I think it’s a form of passive aggression. I had a girlfriend once who was always late and it only mattered when we were seeing a movie, so I just went to the movies with someone else.
I have a friend who is like this and in his case it is due to over scheduling. We usually lie to him about when something starts. To be fair, if it is something set in stone like movie times, he can be punctual, but meeting for a meal or at someone’s house, he will be chronically late.
We usually get started without him, and he shows up when he shows up.
I was thinking a prof mentioned some psych disorder in a college class that resulted in people ALWAYS being tardy. I googled “chronic tardiness” disorder.
Wow, ADD/ADHD maybe?
The biggest difficulty I have with people who are chronically late is that I end up angry, which impacts my enjoyment. I’m not sure how to deal with my own irritation. I feel guilty if I leave without them and annoyed if I wait. And I honestly can’t say that it doesn’t bother me to sit and twiddle my thumbs. I usually bring books on tape or some knitting. But I seethe inside. Sigh. If I could fix my flaws maybe I could help fix theirs.
My husband isn’t really a "CL"er but he has an inability to hurry that drives me crazy. For example, if I’m on my way out the door and I accidentally break a glass and need to clean it up, I’ll clean it up half-assedly, then run out the door grabbing things as I pass and drive just a smidge faster on the freeway, finally getting there more or less on time. For him, it just gets added to the queue of things to do at a plodding pace, one at a time, and oh damn, we’re going to be late now, as soon as the glass hits the floor.
I think it was Dr. Laura, but maybe it was another one of those TV shrinks, who said, “I’ll wait 15 minutes for anybody, but 20 minutes for nobody.” I.e. it’s easy to overlook a little lateness but it’s ok to say, “I’m not going to be good company if I have to wait longer than that.” Maybe if you pick up and leave after 15 minutes one time, and they miss you, they wouldn’t be late next time.
There was a woman who used to work with my ex, and she was chronically late. REALLY late. So one year we’d invited her and her kids over for Thanksgiving. We knew she’d be late and we figured to eat at 2:00 PM, so we told her we were starting at noon. She showed up at 4:00 PM!!! I told my ex, “Next year, let’s tell her we’ve decided to have Thanksgiving on Wednesday instead of Thursday.”
Hi my names Neverender and I am Chronically Late.
For me it boils down to a mix of procrastination and thinking I have more time to play with than what I actually do. I’m forgetful too. I’ll allocate 15 minutes to get ready for work, giving me 10 minutes to straighten my hair and 5 to dress, but I’ll have forgotten that i need to allocate time for brushing my teeth or taking a dump, and that my shirt needs ironing too. Then I’ll have 10 minutes to walk up to work, but forget I’ll probably spend 5 minutes in the corner shop waiting to buy fags etc.
Also my mum always likes to get to places early. I hate waiting around, nothing to do. It’s dead time. So I’d rather be 5 minutes late and have everybody there ready to go, than be 15 minutes early and have to sit with nothing to do for a whole 15 minutes.
Oh, just to add I’m never more than 15 minutes late, normally more like 5. I think 30 minutes late is ridiculous. It’s just that my minor tardiness is consistent.
Actually, I’d say there was a bit of aggression from your side, too.
- you could have mailed her ticket to her beforehand – you had days to do that.
- you could have left her ticket at the box office – they hold tickets for people all the time.
Either of those would have allowed you to go inside and be seated, and let her join you whenever she arrived. But you chose to do neither, even though you “know she is chronically late”.
But then everyone else has to wait for you for 5 minutes, nothing to do…?
I’m an ex-chronically-later. My ex girlfriend got me on the whole tip, over several years: “ah fuck 'em, they’ll wait for us”, she would say with a beguiling grin, and I got hooked on the ethos. Her contention was that her charm was enough for people to overlook it. After her, it took me a while to become punctual again. The scales fell from my eyes: just work out what time you need to be there on time, work out what you have to do to make that happen, add it up, and then fucking do it. It’s not fucking difficult.
Or the chronically late one could have asked him/her to do this. Why should it be the poster’s respnsibility?
Most of my husbands family are chronically late - except for two who are rigidly on time. Makes for some interesting clashes.
My husband will never go to another concert with his oldest brother again. Bob didn’t want to see the first act so messed around getting ready, making phone calls. Then insisted on going for a swim (the concert was at a coastal town) So yes they missed the first act & Bob was happy cause he was in control. bUt hes running out of people who will go to concerts/games or exhibitions with him.
The only way I could be sure of being on time for that would be to camp out all night and not sleep. That’s not really an option for most social engagements.
All right, you want to know why I’m late? It’s because it took a real effort for me to be here at all. Because sometimes the thought of going out in public with other people is intimidating. Because I feel like I have perform, to look good, to be witty, to say and do the right thing, and some times that’s nearly overwhelming. So I put off thinking about it a little too long. And then I realize I’m going to be late once again, which is yet another reason I’m not good enough to be out with other people, which means I have to work myself up to the point where I’m ready to go out at all. Yeah, I guess that makes me a narcissist, but it doesn’t mean I’m aggressive.
I had a bit of insight into a CL person a couple of years ago. My sister and I were each taking our cars to go to the same location from the same place; she figured it would take her ten minutes, I figured (correctly) that it would take us closer to a half hour. I discovered that she thinks everything is ten minutes away. She is also chronically over-scheduled, and goes out of her way to over-complicate everything, which ties in to the chronic lateness, since there are always ten things that have to be done before she can leave the house. I don’t think she is passive-aggressive, I just don’t think she is quite in tune with reality on these issues.
This still makes no sense to me. If time is so important to you, why did you start to get ready 40 minutes too early?
And for that matter, if you need to fill a bit of a time hole, why do you need to complete the entire task? You know when you need to leave, why is it so hard to keep to a schedule?
You know how to burn time on the SDMB. Why not cool your heels and surf for a little bit? Frankly, I don’t buy it. CL people have something else going on entirely.
To some it may be a power trip.
To others it may be a fear of being the first people at an event.
I don’t buy that functioning adults can’t read a clock.
But, but…they’re not me :p.
Of course I realise this. I normally aim to be on time, but the afore mentioned time control issues conspire against me, making me 5 minutes late. But I do try. I’m just pathetic at timekeeping. If it’s something with a fixed deadline, or deadly important, then I’ll make the sacrifice and cope with the deadtime. If not, then I can deal with the tardiness.
Not sure why you feel so uncomfortable in social situations. But one way to garner peoples respect is to be on time. Being dependable is perhaps the greatest gift any person can give to a friend or family.
Being on time is the first step to being dependable.
Simple as that.
I know some of those people quite well and some are family members. Time estimates are always in increments with 10 minutes being the most common even though I know it is impossible. 5 minutes, 30 minutes, and 1 hour are the other common answers but the common factor is that they are all seriously underestimated even under ideal conditions. I wouldn’t be that mad except these are often the routes they travel all the time and often every day yet they never pick up on the lie (and it is a lie no matter how you spin it).
See, I’m the opposite. I’d rather be 15 minutes early than 5 minutes late. I usually have a book or my iPod to keep me occupied, and that way I don’t have to worry about inconveniencing other people.
That being said, I usually don’t care too much about other people being late, unless it’s something like a performance or a reservation.
My mom constantly gripes about my dad being CL, but I’m not so sure. I think it’s more a matter of her being pathologically early, so everyone seems late to her. Then he gets aggravated, and passive-aggressively stalls, making her madder, and so on and so forth. That said, I’m not sure he’s so terribly late by any reasonable person’s standards. My mom told an anecdote once about not being in some family photos because my dad was driving and they got to the reunion late, but that was before my time. Apart from that, I don’t remember getting to a wedding when the bride was already at the altar, for example.
What is an act of aggression is my mom’s earlyness. If that’s a word. I’ll give two examples, coincidentally within about a month of each other. When I was in 8th grade, I was in the school variety show. My mom drove me to the school and we arrived before the building was even open. I had to wait for security to unlock the doors, and then they wouldn’t let me in because there was no faculty around. Then teachers started arriving, and they wouldn’t let me in because they had their own stuff to do, which didn’t include supervising one kid. By the time other students finally started showing up, an hour had gone by. No joke.
So a few weeks later, graduation. My niece and my cousin arrive at our house, and my mom almost immediately whisks us all out the door. Halfway to the school, my cousin asks if I’m wearing a cap as well as a gown. No, but the girls are wearing these collars – OMG! :eek: My dad turns the car around. At the house, my mom storms inside, comes back with the collar, throws it at me through the window, as forcefully as anyone can throw a four-inch strip of nylon, and we get back on the road. And guess what, folks – we arrived at the same time as everyone else. Not late by any reasonable measure.
The variety-show incident was by no means an exception. My mom did learn not to drop me off at youth group early, probably because someone had a word with her, but she would drop me at Girl Scouts in an empty parking lot, and, she showed up at her own things overly early too. And it’s not like she had scheduling conflicts, like she would miss her own meeting if she dropped me off on time for mine. I think she just can’t conceive of what the youth group leader probably told her: people aren’t always ready for you. And that includes the birthday parties she not only dropped me off at when the cake wasn’t even ready yet, but returned to while they were still going strong. So I would have to be the first to leave. So we could rush home and do nothing. That’s what it is, really. She’s always in a tearing hurry to do nothing.
I have to admit, I am not habitually late, but can be late to things at times, and yes, I think it is a reflection of the value you place on the event, the perceived inconvenience it will cause others in the event if you are late, and the personal consequences of being late. Also, shit does happen.
A dinner with reservations at 7pm? On time. Or cancel.
A sales meeting? I try to get there 15-30 minutes early. If I think Im going to be late, I call my supervisor as SOON as I think theres going to be a problem.
My in-laws are throwing steaks on the grill around “dinnertime”? My wife got there at 4, I arrived at 5. I dont think its really that crucial that I be there for 2 hours shooting the breeze before the steaks are actually put on the grill.
A friend of mine’s picnic Saturday at 3, where we were told “we can come anytime after that”? Hopefully between 430 and 530?
Oil change or doctors appointment? I try to get there on time, but both places are very accomodating if I show up 15 minutes late, and frankly, with my Doctor, I have shown up early and have been kept waiting anyway.
As for being a “passive/aggressive” act, I think that only occurs when once the arrivee is late, and is called on it, they get bitter, “hey I left on time, its not my fault you are so far away, or there was traffic, you scheduled this too early and I need my sleep and the meeting is 2 hours away etc etc.”
For instance, I am the guy who posted the thread in the OP, and will be running into some of the offenders at this picnic this weekend, and can guarantee you some of them think my wife is a bitch for being upset about them being late, and if the topic comes up will get defensive and might even turn it around on us with some bullshit story somehow to try and make us feel bad. I would not even put it past these knuckleheads for giving us a hard time for showing up well after the 3pm start time, though I have to work, and its a picnic, not a sit down multi-course dinner so its not the same.
Should be interesting.