them standing around for ages waiting for you? And if it's occasionally unavoidable you explain that you may well be late and say how sorry you are if that causes your friend inconvenience? But mostly arrange to meet in a group so no one is left waiting for you? Or tell your friend you'll catch them up when you get to the park and tell them not to feel they have to stand waiting for you in the car park? Or make sure you each have your cinema ticket so your friend can be sat down enjoying the film when you arrive late? Isn't that the difference between selfish behaviour and doing your best with time blindness?

I agree, so many red herrings. I might have ADHD and I'm always ludicrously early for everything as it avoids the stress of running late. But ordinarily, if you live in smallville and you're commuting to Bigville, and you're catching the same bus you usually catch and it's taking the same route it always takes, it's not ''time blindness'' or ADHD if you're late. It's that you didn't check bus app, or you left house too late. It's called not calculating how long it will take. I don't have a BUILT IN clock. I do often 'plot out' how long a journey will take.

Yes, exactly. It’s just considerate, surely?

Bet she gets to work on time.

Or hotly awaited dates.

I have a friend who was diagnosed as AdHd in her 40's. She was chronically late for everything, including work , missed a flight ect. After diagnosis she worked hard to out strategies in place, so when we went to another friends wedding I picked her up and had given her time checks ect.
I think the big difference is the attitude of the late comer- tries to be on time and apologies is one thing, but laughing it off and not giving a shit is as rude as fuck.

Well then don’t fucking arrange times with me!

Say I’ve got time blindness, and I’ll say, let’s forget it then! Jesus, like I’ve got an hour or more to wait for you!!

I think my friend has bad time management. But I fit in tesco or something before we meet as learnt hard way I be waiting on her.. my husb and my mam are good time keepers me too

If you are always late, do you warn people you agree to meet that you are going to be late at the point when you arrange to meet up, and if not, why not?

To an extent. It’s not as though there aren’t strategies and tools that mitigate against time blindness. If they aren’t trying to use those strategies and tools, then yes, it boils down to CBA enough. Happy enough to let other people stew than to put yourself through the hassle of learning techniques that will stop it.

I have poor eyesight. I can’t read much at all without my glasses. But I can wear glasses and read most things fine. I hate them. They annoy the hell out of me, I hate having to keep track of them, I hate the way they feel on my face and the pressure on my head, I hate the way I look in them. I hate going to the optician’s. I hate having to pay for them. But it’s not unreasonable to expect me to get and wear glasses when I want or need to read things. It would be unreasonable of me to expect everyone else to jump through hoops or to keep agreeing to things that needed me to read and then constantly letting people down because I haven’t got around to getting or wearing my glasses.

Omg that's sounds just like me!

I too have struggled with time keeping for my whole life. I get up 2-3 hours before leaving for work. I know what time I have to be in the shower to get out on time, then I'll start doing something and end up running late. It's definitely a mental issue.

I think it's a matter of levels of self awareness.

Some hidden disabilities remain undiagnosed and some unrealised with the person being thoroughly ashamed of their poor time keeping throughout their life.

I've known someone my whole life who has been a permanent temp as a coping method because every job they landed ended in dismissal for poor time keeping.

Some accept that this is how they're wired and deflect their failings with humour ("what am I like?") and others go to great lengths to hide their true self and so can't be honest with the friend waiting about the extreme effort it took to achieve what that friend does naturally (alarms, extra time, schedules).

Also in terms of self awareness and the "can't be arsed" and "selfish, think they're more important than you" camp. You're actually projecting your own feelings of self importance - how dare they keep ME waiting - who do they think they are? Which is why you're so fixed on this mindset despite time-blind people on here telling you that they have low self esteem and absolutely DO NOT think this about the people they keep waiting.

You're actually projecting your own feelings of self importance - how dare they keep ME waiting - who do they think they are?

Why should people not be annoyed about always being kept waiting? Would the bad timekeepers be happy if they were kept waiting for ages after arriving?

Exactly. It gets boring after a while having to text to see where they are, they then turn up with some lame excuse which says their time is more important.

Depends on their own ego I suppose, because that's where the projection comes from.

For those already with low self esteem having a relatable experience of what it is to be kept waiting won't make them feel better about themselves will it.

I personally have it. I'm NHS diagnosed with ADHD, dyspraxia and autism. Periods of time don't feel different to me: ten minutes feels like an hour feels like a day. It's pretty insulting that a lot of people on here are saying "oh yeah, time blindness is real, it's called disorganisation" or words to that effect. I said in my earlier post on here that there's no excuse for keeping people waiting around, but some respect towards those with diagnoses like this would be nice.

I think people who believe that anyone speaking up about the negative impact that person's behaviour has had on them as "self-importance" are a dead loss. They are clearly not capable of learning from their mistakes.

How can you be so self-absorbed to think that keeping people waiting for hours is fine and other people should be fine with it?

Yes. How can anyone "who says what am I like" imagine anything else but the other person thinking they are a massive arse?

That's really self absorbed. Which perhaps shows the problem in the first place if you are late to meet.

More than that, even. How can someone think that people are actually in the wrong when they get annoyed about being kept waiting? That it's self important to get pissed off when someone agrees to meet at 3 and then doesn't turn up until ages afterwards?

Just...how arse about face can they be?

Have you ever asked why she is always late?

I am that person who is always late and I hate it and get really stressed out by it. I have OCD and depression and can find getting out of the house really hard.

sometimes I’ll be on time but I’m stressed about leaving and then it makes me check things, which sends me into a bit of a vicious cycle because then I feel more stressed as it’s getting later and then have to check again.

I hold down a good job and no one but my manager knows this about me. Socially, very few friends know. A lot of people are surprised when they hear this - generally most people say i come across as fun, silly, laid back but a lot of that is me “masking”.

maybe your friend is just a late person and inconsiderate of your time, but maybe not!

@tattygrl - this! I find being on time so hard, I have to work really hard at it… but it doesn’t always work!

I literally could not judge ten minutes from a whole morning without really having to think about it

not an excuse to be late but my being late doesn’t actually mean I’m being inconsiderate or don’t care about my friends time. Inside most of the time I’m mortified if I’m late for anything

I can be a bit like this, it's like my brain doesn't process I'm late until after the time I'm supposed to be somewhere, even if it should have been obvious long before hand that I was never going to make it on time. Then there's the massive guilt that someone's been left waiting for you. It wasn't just social things either it happened at work as well.

There are strategies to deal with it though. I know I'm not going to "feel" late until I'm inconveniencing other people so I've got alarms on my phone with "mini-deadlines" for different tasks to keep me on track. Weirdly I've always been better if I use public transport than if I'm driving somewhere (guess because I can't tell myself i can make up time on route) so I do that whenever possible. I'm not late much anymore.

It has to come from your friend, the chronic lateness won't change until she wants it to. In your position I'd just arrange meet ups at your house so it doesn't matter if she's late or if you're supposed to be doing something in public then don't wait for her, get on with the evening without her.

If it's been going on ages she's oblivious to the problem she's causing you being late all the time so you need to make it her problem instead. You don't need to hide that it's annoying you either, she hasn't realised on her own that she's inconveniencing you (or doesn't care but if she's normally nice I'd give benefit of doubt) so it's fine to tell her. If she gets cross with you then maybe she's not much of a friend anyway.

Why not just say
"Are you ok with me being late to whatever time we agree to meet up?
I don't mean to be but I just always am."

Give the other person a heads up and a chance to opt out if you are bothered about wasting their time.

Some people may have a higher tolerance than others for waiting around for people but I don't think anyone likes it.

Best thing to do with late people is ask to meet up much earlier than you actually want to then turn up at the time you wanted to meet, they’ll probably technically be on time then.

Late people annoy the shit out of me so I sympathise.