What to do about a perpetually late friend?

[tridim]

This has been going on for the 20 years I've known this guy. He's ALWAYS very late for appointments. Today he asked if I could help him at noon to load a truck with some stuff. I work at home so it didn't seem like a big deal, but it's now 12:30 and he's not here yet. I'm getting hungry for lunch. I think I'm going to blow him off and not leave a note. I'm sick of waiting for him every freaking time he asks for a favor.

The worst was the time I rode with him to Kansas City. I had to be back in Denver by a certain time, he promised we'd leave at 8:00am to drive back. We ended up leaving KC at 4:00pm for no other reason than he is slow and just doesn't seem to care about schedules. I was fuming mad the entire trip.

Well, I'm going to lunch now. Screw him.

[ibegurpard]

1. Just never do anything with him where it's important to stick to schedule

People who have this problem rarely, if ever, change. Attempts to make them just end up in passive-aggressive resistance.

[wryter2000]

2. Next time he asks for help tell him no

When he asks why, tell him.

[NV Whino]

3. This is classic passive aggressive behavior

You can accept it and adjust your schedule/expectations. Or you can drop your friend. He is not going to change.

[silverweb]

4. Keep to your own schedule.

Never depend on him for transportation, etc.
Never wait for him.
Tell him to be on time or don't bother showing up at all.

Ditto what previous poster said -- these people don't change. When you get tough, he may actually be on time once or twice, but will quickly revert to old habits.

[BattyDem]

5. Our group of friends solved this problem by always telling the late guy...

that the appointment was for an hour earlier than it actually was. If we needed him to be there at 10:00, we told him 9:00. Of course, he would show up at about 9:45, and he would apologize for being "late" - so we acted slightly annoyed and said, "Yeah, yeah ... whatever" because we didn't want to give away our little plot. But we all were calm and happy on the inside! :evilgrin:

[radwriter0555]

17. We did that with a shoot with Mariah Carey once, a long time ago....

Call time was 6 pm.. so we told her call time was noon, and she showed up at midnight!

Drunk of course.

But that was a good 15 years ago.

[swimmernsecretsea]

6. I used to have a friend with this same problem.

He denied that he did any such thing, but when we'd go someplace with other friends, he'd insist on driving all of us, and then would be so late that he'd be frantic trying to find parking. We all live in San Francisco, and finding parking in 10 minutes? You might as well forget it.

We started to lie to him. For instance, when a movie started at 7pm, we'd say we had to get there at 6:30pm. He caught on, naturally, so instead of being 30 minutes late, he'd be an hour.

Finally, for him and another friend who were chronically late, I stopped doing things with them that required being on time. I decided I wanted to stop feeling frustrated and under their control. I read somewhere that lateness is a form of aggression, and that making others late with you is a method of being in control and in power. I think it's silly and just don't want to participate.

[tridim]

13. Well, he's definitely not a passive/aggressive type

He's just off in la-la land most of the time and doesn't understand why anyone would be upset that he never sticks to a schedule. I've confronted him about it before and he just blows it off as, "Shit happens". I'm sick of it.

BTW, it's now 1:00pm and I've yet to receive a call or anything. At least I got to eat lunch. I hope he has fun loading the truck by himself.

[SOteric]

7. Let him know, with humour,

that you're well aware of his casual acquaintance with clocks, schedules and promptness. Then tell him firmly that in the future, you will wait exactly (x) number of minutes for his arrival in appointments with you, and then you'll be off to do your own business and he'll be out of luck. Then stick to that and don't suffer any guilt over it. It leaves it up to him to be on time and the consequence is that you get to retain control of your life.

He may begin showing up on time or he may not, but regardless you've set a limit on how much of your time he can suck up idly and you'll likely not be so irritated with him in the future.

[Mojambo]

8. Have him killed. n/t

[miss_kitty]

9. The 15 minute limit

this is a controlling behaviour and I personally don't stand for it. Everyone is late every now and again, but a habitual late thing is messed up and not friendly. After they are trained to the 15 minute wait, it goes to 10. And now, I will just tell late people, "I would like to do stuff with you, but I won't plan to do stuff with you if you can't be on time."

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. Yeah, don't let his schedule rule your life. You've established a pattern

of waiting for him, and he doesn't seem to care.

I say leave now for lunch, leave him a note saying "I was willing to help but my time is also valuable. I have no way of knowing if you will be here in a minute or two hours, so I left for lunch. Contact me to reschedule another time to help, and then show up on time for it; but I will not be available to help you today."

[pitohui]

11. i lie

i've started changing the times, like if i gotta be at the airport for 1, i'll say I gotta be there for noon or 11:30, works OK, so far he hasn't caught on

since he asked for the favor, & he wasn't there, i would make one call on my cell, if i couldn't get him, i'd leave a message abt where i would be, then immediately move on

often this gets a quick callback, when it doesn't, it is because even if i had waited all day, my friend would not have been able to make it

go to lunch & don't sweat it

[DS1]

12. Don't show up sometime.

If he doesn't notice, don't show up the next time. When he does notice, wonder what the big deal is.

[Debi]

14. If he's really a friend and you care about him for every other reason

than promptness....let it go and find ways to not rely on him for timeliness.

People can analyze tardiness to death (does he arrive late to ensure that other people will be there already and he won't be alone? Does he like the power of knowing others are waiting on him? Is he just ditzy when it comes to time and will be late to his own funeral? His tardiness shows total disrespect for your feelings and he must not care about you.) why not accept that this is one of his idiosyncrasies and be done with it?

If his inability to be on time upsets you greatly and he isn't a good person otherwise, dump him. Then you'll only have people around you that are on time and you can feel better.

My husband is a person who always runs late, before we got married I was always early. I left several places that we were supposed to meet for dates because he was late and I sat there alone (I also refused to allow him entrance into my house because he arrived for dinner late). Then I thought about it...he cared for me and took care of me in so many different ways...he never showed lack of respect for me in any other way. Maybe I was making too much of his tardiness and was letting that feeling cloud all the other wonderful things about him. I opted to marry the late guy. I'm glad I did.

[caty]

15. He shows a great

deal of disrespect for you, your feelings, and your life. I feel very uncomfortable around people like that. You said it--"screw him".

[Samurai_Writer]

16. I used to have a girlfriend like that...

She was consistently 30 minutes late for everything. The way I solved it, was I used to tell her everything started 30 minutes earlier than it actually did. For example, going to the movies or out for dinner, I'd tell her "I'll meet you at 7pm" if I wanted to meet her at 7:30pm.

If she was asking me to meet her somewhere, I would just go 30 minutes late, because I knew she wouldn't be there when she said she would be.

Worked like a charm.