To think being 45 mins late takes the piss

[Ivorymoon]

Arranged to meet a friend in the park today to meet my 4 month old baby. Agreed the day in advance and that we would meet in the morning, confirmed the time this morning and I messaged her again as I was leaving. As I got to the park I received a message from her saying she was just leaving. 15 minutes pass and she still wasn’t there, I message again asking her ETA and she says she will be another half hour - and she would still need to find a parking spot and walk to the park. At which point I decided to cancel - I was sick of waiting around, baby would need feeding soon, I also have horrible post partum joint pain which makes standing / walking for long periods very difficult.

So as not to drip feed - friend is lovely, has ADHD and is often late, I thought she might be more mindful as I now have a baby. I don’t mind waiting 10 mins or so but over half an hour is ridiculous without good reason IMO. I’ve been disappointed my friend hasn’t arranged to see me/ meet baby sooner as we both live in the same city, but she’s been very stressed and preoccupied with her PhD write up. Perhaps my disappointment is colouring my view on this.

Friend said she didn’t realise there was a ‘specific time window’ in regards to our meeting after I cancelled and explained why. I’m baffled by this as we did set a time.

AIBU to think being 45 mins late is rude and that it was fair enough of me to cancel?

Yes my post said I did tell her. I texted her and told her I would be late the minute I knew I would be late. Of course.

I certainly did not apologise. For travel delays?

What annoyed me was I had travelled from an entire day from another country, and she shouted at me when I got there.

What annoyed me more, was that I had made the trip from ireland to England six times to see her, before that. And she had never once made the trip to Ireland to see me.

I live two hours from an airport in ireland and she lives two hours from an airport in England. Its a long journey.

If she had ever bothered doing the journey herself she might have seen how long it is, and that one bus delay can make you miss your flight.

When she shouted and screamed at me that night, I said to her "I am never coming over to visit you again" and I never did.

Yup. Once turned up 2 minutes "late" (on time by my watch) and got moaned at. He didn't get my issue of having to wait constantly for him to turn up. He was almost always 10 minutes early or 15 minutes late.

YANBU. I have ADHD and struggle with being late. However, I deal with this by starting to get ready earlier; texting to ask if we can meet 30 mins later as I’m running late, etc etc.

TBH, it sounds like she’s not that interested in meeting your baby and so didn’t make much effort to keep to the agreed time. She knows that and has a guilty conscience, hence her passive aggressive time windows crap trying to blame you.

I'm autistic though and absolutely hate being late. I can be ridiculously early for things just to try and avoid it. I also hate other people being late. I get so stressed and anxious and in the past have had a meltdown waiting for very late people.

So I never understand why people are always meant to be "understanding and accomodating" to those who are always late but never to the people who struggle with lateness?

Clearly in the wrong type of ND.

"Friend, I'm confused by what you mean by time window? Did you think I would be at the park for x amount of time and you could pop by while I was there? I got myself there for x time because that was the specific time we had arranged and I'm struggling to see how that could be interpretated differently" love this!

OK but you talk as though it is normal to keep a friend waiting for 40 minutes or more. Surely you can understand that a lot of people don't consider that normal at all?

I have mild ADHD myself although I struggle more with procrastination and task initiation than timekeeping. But when I make a plan to meet someone, say, "around 2pm", what that means to me is that we will text each other that morning and confirm, and then we'll text each other when we're leaving or if we're going to be late so we can narrow down the time more precisely and not keep each other waiting. The only exception I can think of is if one of us is going to be somewhere anyway, say, out shopping, and we agree that the other person will come along at some point in that time window. So yeah, for me, the concept of a time window is more if one person is going to be doing something anyway during that window of time and the other person comes to meet them at some point. Nobody's time is being wasted.

But the OP wouldn't have been sitting in the park for fun. She was only there for the purpose of meeting her friend. And when she texted her friend to say she was leaving, her friend could have said, "Can we delay by half an hour? I'm not ready to leave yet and don't want you to be hanging around." But she didn't. In that context, "be more flexible" is just code for "be OK with someone wasting your time".

If I had a friend like this I think I would deal with it by waiting exactly 15 minutes past our agreed meeting time and then leaving. Every single time. If they warned me they were running late then I would tell them I was leaving. If they didn't I would let them just turn up and find me not there. They'd either learn not to do it, or we'd stop making plans to meet up. (I would only do this with someone who was habitually late.)

Ridiculous.
Do they rock up to work whenever they feel like it?
The friend seemed zero percent bothered she’d left her friend and baby to wait 45 minutes. Adhd doesn’t equate to selfishness.

To keep a friend waiting for 45 mins with a new baby in a park (or even in a car in a park) in March especially is ridiculous. She doesn't sound much of a friend to be honest. I think most people would find 45 mins unacceptable, especially if you are waiting with a baby.

Jesus Christ. You are so not being unreasonable. A tiny baby waiting for 45 minutes in this unpredictable weather.l

I dont have a tiny baby, but I have decided I can't be friends with constantly late people, whatever their reason for being late. Ableist or not, inflexible or not.My choice. Up to 15 minutes is OK. Any layer not OK unless dire emergency.

Aargh sorry for the typos.

I had a friend who was always late. She didn't drink, so often used to offer to pick me up and was always up to an hour late, blaming it on traffic

One evening we arranged to meet at a pub close to where she lived, and I suggested 7.30, but she said no it's such a nice evening let's meet at 7. I had to rush to get there for 7, and when I arrived there was no sign of her, so there was me standing in a really crowded pub all on my own, and in she walks with a smirk on her face at 7.30!

We're not friends any more, and I can't think why!

Unfortunately that kind of gaslighting is part of ADHD too. Albeit unintentional.

ADHD person is late, due to ADHD executive problems.

Friend mentions it.

ADHD person reacts defensively due to sensitivity to criticism. What no, I wasn't late, we agreed blah blah and you are just being fussy! etc etc

From their perspective they are trying to protect their ego from the constant stream of (perceived and real) criticism that their ADHD brings them.

Unfortunately it is effectively gaslighting for the other person -minimising and invalidating their experience, appropriate feelings and boundaries.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Bring it out in the open? "We agreed we'd meet at 11am, not 11am -ish. You were nearly an hour late. I don't hold this against you, I know that this can happen but equally, that doesn't mean that I can always wait. I can accept an apology for the lateness with no hard feelings, but it's harder to accept a response that seems to be blaming me, when I am the one who kept to the arrangements we made"

OK when I'm talking about keeping a friend waiting for 40 minutes or more,

I'll give an example.

I have one friend who cares for her elderly parents. I usually meet her on Saturday for a coffee.

We will say to each other, we will meet around 3.

This is because she might be delayed with something to do with caring for her parents, which I understand. She might have to help them with something else before she leaves.

So around 3 I will be in our local tow,n going around the shops, and having coffee by myself, she then texts me when she's free. And we will meet.

We said around 3, but I've met her as late as 4 pm , depending on her responsibilities. I'm totally fine walking around the shops by myself

Similiary something could happen my side. I'll say to her ill be in town around 3, but I might go to pick up something I need in a shop then I'll text her when I'm free. We never have a fixed set time. We always meet around 3 or 4

But did she give you a reason for being late?

I’m unsure what insights your experiences are adding to this thread. You seem unable to understand the situation in the OP and are continuing to provide tangential anecdotes.

That is literally nothing remotely like this situation though. Me saying I once went to Disney land when I was 9 and queued for it's a small world has the same amount of revelance it does to the ops situation.

Right so that's exactly the kind of situation I was referring to. You're quite happy going round the shops by yourself. You can keep yourself occupied. You know that 3pm is a very approximate meeting time and you're OK with that.

You're not sitting in a park in March with a small baby waiting for a friend who is basically just arsing around at home and didn't even have the manners to tell you she hadn't got in the shower yet when you'd texted her to let her know you were leaving your house.

She is rude and inconsiderate. She should have owned her error and apologised.
the time window thing is garbage .
I have AdHD and time blindness….

There’s some mental gymnastics going on here. Even if your interpretation of ‘time window’ was universally accepted and correct, which it patently is not considering that no other poster has commented with the same understanding. Nevertheless there is a big difference between an hour of time being spent in the good company of a friend and an hour of time being spent with only 15 minutes in said company, and 45 minutes waiting in the cold. With a baby who is due a feed shortly, which was discussed that morning when we agreed to meet a specific time! So I never could stretch my ‘time window ‘ in accordance with her lateness. Plans change sure but communication is surely just basic respect, and apologising for keeping a friend waiting for reasons I’m yet to discover.

No she didn't give any reason or apologise, and as she was generally always late, she obviously thought it was acceptable and could get away with it, as I never called her out on it.

Another example was although she didn't drink, she suggested meeting up in Central London and having a good night out, just the two of us.

I got really dressed up and when we met, she asked if I minded if we just had a coffee as she really wasn't feeling up to a big night. We had a coffee in Starbucks and then went home! We had other mutual friends that we could have asked, but she'd made a point of saying just the two of us. I couldn't really work out if she just didn't want to let me down so turned up, or enjoyed ruining the night out.

They genuinely can't help it. Read up a bit about ADHD. It's not as simple as just setting an alarm.

You find other ways to not take the piss out of people. As I've previously said, I've got to places an hour early just to make sure I'm where I'm supposed to be

And again, it's the LACK OF APOLOGY. Not shouting at you, but so many seem to be not getting that very basic bit of information

I have adhd and so do both of my teenage children. Part of having it is learning strategies to cope with it, so that we can function in daily tasks and activities. It’s not up to other people to make accommodations for things that we can do something about! That’s not ableist, it’s taking responsibility for things yourself.

Time window? What even?

DS is 15 and has ADHD, and he would manage better than that. I have a friend with ADHD, out of a group of 4, it's usually him and me on time and others drift in. Very annoying as the 4 of us often do volunteer stuff together and it's important at least one person is on time, so I make sure that I am.