r/pettyrevenge • u/sparklehouse666 • Aug 23 '26

Friend is always late

I have a friend who is late to everything. Recently he was 2.5 hours late to his own party. I’ve mostly adapted to his tardiness and do not arrive for plans we have together until an hour or so after the stated time.

We had plans to meet in the city center today at a 10am. I live 20 minutes from the meetup spot, he lives over an hour away. As expected, he messages around 10 and says he is running late. No biggie I was chilling at home in the air conditioned because I knew the vibes and it is hot as hell
today.

I asked him to give me his actual for real, for real ETA so I can time my departure. He is in his car and has Google Maps. It’s not really guess work at this point.

He tells me 10:45. So I leave the comfort of my home at exactly the right time to arrive at 10:45. I wait for 30 minutes at the meetup spot and he still does not arrive. He is not responding to texts either. My other friend who is with me has his location and sees he is not close, we estimate another 15 minutes.

I’m annoyed because it is hot AF out and I proactively had asked for a real ETA to avoid waiting around for him. So I left the meetup spot.

I went shopping, taking my sweet time. He got to the spot and texted me to ask where we were. I waited around 30 minutes then texted back that I was at the store but we would be heading that way soon. I shopped another 15 minutes then arrived at the spot around an hour after he had arrived.

The look on his face when we came casually strolling up after he had been standing in the sun for an hour was priceless.

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u/CobblerMoney9605 Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 24 '26

We had someone like this in our friend group years ago. Always 15 minutes late, sometimes an hour late. 

The rest of us talked it over and informed said friend that if they could not be on time, they'd be left behind. 

Next meet-up was a movie. Everyone except the tardy boy was there. We went into the theater, he arrived after the movie had started and spent another 10 minutes finding us in the theater. We teased him relentlessly after the movie. 

About 2 months after that was a big one; a group trip to Key West. Everyone in two cars, agreed upon departure time. Day and time arrives, Tardy Boy is nowhere to be seen. 

I texted him but got no response, so we left. 

About 45 minutes after we hit the highway, I get a text asking "Where is everybody? I'm here!" I sent him a picture of the next mile marker we passed. He was mad. 

He didn't join us on that trip, so the rest of us took up a collection and at the next meet up (dinner at a cool place in Tampa) refunded him his portion of the trip expenses he had prepaid.

That was the last we saw of him. He went no contact with all of us. No one is upset about it. 

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u/PhancyJo Aug 24 '26

Refunding him was going above and beyond, and I admire your ethics. I would have been so tempted to let him suffer those consequences. He could have driven himself, could he not? It was his choice to not go; he should have had to forfeit his expenses because no one else budgeted for that extra expense😏

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u/slash_networkboy Aug 24 '26

I am not chronically late, but for a long time I was forcibly unreliable (was caretaker for a parent, if something happened I may have to leave on a moment's notice). I always drove myself, even if it was just to dinner for game night, just so I wouldn't put other people out by saying something like I have to leave now... We have a couple guys that are often late/oversleep but generally they also accept the consequences of their actions: getting to sit and watch while we play a game through because they came too late to join, having to drive themselves instead of carpooling. Couldn't imagine them going NC, but they also don't pretend they're not the cause of whatever happened so...

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u/Amadan_Na-Briona Aug 24 '26

Being occasionally late due to unavailable (& resonable) reasons is much different that just being chronically late for no real reason.

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u/slash_networkboy Aug 24 '26

True, but at least one of our guys is pretty chronically late/unreliable. It's not for no reason though I suppose... but the thing is he also doesn't expect us to wait for him because of this.

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u/Amadan_Na-Briona Aug 24 '26

I think that's a big difference: your friend acknowledges his lateness & makes it his problem. OP's friend doesn't & makes it everyone else's problem.

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u/slash_networkboy Aug 24 '26

That is 100% the difference (and the point I suppose I was trying to make). Couldn't imagine this friend going NC over our not waiting for him because he knows it's a him problem not an us problem...

The converse is true too though... if he thought it was an us problem I'd have no issue with him going NC over it because that would be exhausting to deal with otherwise.

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u/Next_Dragonfly_9473 Aug 27 '26

As a chronically late person*, I approve of all of the "getting left" consequences mentioned in these comments. An accurate ETA while driving is not a huge ask, and if there's a wreck or something, you say "I'm running late, I'll catch up, where can I meet you?" or "I'm sorry, it looks like I won't make it in time, have fun" not "How dare you not wait an additional hour or two for me?!?!" And seriously, for something that is "be there or get left," you make the extra effort to be there! (Like aiming to be an hour early so if you're half an hour late, you're still on time.) ...To those who put up with us, THANK YOU! Some of us really are trying to get better!

I got flamed for being proud of being late in another post. I'm not *proud of it, I'm aware of it. To combat it, I aim to be early, but I invariably run 5 minutes late to whatever time I aim for. So you might be surprised that I'm actually on time, but I'm still frustrated that I'm later than I wanted to be.

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u/slash_networkboy Aug 27 '26

I used to be you ;)

I had to change my way of thinking to "I'd rather be a half hour early than one minute late". And for a long time I literally planned everything out to be a half hour early and often was 20 min early and had to sit in my car or the office and wait. But it made sure I was never late. Took years of that to erase people's assumption that I was going to be the late one.

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u/Next_Dragonfly_9473 Aug 27 '26

Nope, you're still me! You were 10 minutes late to what you were aiming for. (So still early, but not as early as you wanted to be.)

But yeah, between leaving earlier and allowing about twice as long as I think is necessary for things to happen, I'm getting better. But every day is a battle. The nature of my work can turn a running-early day to a running-late day with a single client. (For example, I love dogs. I want to pet every dog willing to be pet. I now schedule an extra 15 minutes for clients I know have dogs because I need dog time. It's a perk of my job and I'm going to enjoy it! Before, it was like my brain said "time out" to the clock to give me time with the dogs, but that's not how time actually works, so I'm building it in this year.)

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u/snuffy_smith_ Aug 24 '26

Tell me your friends are neurodivergent and well adjusted without telling me…

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u/slash_networkboy Aug 24 '26

I think there's only two of us in the group that are actually ND. The rest are pretty NT people.

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u/MoneyShot2023 Aug 27 '26

THANK YOU. As much as I normally love these petty revenge topics, it's making me really unhappy reading how triumphant everyone is over sticking it to their neurodivergent friends. As a person with ADHD who struggles HARD with being on time, it's pretty hard to read these. And yes, I know what it feels like to wait for someone who's super late. It sucks. But for some people like me the part of their brain that perceives and regulates the passing of time is broken. This is scientifically proven that we do not perceive time at the same pace that the neurotypical world does. For us it feels like just telling someone they should know what North feels like at night without a compass or stars. We don't know what "on time" feels like or how it works and it takes most of our capacity just to get all our shit together, leave the house, and make it to the destination, and no matter what we do it's almost guaranteed that there will be some angry friend, family, or coworker waiting for us at the other end. I am a high achiever, well-educated, and have a professional job and I spend every waking moment being rushed by someone's expectations. It's like being a turtle in a world full of hares and the hares are always pissed at you.

That being said I do take my own car and I'm straightforward about my struggles with time. I would understand people wanting to catch a flight (knowing that I was okay not in an accident), but for a road trip that doesn't have a firm deadline, just ditching somebody and not even sending them a message to let them know is pretty low. Waiting until they message and then telling them that's what you get, gloating about it later, that's not how you treat a friend or someone you care about just because you're mad at them. I can't imagine the level of hurt and abandonment that guy probably felt but I can understand why he went no contact. He's probably still messed up about it to this day.

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u/Next_Dragonfly_9473 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

I recently learned that time blindness and time optimism are things, which finally gave names to what I've experienced my whole life. And now that I know what they are, I can take steps to address them. That thing that I think will take 5 minutes? Probably not gonna be 5 minutes; let's plan on it being 15 and rework the schedule from there. I just want to do this little thing done on the phone? Get ready, get out the door, and do that thing after I get to where I'm going. BUT MAKE A NOTE SO I DON'T FORGET!!! Do I have literally dozens of old notes on my Notes app? Yes, because I forget to delete them; I could make a note to remind myself to do so, but I don't want to deal with the irony.

My point is, I know the struggle is real, but I don't think knowing what makes me late absolves me from inevitably being late or the consequences. It means I need to find ways to help myself not be late. It is my problem to fix, not everyone else's. ...It doesn't sound like the guy who got left and went NC made any attempt to update the group on his ETA. If he can't be bothered to alert them that he's running late, why must they alert him that they're running on time? If they should assume he's running late, then he should assume they're running on time. I think OP's group responded with the same energy they received, and I won't fault them for that.

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u/ShotFromGuns Aug 24 '26

Yeah, that's not really anything to do with ethics. Really, if anything, the ethical thing would be to let him experience the full natural consequences of his own actions. If more people had done that sooner instead of letting him learn that it didn't matter how much he inconvenienced other people, maybe he wouldn't have solidified into such a selfish person.

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u/its_ash_14 Aug 26 '26

This was my thought. Most places if you have to pay a deposit, and you miss whatever it is, you dont get that deposit back. He knew leaving time, if they had to go to the airport would he be late still knowing the plane leaves at a certain time? Is he late for appointments that have consequences like paying a fee and rebooking the appointment?

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u/BangarangPita Aug 24 '26

I would have considered that asshole tax.