# Why are you always late? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 21, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631 "2021-05-21T16:28:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/443 "2021-06-01T17:52:11Z")
When I can use my Russian Studies BA, I take the opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2021, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/444 "2021-06-02T01:59:06Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > If ever comes a time that I’ve had enough, well, I can just drop them as friends, but I’ve never found a friend for whom this is a dealbreaker to me. If it is for others (and it is), that’s fine. I just think there is ability for both sides to soften and be more understanding of the other. I said earlier that I dropped a friend for being late, but that was because it became obvious that being late was simply because he was selfish and didn’t value other people’s time. There were other selfish things he did as well, such as he would always want to meet in his part of town and never come out to mine. For someone who was late for other reasons, I doubt I’d drop them as friend. ---
**Author:** ![Oglomott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oglomott/32/3543_2.png) [@Oglomott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oglomott)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2021, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/445 "2021-06-02T22:25:27Z")
I once had a boss who was always late for meetings. Someone called him on it, and his answer was, “If you are on time for everything, people will think you have nothing better to do”. As for me, I’m always on time. It isn’t right to keep others waiting, and being late to something like a doctor’s appointment might force them to reschedule you. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2021, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/446 "2021-06-02T23:07:34Z")
> [@Oglomott](#): > > As for me, I’m always on time. It isn’t right to keep others waiting, and being late to something like a doctor’s appointment might force them to reschedule you. And if the Dr. waits for you, or tries to ‘make time’ for you, it snowballs through the rest of the entire day. And could affect every single appointment. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/447 "2021-06-07T07:10:08Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > And if the Dr. waits for you, or tries to ‘make time’ for you, it snowballs through the rest of the entire day. And could affect every single appointment. I can’t think of a single time I’ve ever kept a doctor waiting. It seems to go the other way, where I have a 10:00 am appointment and the doctor doesn’t actually see me until about 10:45. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/448 "2021-06-07T11:15:40Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > I can’t think of a single time I’ve ever kept a doctor waiting. It seems to go the other way, where I have a 10:00 am appointment and the doctor doesn’t actually see me until about 10:45. Yup. Where I go, if your 10 min late, no appointment for you! ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/449 "2021-08-26T00:10:35Z")
I am late to the thread but I knew 2 people that were chronically late. All the time. I just thought it was mental laziness/scatterbrain etc until something happened that made me rethink this. An event was starting at 3:00 and we all got together and told our friend (who is chronically late) that is started at 1:00. At around 2:55 he showed up! When he came in he was confused as to why it hadn’t started yet. We told him of our plan. He was PISSED! I mean REALLY pissed. Thought he was going to throw punches mad. We were all confused saying “Hey, you are here on time!” and that made him madder. That is when I realized it was a form of aholishness and a form of control over us. Not saying all chronically late people have this motivation but it could be for more than a few. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/450 "2021-08-26T01:37:51Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Not saying all chronically late people have this motivation I had somebody do that to me once. I didn’t get mad at them. I laughed. ---
**Author:** ![TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thegunismightierthanthepen/32/2981_2.png) [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheGunIsMightierThanThePen)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/451 "2021-08-26T01:49:44Z")
First off, I’m impressed that your friend group knew this guy’s patterns so well, they could predict his actual arrival time to within 5 minutes. Secondly, the way your “friend” reacted made him seem like a Grade-A dick. Has your friend group considered cutting him off completely, or at the very least stop inviting him to events? I know I would. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/452 "2021-08-26T03:19:39Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > …My issue was that I hated the tedium of getting ready so much that whatever I was doing, even lying in bed, seemed unbearably hard to stop… The same applied to doing tasks. Nagging or recriminations only made me feel aggrieved and resentful. Hmm, I wonder if part of the secret to my increasing punctuality is just plain ol’ maturity. I used to concentrate on how I was feeling (and I have two friends half my age who will show up at an event _if they’re ‘feeling it’._ Seriously, “Yeah, I wasn’t really feelin’ it” is a valid reason to be late or to skip a planned meet-up). When I realized I had to change, I tried hard to concentrate, _not_ on my feelings, but on what I had to do. I will actually say to myself: “Why are you worrying about your feelings? Worry about gettin’ shit done!” ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/453 "2021-08-26T03:34:41Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > I am late to the thread So what’s your excuse? 😉 I definitely agree your “friend” was something unprintable. I wonder, though, if there might have been something more like humiliation, rather than a frustrated desire for control, behind his rage? I mean, you guys seriously owned him, as the kids used to say. You nailed his personal failing with such precision, it was like Bugs Bunny getting Elmer Fudd to shoot himself. You embodied that character Flannery O’Connor described as having no flaws of her own, but using the flaws of others so productively that she never felt the lack. Thorny locust has enough of a thick skin to laugh at herself in that situation, but I bet your “friend” didn’t. It would’ve been interesting to run the same experiment in an alternate universe but instead of telling him you lied, telling him the event was postponed at the last minute. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/454 "2021-08-26T12:14:10Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > He was PISSED! I mean REALLY pissed. Thought he was going to throw punches mad. We were all confused saying “Hey, you are here on time!” and that made him madder. How would he have felt if he had shown up and the event was over, or at least too late for him to join? ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/455 "2021-08-26T12:32:04Z")
It was over 40 years ago 🙂 and the within 5 minutes was just luck though we didn’t just pick the 2 hours randomly. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/456 "2021-08-26T12:55:15Z")
Skimming this thread, a few thoughts. My brother and I have both been diagnosed with ADD. Both of us are punctual, of the “5 minutes early is on time, on time is late” variety. We wear watches so we always know what time it is. I would rather be 20 minutes early than 5 minutes late. I always have something to read. Being early and waiting feels like I’m making a choice about how to spend my time, and this “extra” time is productive or leisurely. I think it was Roderick Femm who early in the thread talked about this being connected to feelings of inferiority and anxiety, etc., and that makes some sense to me. Agreeing to meet at a certain time feels like a promise, though, and that’s a little different. I appreciate that punctuality is a symptom of industrial time discipline and hierarchy and that being late is a form of resistance, but if you keep me waiting, I will be muttering “bloody peasant!” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/457 "2021-08-26T13:42:06Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > I mean, you guys seriously owned him, as the kids used to say. You nailed his personal failing with such precision, it was like Bugs Bunny getting Elmer Fudd to shoot himself. You embodied that character Flannery O’Connor described as having no flaws of her own, but using the flaws of others so productively that she never felt the lack. Thorny locust has enough of a thick skin to laugh at herself in that situation, but I bet your “friend” didn’t. That’s what it sounds like to me. Anyhow, in this situation – well, in all situations, the lateness is context dependent. If it’s just a casual party, “party starts at 3” means get there any time from three to six or so. If it’s something with an absolutely rigid time schedule, like a movie or a ballgame, it means be on time, or get your own ticket and meet us there. Some people like coming early and leaving early; some people like coming more mid-party when there’s a big group of people gathered. As long as it’s not absolutely time-sensitive, that’s fine. I suspect in this case it’s probably not as casual as just a shoot-the-shit get-together, but most get-togethers I have or have had fall into a less rigid time schedule. If you really believe his behavior was merely a power play, well, don’t let it be. Just go and do whatever you wanted to do without him. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/458 "2021-08-26T14:41:07Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > Thorny locust has enough of a thick skin to laugh at herself in that situation They also weren’t making a big deal out of it, or using a seriously critical tone. It was more just a tone of ‘oh, we figured out a fix for that.’ In the same sort of tone, I figured out a fix, years ago, for Thanksgiving dinner. My even-later-than-I-am sister’s family would come from out of state for two or three days, arriving on Thursday. But they always got here much later than they said they would be. So one year I announced that Thanksgiving dinner would be on Friday, well after everybody was already here; and Thursday dinner would be a much more casual affair made of whatever was around and eaten whenever everybody got here, or in stages if necessary as everyone arrived. Worked fine. It’s now a family tradition. And nobody gets mad. But it wasn’t presented as ‘you’re horrible people because you always show up late!’ It was presented as ‘hey, I think I’ve got a fix for that.’ ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/459 "2021-08-26T14:45:47Z")
Does anyone feel that being on time should be a matter of personal choice, and maybe it’s a legitimate view that one shouldn’t have to sacrifice one’s freedoms just to be considerate of others? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/460 "2021-08-26T15:06:52Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > maybe it’s a legitimate view that one shouldn’t have to sacrifice one’s freedoms just to be considerate of others? That is always, always a balance. And it’s a balance that properly bears on everyone. “Considerate of others” includes “considerate of their freedoms” as well as “considerate of their potential waste of time” and “considerate of their ability to do things that are time-dependent”; just as it means “considerate of their other obligations” and “considerate of their individual abilities”. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/461 "2021-08-26T15:12:34Z")
But you don’t have to sacrifice your freedoms to be considerate of others - except for one. You have to sacrifice the freedom of agreeing to be somewhere at a certain time and then not being there at that time. If I invite you to Thanksgiving dinner at 2 pm on Thursday, you are perfectly free to either decline altogether or alternatively propose that you will arrive after dinner. If I am giving you a ride somewhere and you don’t like the idea of being ready at a certain time, you are free to make other transportation arrangements. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631/462 "2021-08-26T15:45:00Z")
If someone asks you to pick them up at the airport at a certain time, is it simply a matter of personal choice as to when you show up? If you ask someone to pick you up at the airport at a certain time, is it simply a matter of personal choice as to when they show up? Sure, you could say no, but once you have agreed to do so, is it really sacrificing your freedom to not be inconsiderate of others? I think that the “resolved” in this thread is as follows: If it is a casual social engagement, time is rather immaterial, and showing up late is often even the expected and desired outcome. If it is something with an external timetable, like a flight or a movie, then showing up on time is the expected and desired outcome. If it is an agreed upon meeting, then a _precise_ time is not expected, but reasonable timeliness is appreciated, as being late leaves the other party waiting on the late party. For my purposes, I expect my employees to be on time because I have work that needs to be done, and I expect my clients to be on time because I am paying employees to wait for them to show up. Is it really a sacrifice of their personal freedoms to hold to that expectation? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-you-always-late/942631.md?page=24)