Friend told me off

[Samibgton]

My friend exploded at me today for my faults (being chronically late) and basically time blindness. I am generally 5-10 mins late for things and it is probably my key flaw. It is definitely an ADHD thing and is not ok. I am working to address it. I am otherwise I am told a good friend. Caring, generous, a good listener. Very non judgmental and really try hard to be sensitive.

it was humiliating how shes addressed it tho and she knows I would never dare mock her for her faults. This is not the first time I’ve felt her try to exercise superiority towards me.

am I being too hasty in trying to cool the friendship? We are close but sometimes I don’t trust her or like her that much

To me, if you were my friend, and you were persistently 10-15 mins late, I would just factor that into when I arrived. We all have quirks, if I like you, you having a delayed start to everything really isn't a massive deal.

And if it was important to be on time, I would just tell you the time something was, was 30 mins ahead of when it really was. :)

@Samibgton

I am on your friend's side. As a number of posters have said, it's absolutely infuriating when you're meeting someone who's constantly late. And you get the impression that they think their time's more important than yours. I wouldn't have pulled you up about it by now, I just wouldn't be arsed with you to to be honest. I would just cease contact with you. You'd be on my list of 'somebody that I used to know.'

To the people saying they can't possibly help being late all the time and struggle with timekeeping, how on earth do you cope with train times, bus times, plane flights, getting to appointments on time for the hospital, doctor, dentist, optician, hairdresser, etc etc..., and how do you manage to get there on time for job interviews, and get your children to places on time, like THEIR medical appointments, and school, and suchlike. I am willing to bet you get there on time for them.

Basically, people can make it on time if they make enough effort, and if they care enough. This friend probably doesn't care about offending you by saying this to you, because she is under the impression you don't care for her too much. Also, you call her incredibly bitchy in your second post, and you also say in your FIRST post that you don't even trust her or like her that much, and you clearly don't even like her. Why are you even bothering with her? She deserves better.

I've done same as QuinkWashable in past with chronically last friends - meet up somewhere it didn't matter -especially when my own kids were very young so we could wander round and then then join us when they got there - or tell then an earlier time.

Timing does not come easily or naturally to me - but I was brought up by parents chronically early to things - factoring in travel time and time for unexpected tends to automatic now and as PP say modern tech is helpful with reminders but I tend toward extremely anxious when a time is coming up anyway which actually means settling to tasks before hand isn't easy.

You can cool a friendship for any reason you like, but as the one often being made to wait, your chronic lateness probably makes her feel annoyed that you don't see her time as important. It's disrespectful to be late and blaming your ND without trying to mitigate it feels like a cop out.

Fascinating thread. Helping me to understand how my own brain works and of other people I know too.

I agree with @nanodyne - especially the last sentence.

But this is the thing. It costs people with ADHD so much to muster ourselves to be on time for work things, it depletes our attentional energy for other things, and our personal lives pay the cost of this.

I've said quite a bit in explanation of adhd but I do agree with this.

Also not convinced the op will be back.

No need for her to explode, I have a friend who is always late, NT as far as I am aware and i've known her since university. She has never ever been on time. Even late on coming down on her wedding day morning to have breakfast with us her bridesmaids by 10 minutes. All of us, her friends know she'll be late, my OH asked us ehy we were late and I said, oh Dfr is here, he said ohh that explains it then. No need to get stressed about it. I 'd cool that relationship if she can have a decent talk with you about how she feels. exploding is just unneeded rudeness, worse than being late imo.

I disagree with this. This 'friend' of yours would be binned by me. 'oh ha ha she's always late!' wouldn't wash. Hugely disrespectful to everyone around you to always be late, and there is NO excuse for it. Just because you CBA to make it on time, why should everyone else hang around? I would just be leaving when it had gone 5 minutes past the arranged time - EVERY TIME! They'll soon get the message. Sick of peoples excuses. Even on here, I see some excuses from people. Nope. No excuses. They just CBA.

It's rarely just 10 minutes though, but as PP I wouldn't have exploded. I'd just have stopped meeting up with you if it continually happened.

I must say I really hate friends who are constantly late. It is disrespectful.

But if the fact that you are late is due to a heath condition/disability you just need to be open with your friend and explain why this is happening.

Unless you have clearly explained to your friend that you have a condition that genuinely makes harder for you to keep track of time, she is just going to assume that you think that her time does not matter and she would be perfectly right to get angry about it.

I had a friend who was constantly flaky and late. I hated having to wait for her on my own outside a pub or a club in the evenings for example and that was one of the main reasons why I ended the friendship.

I suppose it depends on your relationship with your friend. She is one of my best friends, and is a lovely person. I have no desire to 'bin' her for being late. Everyone has their own limitations, there are far worse things in a friendship and for me, exploding at me instead of speaking respectfully, would easily be enough to end a friendship. Friends don't speak so rudely to me for being 5-10 mins late. But you do you. we all have our feelings. Obviously OP's friend is similar to you, so stop the relationship, it's no good for either party.

I have a couple of chronically late friends. I either invite them to my house so I don't care when they show up or if we're going out in a group/for lunch etc I just tell them we're meeting earlier than we are. Usually we manage to roughly all get there at the same time.

I struggle much more with an anxious friend who cancels regularly at very short notice. Now I just invite her to the house as well.

It costs people with ADHD so much to muster ourselves to be on time for work things, it depletes our attentional energy for other things, and our personal lives pay the cost of this

And I get this. But there does seem to be a tendency to ignore the impact on other people.

I wonder what steps the OP has taken to make her lateness less of a PITA for her friends? I'm frequently late for after-work things because I do an unpredictable job, and often have to deal with something at the last minute. So I always have a Plan B - I warn friends I may be late; I arrange to meet them somewhere that they can comfortably wait alone; if we are going to the theatre or cinema, I make sure that we have our own tickets, so I don't hold them up.

It's doubly infuriating when someone is persistently late, but also in denial.

And it is exactly the same for many people with depression and anxiety, which in my case is made much worse by people being late. Lateness is a major trigger for me.

So please don’t underestimate the effects habitual lateness can have on other people.

At the very habitual lateness is rude and annoying, and can make the person left waiting feel utterly worthless.

Genuine question - does having ADHD affect empathy? Yes ADHD is difficult to manage but it doesn’t take a huge stretch of imagination to understand how hard it is to be on the receiving end of chronic lateness. Particularly as my guess is that 5-10mins is probably 30mins to an hour!

I am a chronically late person because I underestimate how long it takes to do this. I even do this at work! No idea why, I think maybe I’m just overly optimistic about everything and find it difficult to accept that it generally takes longer to do things. To deal with this, I have a ton of strategies in place, including booking things in the diary 30 mins earlier than the actual time. I would never be cross at a friend for being annoyed about tardiness and have been pulled up on it a number of times.

She's very rude and quite nasty by the sounds of things.

I'd slowly freeze her out. You don't need nasty people in your life.

5 - 10 mins is hardly criminal!! She should just get there 5 mins late herself. That's what I do with people who are regularly late and it really doesn't bother me.

Never early, frequently on time, all too frequently late as well.

It's really really hard.

NT's won't understand how our brains can be like this so they will get upset and give advice that might not work for you.

I'm not seeing this thread in a completely negative light, as some are, and if you ignore the "lateness is rude" people, OP gets that, and focus on the posts explaining how and why their ADHD makes them late (as in their personal experiences) and what strategies they use, it makes interesting and useful reading.

Most of the actual advice boils down to: yes, it is irritating for her (OP gets that i think?) but it isn't always in OPs control - so here are a few strategies so you both aren't so stressed out by it.

But i do think a few posters have pointed out that when people say "I'm regularly 5-10 minutes late" they really aren't being honest with themself. Because - unless there are other reasons, such as friend is ND with an issue around lateness - generally people don't blow up at people for 5-10 minutes. Unless they are missing things because of it.

There is nothing that stresses me more than waiting for someone. I have a very good friend who was constantly late. And she would turn up and explain why "fell asleep in the bath", "just going out the door and someone phoned", "remembered I had to go to the post office" and it left me feeling like I was bottom of her list. It didn't matter how long she kept me waiting because she knew I would still be there. And honestly, it hurt. Someone phoning for a chat was more important than meeting me for something we had planned a week in advance.

I think OP needs to see her lateness from someone else's point of view. My friend would have said she was only "5 or 10 minutes late" but the truth was it was always much more than that. With all the technology on phones and watches these days there really is no excuse for losing track of time like that.

@Readaboutyourself I can see how it’s perceived in that way but it really isn’t a choice when you have ADHD.

If it was another condition I think posters would be expecting some acceptance for the OP.

it’s not about lack of acceptance it’s about the manner and routiness of her lateness. There ARE ways she can avoid being late.

Your making excuses... and I say that as someone with a diagnosis of ADHD myself (along with several complex other disabilities) who is never late in fact I always show up early and can't abide the rudeness and disrespect of chronic latecomers.

What being late says is that you don't value me or my time, your making a joke out of the precious time I am giving to you.

Why should anyone be polite about that?

Not sure if anyone else has answered but: no, I’m not on time for work, trains, doctors appointments, job interviews, flights etc. I WFH now which is a godsend but when I had to go into an office everyday it was torturously stressful for me and I was late every day. I’d get told off a lot. I’ve missed out on jobs I really wanted and things I really wanted to do by being late for interviews or for trains. I had to pay £300 for a new flight once as I was late for my scheduled one. It doesn’t only apply to socialising at all.

On the flip side though when I am on time, I really don’t give a fuck if someone is late to meet me. I just wait and chill. It doesn’t annoy me in the slightest and I can’t relate to why people get so het up about it. If it gets beyond the point you can wait just tell your friend you have to leave. No need for fuming about it.

^^ Exactly this