I have a chronically late friend who shows up 15-45mins late to everything, 90% of the time. Usually she’ll send a text that she’ll be late, but she sends it when she should already be there/a few minutes before the agreed time and it’s soooo annoying.
Things have improved a bit when a few months ago, I told her that for a recent hangout we had, if I hadn’t reminded them/pushed back the time, I would have shown up on time and would have been waiting for them and those kind of things are annoying, could she text when she’ll know she’ll be leaving the house so I can arrive the same time as her?
She’s been doing that, which has been helpful. But it doesn’t change the fact that she still has to show up late than the time we agreed to (which sometimes forces me to push back my other plans) so I decided to test some advice I’ve seen people often recommend online for late people: tell them an earlier time.
I hosted a gathering at my place last week and told my friend to come at 7 and told everyone else separately to come at 8. My friend actually got there at 7 for the first time ever. đź’€ When she asked where was everyone, I said, “Well, you usually come late to things, so I thought I’d try to tell you an earlier time so you could get here on time.” My friend then told me she had other she could have done if I hadn’t told her the wrong time and was noticeably pissed with me the rest of the night.
I later got a text from her that she’s bothered with what I did and found my actions passive aggressive and childish. I feel like common advice of how to handle late friends completely blew up in my face. AITA?
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I have a chronically late friend who shows up 15-45mins late to everything, 90% of the time. Usually she’ll send a text that she’ll be late, but she sends it when she should already be there/a few minutes before the agreed time and it’s soooo annoying.
Things have improved a bit when a few months ago, I told her that for a recent hangout we had, if I hadn’t reminded them/pushed back the time, I would have shown up on time and would have been waiting for them and those kind of things are annoying, could she text when she’ll know she’ll be leaving the house so I can arrive the same time as her?
She’s been doing that, which has been helpful. But it doesn’t change the fact that she still shows up late, so I decided to test some advice I’ve seen people often recommend online for late people: tell them an earlier time.
I hosted a gathering at my place last week and told my friend to come at 7 and told everyone else separately to come at 8. My friend actually got there at 7 for the first time ever. đź’€ When she asked where was everyone, I said, “Well, you usually come late to things, so I thought I’d try to tell you an earlier time so you could get here on time.” My friend then told me she had other she could have done if I hadn’t told her the wrong time and was noticeably pissed with me the rest of the night.
I later got a text from her that she’s bothered with what I did and found my actions passive aggressive and childish. I feel like common advice of how to handle late friends completely blew up in my face. AITA?
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> I essentially lied to my always-late friend about the start time for a party so she could come on time. That may have been really inconsiderate of me
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA
“good. Now you see how the rest of us feel”
NTA but she is for being chronically late, which implies that her time is more important than everyone elses. I don’t understand why she’s upset when this is a very common response to people who are chronically late. I have a friend like this and we do this all the time to her. When we finally told her what we were doing, she laughed really hard and said, good, keep doing it otherwise I’ll never make it on time. If your friend can’t see how ridiculous she’s being for always doing this to the people in her life and just laugh at her big flaw and the work around you’ve come up with, then she can kick rocks.
Eh. Light ESH. I hate when people are late, and if I have a chronic late person they just don’t get invited to things that need to start at a specific time, or we start without them. It is on them as an adult to get places on time.
But talk about the hypocrisy, they are always waiting your time and they think you’re being childish. They cant show up on time.
NTA, your “friend” doesn’t respect your time and is only upset because they got called out on it.
NTA.
Pro-tip. When you tell one person to come earlier, never admit it straight out. You just let them wait for everyone else and then they can know how everyone feels waiting for them.
“My friend then told me she had other she could have done if I hadn’t told her the wrong time”
And what did she say when you told her that is effectively the identical situation she puts you in every time you arrive on time and she’s 45 minutes late and that she’s now upset only after being in that situation once?
Actually, this is still a better situation than she puts you in. At least when it happened to her, you were already there, so she did not have to wait alone.
Nta
Let her know that her past chronic lateness has interfered with your plans. You felt you had two choices, 1. Tell her an earlier time
2. Don’t invite her.
Now that she has vetoed the “earlier time” option, guess you’ll be using option #2
No, your friend is passive aggressively telling you that she doesn’t think your time is important. Always look back at actions. Shes telling you that her time/wants are more important than yours, especially if it’s chronic. NOT THE AH!
ESH – I get it… but lying to people in order to get them to do what you want is never a good idea. A better option is holding them accountable when they do arrive late… which you apparently never did. You made it seem like it was acceptable by not telling or confronting her about it.
She is right, it is passive aggressive. However, showing up late all the time also shows a lack of care for other people. What you could have done was tell her that, or just not wait around for her every time she was late. That would be a much better way of handling it, rather than what you did.
NTA but I think she’ll come even later now. Did you discuss her lateness before this? I would probably have told her you wanted to see her early and thanked her for coming on time.
ESH. She needs to fix her time issue, but you weren’t right either. I have a friend who is chronically late. When she gets there, she gets there, and I still leave at the time I need to leave to not mess up my other commitments.
The better thing to do would have been to tell her how her chronic lateness makes you feel, and if she keeps it up, stop inviting her to do things.
NTA. Idk why, but some people just cannot be on time. One of them is my own fiance. And since my dad was one of those people who lived by “if you’re on time, you’re late,” I have to be early to everything so we often clashed over this. I finally just started telling him an earlier time for any functions we attended together. He caught on after a couple of years and just laughed it off.
Your friend is an ass. They know that they’re late and just doesn’t care. Their time is not more valuable than anyone else.
I do this with a few people and sometimes they have shown up early and been annoyed. I just shrugged and told them if they were less tardy I wouldn’t have to do things like this. It’s now a running joke with us all.
NTA. I like that your friend is trying. Let her know that if she turns up on time as a more regular thing then you wouldn’t need to play these games.
NTA, but you and your friend group need to band together and tell her you’re not going to keep waiting for her. If she can’t get her shit together and start showing up on time, she’s not going to be invited any more.
NTA. But we just stopped waiting on our late friend. We move on w our life and when she shows up an hour late and asks where we are we tell her we already left or are in the movie activity watching or inside the amusement park or eating dinner. We don’t wait on late.
NTA
She’s learning the value of time only the one time she was early. She had no value for anyone’s time all the times she was late.
Tell her if she could learn to manage her time better, others wouldn’t have to do it for her
NTA. If you’re gonna be late all the time, you don’t get to get mad when people do stuff like this.
NTA – she seems to be upset that you didn’t respect her time by making her early, but she regularly disrespects your time (and other people’s time) by being late, which is kind of yikes.
That said, there might be some nuance.Â
For instance, punctuality is valued differently in different cultures. Does she come from a culture where the meeting time is more of a suggestion? (Maybe not, since she was so upset that others weren’t there at 7)
Also, how important was it in this instance for her to be on time? I’d tend to be more lenient for a casual at home gathering vs a more special occasion.Â
The other thing that my friends and I do with our chronically late friend is to reinforce the importance of being on time for those more special circumstances. (For instance, “Joe- Please don’t be late!!! Sarah has been wanting to try this restaurant for a year now and they will give away our table if the entire party isn’t there on time!”)
NTA I hear you. We had an aunt who was always late to holiday dinners. As kids we’d all be starving and say to my mother “ didn’t you tell Aunt Kay to come an hour earlier (than everyone else?” And exasperated my mother would say “I did”!
ESH
You said they’re usually 15-45 minutes late, and you gave them a time that was a full hour earlier. That’s excessive if you’re just trying to get them to arrive right on time. While they should be more reliable, they’re right that you wasted their time unnecessarily.
If they needed to be there by 8, you should have just told them 7:45, maybe 7:30 at most. That way it lines up more with how late they usually are, and if they did get there early it wasn’t going to be as much of a waste of time for them.
NTA entirely – but you don’t necessarily have to lie with things like this.
I’ve straight up told people who are often late (and particularly those who I know have executive functioning issues) that I’m going to give them earlier times to account for that – and that I won’t say how much earlier.
I think it’s really childish to do this to adults. Rather than lie to your friends, just don’t make plans with them if they can’t show up on time.
NTA, I’m an early person and it annoys me to no end when people are late. I call my wife out on it all the time. My dad is also always late while my mom always tries to arrive early. Ive started just telling my dad that his grandson’s hockey games are 20 minutes earlier than they actually are just to get him there on time, he’d frequently miss the first period and my younger son was getting a bit upset about it. Guess what, my parents get to their grandsons game on time. I told my mom that i had been giving my dad times 20 minutes early, she told me to keep doing it because she also wants to get there on time and it has led to her and my dad bickering a little less about trying to hurry up to make it on time
I mean, in this specific scenario you may be TA. I get that it can be annoying to have a chronically late friend. But a house party is something that feels fine to be late to? It’s not like you’re waiting on her to start something. Plus, if she’s usually 15-45 mins late, but you told her an hour early, she’d probably be early even if she got there 30 minutes later than the time you told her? I think you should prioritize what she needs to be on time to and what is ok if she runs late.
Pot calling the kettle black. NTA, I wouldn’t do this again, the play is done, and I would have a discussion with a friend who thinks your time is theirs, and their time is theirs because wtf: (My friend then told me she had other she could have done if I hadn’t told her the wrong time) when you were trying to address this (I told her that for a recent hangout we had, if I hadn’t reminded them/pushed back the time, I would have shown up on time and would have been waiting for them and those kind of things are annoying, could she text when she’ll know she’ll be leaving the house so I can arrive the same time as her). So she gets it, but doesn’t see herself. Be prepared to set a boundary with her as to how you will behave if she is late (leave). ( I had a friend do this and she was a mess, much better now, but woah….we had to leave after she would dither in her house for 30 mins before coming down to go for brunch, it really is rudeness or mental health, from learned behaviour, adhd traits….) It’s a lot. Talk to her, set a boundary and carry on living your lovely life.
NTA -this was a well deserved lesson.
NTA. This is a common issue with people who have ADHD and it could be your friend has some time blindness. I also have a habit of being late due to ADHD and time blindness. What helped me was people telling me something started about 30 minutes early the it actually did AND I started telling myself something that should be quick will actually take longer. Like I started telling myself to think of brushing teeth as taking 5 minutes instead of 2. Your friend is sensitive about her flaw and so probably feels singled out with the timing thing. But she was on time.
NTA
This literally happened to my dad at one his best friend’s wedding. He told my dad 1, when the wedding was at 3. My dad actually showed up at 1 and was greeted by the groom with a face full of shaving cream.
My dad has gotten better, but if you let him backslide, he will.
NTA as an “always running 10 minutes behind” person SHE’S the one being childish.
NTA. People like that disgust me. They are basically saying my time is more valuable than yours. And I’m the main character, I’m so important everyone can wait on me. I bet they aren’t 15- 45 minutes late to work everyday.
NTA.
I am one of those chronically late people. For me it’s some combination of ADHD, anxiety, and a remarkable knack for underestimating the time things take, even though I really should have learned by now. I am aware of what an exasperating character flaw it is. I do make efforts and have improved, and at the very least have gotten better at giving realistic timing updates. But I’ve even told people to feel free to lie to me about the time things start. I do sometimes end up in situations where I manage to be early when I was lied to, but I just make jokes about how it serves me right and it’s only fair it’s me waiting this time. It’s basically a boy who cried wolf situation- if you set a certain expectation with repeated behavior, you can’t be mad when people act on that expectation.