Nothing makes my blood boil more than latecomers unless they have a genuine excuse. “Buffalo on the line at New Malden” might just do it – otherwise it is plain rude, according to readers responding to a recent article by Polly Hudson on being friends with ‘time optimists’.
Readers Share Their Pet Peeves
Wendy Carter from Sydney, Australia, wrote: “I’ve made the rule never to wait for anyone longer than 15 minutes in a social setting. As I said to a colleague who was always late: ‘It’s simple, leave the house earlier.’”
Mark Wallace from Beetsterzwaag, the Netherlands, shared his tactic for dealing with lateness in professional meetings: “I’m almost always a couple of minutes early for meetings, which are mostly remote, and always up to my eyeballs in work, so if others are late for a meeting, I just do something else. When they turn up, I (fakely) apologise with: ‘Just give me a second to finish this’ and cut off the sound, leaving them to wait for a five-minute ‘second’. Most people take the hint.”
A Friend Who Thought Lateness Was Cute
Louise Harper from Edinburgh described a friendship strained by chronic lateness: “I have/had a friend who seemed to think that her lateness was cute and endearing – a quirky little aspect of her personality. However, after many hours of wasting time waiting for her, and having to suffer such comments as ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’, implying that I might be just a tad petty-minded, I discovered a way of dealing with her. I told her that the next time she wanted to meet, she should text me when she was on the bus, and not before. Strangely, I never heard back from her after that.”
These responses highlight a common frustration with habitual lateness, which many view as a sign of disrespect. Whether in social or professional contexts, punctuality remains a key aspect of etiquette.
