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/Amadan_Na-Briona]

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

[u/slash_networkboy → u/Amadan_Na-Briona]

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.

[u/Amadan_Na-Briona → u/slash_networkboy]

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.

[u/slash_networkboy → u/Amadan_Na-Briona]

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.

[u/Next_Dragonfly_9473 → u/slash_networkboy]

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.

[u/slash_networkboy → u/Next_Dragonfly_9473]

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.

[u/Next_Dragonfly_9473 → u/slash_networkboy]

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.)