Not exactly. But it makes me dependent upon the lenience and understanding of others, which is shaming. There is usually avoidance and shame involved with not being able to easily function the way ‘normal’ people do. One expects a certain kindly contempt, to which one must become inured. Depending on the disability, of course.
Nonpunctuality is not my disability. But I know a fair number of people for whom it is a side effect of theirs.
Ulfreida, let me ask you an honest question. Let’s say YOU are the one to say. “We need to leave at 11:30.” and the other people involved are ready on time but have to wait for you until 11:50. Do you feel bad about making them wait for you?
Yup. It’s the exact same arguments that were in the previous hundreds of pages in this thread. People who could listen did listen. People who can only hear what they’ve already decided in their heads won’t listen. Anybody who’s genuinely new to the thread, please go back and read the thread.
I agree.
Of course. I used to be so anxious about being punctual that I ruined several evenings completely over it. I had to learn that only a few things, such as dinner parties and plane flights and operas, really require punctuality, and most things have considerably more leeway. I treated everything like I was catching the last helicopter out of Saigon. Now I call up my my inner mellow, most of the time. I also factor in the habitual lateness of some others. Bring a book, and plan on a nice glass of wine alone, perhaps. Works for me.
And that is the difference between you and most of the people we’re talking about. The people we’re discussing in most of these posts are those that are always late, inconvenience you, and don’t give a F about how it effects you or even portray themselves as the victim.
Okay, I have met exactly one person like that in my life, although I’ve spent time with many people with extreme lateness problems. She felt that people she inconvenienced were the problem, because they were so uptight; they needed to follow her example of carefree self-determination. Wanted to poke her in the eye. But as I say, she was highly unusual. So apparently the angry posters on this thread deal with an entirely different population than I do.
Yes, and I think I mentioned it earlier in the thread. I don’t want to speak for anyone else but if a person has who trouble being somewhere at a certain time either avoids making specific plans or modifies them ( “I’ll pick you up at 10 to go to the mall” is different from “I’ll meet you at the mall around 10”) , tries to minimize their lateness ( 10 minutes late is better than an hour late) and mostly avoids being late for time-sensitive events then I won’t get angry. In fact, I might not even notice if I invite you to Thanksgiving dinner and you are 20 minutes late - I invited you for an hour or so before I expect dinner to be ready. On the other hand, if I’m supposed to pick you up at 6 am for a trip, and when I get there you aren’t awake, packed or showered and we don’t leave until 8 or 9 , I’m going to notice , be mad and not give you the chance to do it again.
For some reason or another, people who are in the "I try very hard not to be late , and minimize the amount of time I am late and avoid making time-sensitive plans unless it’s absolutely necessary " group often think that people are complaining about them , even when somebody specifically says they are talking about the person who won’t shorten their hour-long morning routine when they are already late.
I think the “on time” posters in this thread have varied as to how broad a net they cast around “people who run late”. Many are like you, but some have complained about the folks you are okay with.
It’s highly situational. Dinner reservations? Please be on time. Gonna drop by and have a couple of beers? Give me a good estimate of when you are going to be here, but it can certainly fluctuate. But still, let me know if your running late. For all I know, you forgot completely. Or put your car in a ditch.
I am related to one through marriage! Glorious was the day when we stopped waiting for him. People who genuinely are contrite about being late, like others have said, I do things that don’t matter about time. But people that shrug it off and just take hours and hours and you’re getting hungrier and hungrier and other people are making you wait for them and when they get there they’re like meh, I do not like.
And yes time sensitive things. I hate missing the first five minutes of a movie or a show. I paid for that crap! Went to see Barbie and was stunned at how many people showed up after the movie had already started.Going to a festival? I still don’t love that you showed up 30 minutes late because now I am just sitting around waiting for you but this relative of mine would be hours late.
I do give grace to people with children, there is always the potential the child threw up or threw a tantrum or threw something else.
My perennially late ex girlfriend mentioned many times in this thread is driving through the area and will be visiting me for dinner and spending the night at my house.
We spoke this morning. She is at her brother’s house and the plan was just to go to the gym and get lunch. He lives 90 minutes away and she planned to leave there between 1:30 and 2:00 arriving at my house no later than 3:30.
She can arrive whenever since we don’t have solid plans other than I’m taking her to dinner so I’m not stressing.
When do you think she’ll arrive?
I’ll guess 5:00 maybe a bit later. She promised to get there by 3:30, so when it gets to 3:30 she’ll realize she needs to leave.
Las time she was supposed to arrive at 6pm but didn’t arrive until after 10 and then had to leave super early the next day so we barely had time to visit. She was a five hour drive away that time.
It’s 3:36. Just got a text.
“Be a bit late”
4:10. I am very impressed and will give her praise.
I’ve been watching shows about airline passengers: in the US it’s Southweat and in the UK it’s EasyJet. I know they edit in only the interesting stories so this is not indicative of 100% of people late for their plane. Some of these late passengers are SOOOOOO entitled. From ‘How dare you not hold the plane for me.’ to ‘I missed my plane because I was late so it’s now YOUR problem.’ Who doesn’t know that you need to plan to be at the gate an hour early and even that is cutting it close because what if there’s traffic and there is a problem checking your bag and TSA is crowded and your gate is at the end of the terminal.
Aren’t chess games timed?
For that one, were they late because they got to the airport late, or were they late because they were connecting and their inbound flight was late? In the latter situation, some airlines will hold the plane for late arriving connecting passengers, especially if it’s the last flight of the day to that destination.
Got to the airport late. No connection.