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When meeting someone for lunch, dinner or an appointment are you:
• usually early
• on time
• little late (5 min.)
• always late (more than 5min.)
• habitually late never on time
What is a reasonable amount of time to wait ?
I'm sure there's already a thread on this subject.
I had this conversation with someone recently and he said the thing he couldn't stand the most besides the person showing up late is that they don't acknowledge and apologize -absolutely no accountability on their part for being late.
I'm usually a little early or on time but I've been late before and the first thing if I've kept someone waiting is offer an apology.
I've decided I'm not going to wait more than 5 min. for the habitually late people. It doesn't matter if they call or not.
If the on time people are running late and call I'll wait.
The on time people I know when we meet for lunch or dinner we're usually driving in the parking lot at the same time.
I was going to meet an acquaintance for dinner and I had the feeling she would be late so I asked her are you an on time person or a late person.
She replied, I'm always late. I said, well then I can't meet you for dinner because I don't wait for late people anymore. I was glad she was honest so I didn't waste my time.
To the on time person how long do you wait for someone that is late ?
To the habitually late person how long do you expect someone to wait for you ?
You are awesome!
I'll wait 15 minutes but that's it...and I'm usually early....
there is no excuse on God's green earth to be late, unless it's something you cannot help, like an accident, whatever, but, with today's cells you can always call the person you know is waiting.
To be late is a very rude statement, that says, "I don't care about you! Your feelings are not important to me."
I made a prime rib every Christmas dinner. I'm talking 7 ribs which is a very expensive piece of meat. My younger sister, showed 1 hour late....and the meat sat and sat, and cooked more until it was ruined...I will never wait again...but not only was that rude to me, but to my other guests.
I sent my sibblings an email telling them that would be my last dinner and why. They played the victim....so, for 3 years I didn't have any more family dinners until last year, guess what, they all showed up on time...and we had a great time.
For someone who is usually on time I would wait 5 minutes then text. For someone who is habitually late maybe a 5 minute wait but no text just move on.
I am usually on time/early. My parents wanted to always get everywhere EARLY. Which is great and all, but as someone with anxiety, I am always anxious about being late, so much so that most of my dreams are anxiety-related and they have to do with being late somewhere/missing something.
I think it's unrealistic, especially where I live, to expect everyone to be on time all of the time. Sometimes you're stuck on the train. Sometimes you're stuck in traffic. Sometimes life happens. Even when I used to give myself extra time to get to work, I would still end up there RIDICULOUSLY late on days when traffic was nuts.
Probably how I would feel:
-Annoyed if someone didn't apologize for being late.
-Annoyed if they were chronically late---I probably wouldn't hangout with them much.
-Less annoyed or not annoyed at all if they were just 5-15 minutes late, especially if there are other people I can hangout with in the meanwhile.
I had met up with a cousin (we hadn't seen each other since childhood) and we've been hanging out together, more and more....sometimes every other Sat. nite. Well, I made plans with her, to go somewhere which was approx, a 1.5 hour drive away.
She decided since her daughter was home from college, she'd invite her to go. I arrived at their home on time to pick them up.
Her daughter wasn't even out of bed yet, I had to wait for her to take a shower and get ready, and then she had the nerve to ask me to stop so she could get something to eat? And we were heading out somewhere to eat. I had to wait an hour for this young lady to get ready.
Later on, the subject just came up and I told my cousin how I hated to wait for people and referred to what her daughter did, and said, "That will not happen again". Now I'm guessing she told her daughter, and for a long time, we didn't get together. I bet her daughter is now angry with me, and I don't care, but do you see how people play the victim, instead of saying, "yanno what, I was wrong, I'm sorry...".
Nothing was ever said, to me, by her or her mother.
Kinda left a sour taste. But it won't happen again....
Last edited by cremebrulee; 02-21-2017 at 11:22 AM..
People who always arrive too early are also a little bit PITA
I agree completely. On time or 5-15 minutes after set time is perfectly acceptable to me. 3-5 minutes early, fine. Any more than 5 minutes early and I'm just as annoyed as if you were 45minutes late.
I'm usually on time or at most 5-10 minutes late, any more than that and I let the person know ASAP the reason why I'm running behind. I expect the same from others.
And for the people that arrive early, if we are meeting in a public place, that's fine but do not show up to my house more than 5 minutes early, I will leave you waiting at the door until I feel its ok for you to come in. Unless you tell me you are coming early to help me, do not arrive early unless you want to wait in your car our standing outside my door. And if we are meeting in a public place and you arrive 20 minutes early or whatever and I arrive on time, do not act like I left you waiting an hour, we set a time, you choose to arrive early.
Generally speaking, 15 minutes. To allow for traffic & such. But I would expect a text if someone were more than 5 minutes late.
I used to run about 5-10 late myself habitually, but moving to a military town has changed that. Most people here are early, often VERY early. Which is super annoying btw, but if I'm 10 minutes late & they were 15 early, they've been waiting 25 minutes in their mind LOL.
I haven't seen anyone mention this, but I've waited hours for drs. It's all fine to say if they make me wait more than 1/2 hour, I'll reschedule, but in practicality, I don't find that beneficial. One, the dr rarely knows about it. Two, I probably really needed to see them if I was there. Three & most important to me, it doesn't make good use of my time. I will easily waste another 1/2 hour or more, driving there & back on another day, checking in, doing paperwork again, etc. I am livid each time, but I find it less time consuming to me, to sit & wait. I usually make sure to tell the dr they're late & how late they are, as they usually don't know. Sometimes I still don't get an apology :-(
P.S. I love 70's music almost as much as 80's music!
People who always arrive too early are also a little bit PITA
Yes, that is the opposite. It's a different form of control. I have a woman like that in the church that I attend. She always volunteers to do anything that requires a setup, like for a dinner or brunch. She is one of those people who makes everything look nice even in a cinderblock church basement, matching tablecloths, centerpieces, putting plasticware out in cutesy little baskets, the sort of fussy stuff that would never even occur to me that we "need" lol. She's just good at that sort of thing.
I noticed that she was always there even if the rest of us got there on time, and she had a lot of the work done already, so I started coming earlier. I'd get there ten-fifteen minutes earlier than the agreed-upon time, and she already had half of it done. Then I realized this was her schtick. She NEEDS to be the one who gets there first and does most of the work. I come now when I say I am going to come, and if you need to be the There-First Decoration Queen, the title is yours! To be fair, she doesn't complain about it or anything, and she is a very nice lady, but it's a weird little quirk to agree to meet at 10 then show up at 9 and get it all done before the others come at 10.
Many years ago, I was friendly with a person who didn't own a watch (he said that they weren't "necessary"), and who was consistently late for everything. After being kept waiting as long as an hour on a couple of occasions, my new policy became...20 minutes maximum waiting time...before I would depart.
Subsequent to my new policy, I received a phone call from him, complaining that I wasn't waiting for him.
Yup! You noticed!
He finally got the hint from my decision to not enable his irresponsible behavior, and he did become more punctual at that point. For him, being only 15-20 minutes late was being "on time", and I was able to deal with that situation.
It should be noted that all of this transpired long before the cell phone era. In today's world, being more than...maybe...5 minutes late without a phone call or text to explain the situation is...inexcusable, IMHO.
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For someone who is habitually late maybe a 5 minute wait but no text just move on.
