Works great for me! Which is why I still haven’t been shot for being late and all
Out of curiosity, how does your “around” change with the scale of things? I just thought about it and in general, unless context implies otherwise, my “around” is 5% to 10% of the actual amount or the next largest commonly named unit/order of magnitude when talking about relative scales. So around July (Year) includes end of June and beginning of August. Around Tuesday (Week) includes Monday and Wednesday. Around $100 is $90-$110, and around $10,000 is $9000-$11000.
You’d hate me because as soon as I understood that this is the way you communicate, any kind of plan becomes impossible
(hypothetical example)
Telperien: What time are you getting off work tonight?
Groman: If tonight, then between now and midnight. Otherwise sometime starting tomorrow morning at 12:00am and before sunrise.
Telperien: … click
Wow, I’m surprised at the responses in this thread. Really, if chronic lateness is his only problem, it doesn’t seem like that much of an issue; I would consider him a catch. I am super-anal about punctuality, but I’ve learned to let it go. Then again, no one in my circle of friends is ever on time. Last week we got mildly bitched out for setting up a party at someone else’s house, saying it would start around 10:00, and not getting there till midnight. YMMV.
You’d be surprised. I think she’s basically just massively disorganized in many ways. In any event, my point was that it’s important to put one bad habit in context. In my friend’s case, everything else about her is so great that it would be stupid to make an issue out of her one flaw. And I’m someone who’s practically compulsive about being on time. So maybe, if **Kythereia **likes this guy otherwise, she might want to look at it the way I do. Or she might not. Her business entirely.
Gestalt, your mileage is definitely varying from mine. Two hours late for a party you set up? It wouldn’t be mild bitching out from me - it would probably be the end of the friendship. We obviously are on two completely different planes of existence, where you think being two hours late for your own party is acceptable, and I think it’s acceptable only if an emergency room visit was involved. No judgement of you and your friends, just that I wouldn’t be one of them. You wouldn’t want me, anyway - all the complaining and bitching about everyone being late all the time.
Saintly Loser, if your friend is worth the hassle of her chronic lateness for you, good for you (not snarky - I mean that). She wouldn’t be worth it for me, because I value punctuality extremely highly. It’s right up there with honesty and integrity for me.
I dated a guy once who had a punctuality problem. This was back in my younger and less assertive days, and so I did a lot of sitting around and waiting for him to call or show up. He’d say he’d be there at 7, and would finally roll up at 8 or 8:30 completely unapologetic. And because I was very much anti-rocking the boat at that time, I’d just smile and grab my purse and we’d go.
I never told him how much I hated his tardiness. Maybe if he’d known, he could have done something about it. Maybe not, but I’ll never know.
Now, even with friends, I try to be clear about what my buttons are. If I send an email saying “see you there at 7” I need an answer back. It doesn’t need to be much: “yes” is fine. But it makes me crazy not to have that confirmation.
I suppose that since it’s such a small thing, people indulge me. But if you don’t call the boy and tell him that he pushed one of your buttons, you’ve got no chance to see if it’ll work out. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But if this is just a small thing that can be fixed, you should go for it.
My two cents, which is likely worth less than that on the open market.
The situation has to be considered. too. I’m always on time, but sometimes there’s no real reason for punctuality. If someone says “hey, a bunch of us are getting together at the local pub at 8:00 to hang around. We’ll probably be hanging out until 11:00 or so,” it really doesn’t matter if someone gets there at 8:30 or 9:00. Doesn’t count as lateness in my book. Although I’m neurotic, so I’ll be there at 8:00 on the dot, if not 7:45.
On the other hand, if it’s just two people meeting at the local pub, then it would be rude to for one to leave the other sitting at the bar for an hour on his or her own. Especially if the one sitting is a woman. Perhaps it’s sexist, but women don’t generally seem to like sitting at a bar by themselves, whereas guys don’t mind so much. Perhaps it’s the risk of being hit on.
And if it’s a bunch of people, but they’re getting together to see a movie or go to a concert, then punctuality matters.
I’ve had to learn or make all these little rules for myself, because I am, or used to be, anyway, someone who could get really, really annoyed about lateness. I’m much happier now that I’ve forced myself to get over it.
