No current SO but yes, generally if I’m expected at a given time and I’ll be delayed by a time longer than what those people consider “normal”, I’ll call or SMS. Appointment at “oneish”? I call if I’ll be there after “one and a halfish”. At “1:00 and don’t be late*”? I know I’ll be ranted at if I’m entering at 1:01, so any delay gets a SMS (never a call, since these also tend to be the people most likely to take forever for what should be a really short message).
I tend to be the first person in. Anybody who’s known me for more than two weeks and who feels the need to include “and don’t be late” is by definition an idiot.
Only if I’ll be more than 15 or 20 minutes late, unless he’s expecting me for something. Traffic is nuts around here, so we don’t worry about each other unless it gets closer to a half hour.
Not responding to my phone call or text because he’s busy doing something else more important is fine, but I expect him to contact me as soon as he’s free. (And I don’t bother him at work unless there’s something we need to talk about.)
She on the other hand seldom lets me know. She often will have an end-of-day meeting run late or a last minute happy hour. Pretty much never calls, but I’ve grown accustomed to it. If it’s extreme (3 am when I expected her at 8 pm) she apologizes profusely for worrying me.
We have small children, so we’re better about letting the other person know our comings and goings.
I came from a family where things like that were obsessive. A few year’s back, my sister and I would talk to each other via once a week on Fridays at 9:00 pm Tokyo time, 8:00 am her time.
I was sitting around once at 8:58 and my then-girlfriend, now wife, asked if I wasn’t going to call my sister. I told her “Nope, not yet.” Two minutes later I called.
Having two kids broke me of the habit of expecting life to be right on time and I’m much better about going with the flow.
Keep in touch so the SO will know where to look for the body.
How often & how worried the other is depends on what the MIA person is doing, supposed to be doing, ability to communicate from where they are, etc. When I am alone on a dirt bike at 40th & Plum I make a real effort to find a place I can call from or else I carry a satellite tracker so she can tell if I am still moving and I can send a ‘Mayday’ auto message if I go down and can’t get up. ( So she will know where to send people to look for the body. )
A lot of my dangerous times & places was way back when rotary phones were kinda still new. Had to have more leeway because the wood was usually too wet for smoke signals.
Visiting a daughter & the grand baby gets a lot more leeway and ‘forgot to call’ time than the amount of time while traveling alone in places she should be able to call before I get grumpy.
We are both pretty good about it and reasonable. At our age, not only is it polite & considerate, it is a real safety issue. 98% of the time, we are the only ones who would be looking soon enough to some good if something did happen.
If we had just taken off for what was supposed to be an afternoon & we fell in a well, it could be some time before anyone would get worried.
Planned travel = Notifying someone about the trip and an expected check in time or return time.
It’s not uncommon for me to go out with a friend or something, maybe to a movie or a baseball game, and I’ll say something like, “I imagine I’ll be home around 10 or so.” Generally, if I’m anywhere within an hour of that, I don’t need to notify her. She’s not much of a clock-watcher, anyway.
However, if we have some pre-arrangement and I say I’m going to meet her at 7:05, I’m probably going to communicate to her that I’m running late if I’m going to be more than five minutes beyond that. I’m very anal about being on time, and I’m usually running very, very early.
I text to let my husband know if I’m going to be late enough that if he were that late I’d be worried. Stop at the grocery store on the way home? No. Stay late for an event? Definitely yes.
I do because I consider it a courtesy, as does she. I always call as soon as I pull out of the parking lot at work to give her an idea when I’ll be home, as we usually eat a few minutes after I walk through the door. If I was taking flying lessons, I’d absolutely get in touch as soon as we landed, at least by text.
If I’m going to be more than a few minutes (say, 10 - 15 at the outside) late, I text or call to give him a head’s up. This is true even if I know he, himself, is not yet home. He does the same. We consider it to be a matter of basic courtesy
