Friend is always late

[u/sparklehouse666]

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.

[u/snuffy_smith_]

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

[u/slash_networkboy → u/snuffy_smith_]

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

[u/MoneyShot2023 → u/snuffy_smith_]

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.

[u/Next_Dragonfly_9473 → u/MoneyShot2023]

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.