Chiming in just to say I’m another late person who is on time when time really matters (such as a movie or when it’s really important), but I’m lucky enough to have friends that either accept this or lie to me and tell me things start earlier than they do so I show up on time.
Esprix
And yes, changing from being a punctual person to not being one added marginally more of a different kind of stress to my friends’ lives as well, I am in fact quite aware of that, but it also made me a much nicer person to deal with IRL and no one has ever complained about that. (Now if I can just start going to sleep on time all my crabbiness should vanish! One stone at a time.) Conflicting goals require strange solutions, sometimes.
Hell yeah, Esprix, we’ve got to band together!
I understand and it’s not like this is an important issue like capital punishment, where you stand on the abortion issue, or whether or not you prefer dark chocolate to milk.
Sounds good! If you’re not there by 9.30, just look for me in the theatre.
Not needed with me. That’s not a hot button issue for this chick 
Yeah, I know - I don’t fight fair, but it’s not like I’m chronically late or anything 
My [story un-ommited] button isn’t working. I don’t have any doubt that I’d would more than likely loose a ton of stress if I could just not care so much about being punctual, but oh well, I think this dog is too old to learn that trick.
Don’t you threaten me! 
Fuck them if they do. I understand what you meant (and afterall, I’m the only in this thread that matters - aside from youself, of course). You’d convinced me prior to this post that you wouldn’t be late if it mattered, and quite frankly, that’s good enough for me (and more than my Aunt can say and I haven’t stopped loving her :D)
That is just wrong and I suspect those people have issues separate from time-management.
Ahem. :wally
Eris.
I have been the guy with no watch, no schedule, and no concern for such things at all. I have been the one wandering in twenty minutes early, or thirty minutes late, all the time. (Actually, in my case, it was an hour either way, sometimes more.)
It was a long time ago. I changed. I changed for reasons. I found out that not caring about time was only emotionally beneficial to me in a narrow sense. I had fewer friends, did fewer things, and had less varied interests in life. I also didn’t much care for being given shit about being late. (I don’t think I have done that in this thread, either.) But there were tangible losses in my life experiences because I had no calendar. I missed out on things all the time, which, after the fact, I found I really wish I had made it to.
Now, it isn’t the case that I am a clock-watcher now. I am absurdly habitual in a lot of things, so I tend to arrive at regular events and places at profoundly regular times. (Within three or four minutes.) But that is because those things do have specific arrival times, and I have adjusted my habits so that my unscheduled life tends to leave me arriving at the early end of my natural bent. It makes it easier to deal with bosses, and such. But it isn’t the case that I watch the clock to do it. I just do the same stuff all the time, and the same stuff takes about the same time most days.
When I am actually late, even by a minute, folks at work assume I am sick, and not coming in, and will call in a few minutes to tell them that. They think that because it is that rare. I don’t even use my alarm clock. To accomplish your stated challenge, I would have to deliberately make myself late. I don’t think I could do it without a schedule. I would just default to my habitual behavior every time I didn’t check the clock, and that behavior makes me about fifteen to five minutes early to everything that has a starting time.
I am never in a hurry. I mentioned in several of my posts about theoretical meetings to which you were half an hour late, and you found me not there. It would be true, were we to be regular associates that this would happen. But if you assume in your mind that I was there precisely on time, tapped my toe, and timed your lateness to the legal twenty minute mark, and left in a huff, you were mistaken. I arrived about thirty minutes, or five minutes before the time we agreed. I read a book, and sat around for a long time. (That’s my measure, just a minute, a while, a long time) I was bored, I decided you weren’t coming, I left.
If it happened a lot, and I think it would, behavior modification consequences would affect our tendency to have meetings. We would make those meeting plans less often over time. After a few years, you would wonder, “What ever happened to old Tris? I never see him anymore.” And I would wonder the same. No angst, no ire, but a much diminished friendship.
The fact is that your OP is correct in its primary assumption. People who are on time are going to be rude to you fairly often. There has certainly been a lot of that in this thread. (Hey, it’s the pit, what do you expect?) People are going to assume that you have no concern for the value of their time, which you don’t. The fact that you have no concern for the value of your own time does not make any difference from their point of view, and you should try to understand that.
But, hell, let’s talk about this over a meal. Say, breakfast, or supper, maybe some day next month?
Tris
So, plus or minus 30 minutes. Do you really want to be able to ask someone to meet your for lunch between 1 and 2?
If you where a friend coming from a distance, I would gladly wait. And I would plan accordingly.
If your where someone I see every few days anyway-nope, got better things to do than wait on you.
It’s not that others want you to adapt to their schedule. It’s about you trying to get others to adapt to your lack of one.
It would be nice. Restaraunts are open all that time, can you believe it!?!? But no, most of the time it doesn’t work that way, and I’m none the worse for it.
So you’re saying you like people who live father away from you?! That’s rude!
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But that’s funny, if we’ve got two people (or more) with conflicting needs, how is it that I am the only one seeking people to adapt to my schedule? Strange, that. Well, chalk it up to arrogance, I guess.
**
This is perfectly cool, eris. If that’s the way that it’s agreed upon and people show up at whatever time to shoot the breeze and then later go see a movie or go to dinner or whatever. Perfectly reasonable. And if you’re going to meet at the movie or restaurant and you’re meeting people with whom you think the same way about time, then that’s great.
But, on the other hand, if you’re meeting someone say at a restaurant for lunch (let’s just assume it’s the workweek), and you know that they are of the type to set a time and you have agreed to meet at a certain time, then you are being passive aggressive by not showing up then. You know that it bugs them when you’re not there on time, and yet you show up late to make the point that you’re not on everyone else’s schedule. That’s passive aggressive. If you feel that strongly about not setting a time, then don’t. If the other person isn’t comfortable with that, then they aren’t and they won’t agree to meeting with you.
I have four jobs and I cherish the time I have at home to just sit on my ass and watch tv, or spend time with my boyfriend. Since I don’t have much time off (admittedly my fault), I’d resent some of that time being taken away if there was an agreed upon time. I always have a book with me, that’s not the problem. I don’t have difficulty entertaining myself. But there are other things I’d rather be doing than waiting, even if I’m occupied while I’m waiting.
I think that it all depends on who you’re meeting. If it drives you nuts to have to set times with people, then refuse to do so, and then neither of you will be driven nuts by the other person’s time issues.
That really isn’t my assumption or anything, though. My whole point is that there’s a conflict of interest here, and it isn’t any “better” or “more rational” or “more polite” to pick their side over mine. I seek compromise. I do not seek control.
I understand completely, that is why I don’t think they are rude.
I hear some nut is making a gathering in DC…
Seriously, whatever works for you is of course great, I’ve got no problem with it. But wow I can’t imagine having a set way of living like that; I have no idea what I’m going to be doing one day to the next (though lately it has been: come home and open up AIM; not having a car sucks). Maybe some day I will set up a somewhat lackadaisical but standard schedule for myself. I don’t know; “Go to the Dope”, “Go to work”, “Go to bed” are about the only things I consistently do, or try to, every day. Days without the dope… :shudder: don’t make me talk about it.
Sivalensis
Why, am I feeding him his lunch?
Dude, when I am late it is not to make a point out of how late I am. I think that is a really unfair characterization of me, and several of the other people in this thread who have voiced some small indication that they are like me. Why do your issues with time cause you to speculate on my inner motivations and characteristics? I mean, how should I characterize you? Do you want to play that game?
Well, then, stop counting beans, it is “just that easy” as is the advice given to me in this thread. No one can possibly take time away from you. It is not something someone “takes”, popular expressions notwithstanding. If you’re the one not satisfied with how you are using your time, that is your fault. Would you rather be doing something else? Sure. Had you planned on doing something else? Sure. Does something like that happen all the time anyway regardless of whether people are late or not? You bet! I’ve got a list ten miles long of things I would be happier doing if only people acted like me. But they don’t. And I don’t expect them to. So don’t take all your anger over the time you don’t know what to do with besides tap your feet in irritation and pin it on me. When I wait, I still enjoy myself. Should I hold you responsible for that happiness if you should end up late? “Oh thank heavens you were late! I just loved reading this book!” No. But I did enjoy reading the book? —Of course.
Simple!
I think this is a bit out of line. I said I’m perfectly happy entertaining myself. I’m not “angry over the time I don’t know what to do with.” I know perfectly well what to do with my time if someone doesn’t show up when they said they would. And I never said I wasn’t happy about how I use my time. I obviously hadn’t planned on doing something else in that hour I was going to have lunch with them. I was PLANNING ON HAVING LUNCH WITH THEM. And no, something like that doesn’t happen anyway regardless of whether people are late or not.
I don’t want people to be just like me. I don’t want to live in a homogeneous society where everyone is the cookie cutter of everyone else. And I’m not trying to just pile on here. I realize that this bugs you, eris, how everyone else here seems to be so hell-bent on being on time all the time. If you’re bugged by that, then you are. But you’re not going to change the world into thinking like you do any more than we’re going to change you into thinking like we do. I was merely trying to point out that if you’re meeting with someone who believes in being on time and you had agreed upon a concrete time, if you don’t make it there within a half hour of that time, the person’s going to be pissed. Period. That’s life. If you can’t handle it, don’t make plans with them. If they can’t handle it, they won’t make plans with you.
Sucks when other people speculate on your motivations and characteristics, doesn’t it? (for the record, I never would say something like “if you’re upset it is your fault”, just making a point… pit style :p)
And then it is indeed great that this is not my plan. Now, if we can just get people to stop playing pop-psychologist over this I will rest contented.
While this isn’t always true, I don’t deny it at all.
The world I live in has more choices available than that.
I, as most people, know solme people who are hibitually late. They are freinds I tolerate, mostly because they realize that it is their resposnibility and they have more or less breached a well-understood rule of social etiquette. In other words they apologize. The fact that the OP cannot see that THEY have broken the agreement, that THEY have inconvenienced their friend, not the other way around, that THEY are at fault is the more troubling poimnt of the OP’s rant, in my opinion
You didn’t have the contract notarized, :wally That’s YOUR fault!
That’s a false dichotomy. The true dichotomy is whether you prefer dark chocolate to white chocolate, and the only True[sup]TM[/sup] answer is dark chocolate. Obviously white chocolate is a tool undermining social cohesion. Don’t get caught up in it, Mauvaise, I beg you!
I beg to differ. White chocolate isn’t truly chocolate at all and therefore has absolutely no place in a debate as to what type of chocolate one prefers. The only debate that white chocolate deserves to be in is one arguing which is actually more evil: white chocolate or carob.
Ah, the “No true chocolate” fallacy!
Did you know “carob” spelled backwards is “borac”? Case. Closed.
Except that you, as an individual, do not get to determine what society, as a group, considers polite. As evidenced by this thread, dare I say most people consider reasonable punctuality to be the polite thing to do. Ergo, it is.
It is not fallacy. To quote the relevant portion:
Case. Closed. Indeedy.
Except that him, as an individual, did not try to determine what society, as a group considers polite. He merely said what he, as an individual, believed (or in this case, didn’t believe).
Your position above is very flawed. Just because most people consider something to be true doesn’t necessarly make it so. Most people used to think the earth was flat.
Then it is a good thing that I am not trying to, isn’t it?
You may dare.
Society is not, never has been, and never shall be a monolithic entity to make objective statements about. Please try again.