Anyone else's bf always late?

[LSgirl]

I've been dating my bf for about a year and we see each other around 3 times a week. Sometimes I catch the bus to his and other times he drives to mine. When I go to his house, it's usually around 5:30 or 6pm but when he comes over to mine, it's usually close to 9pm. I get up every morning at 6am so we usually stay up until 12 or 1am and I get kind of annnoyed when he takes forever to get here because I don't get much sleep.

 

He has 2 other roommates. One is a doctor, and my bf is an architect, and they both like playing video games. They're not hardcore gamers, but just like this one zombie game called "Call of Duty". I don't have a problem with them playing video games, and he probably wasn't playing it tonight, but just the fact he takes his sweet time coming over when it's a weekday kind of irks me. I used to voice to him how much it made me annoyed, now I just tell him he doesn't have to bring over food or anything since that'll just take more time.

 

This isn't a dealbreaker or anything, but I just wanted to vent. I'm a very timely person, always early or on time for anything whether it's a job or meeting a friend. While I understand some people aren't that way, and he knows I don't like waiting around forever, and I can't change him. This is who he is and I have to deal with it. But anyone else have the same problem? lol I used to argue about it with him now I'm just passed the point of arguing and tell myself to chill out and just wait since there's nothing that I can say that will change anything.

[carhill]

People are only late when that behavior has no consequences.

 

My best friend has a great method, where he stands outside the door and greets each employee in the morning, not every morning, and they never know when he's going to be around or not. On-time is 8am. Everyone who comes after 8 gets the 'I see you arrived at 7:65 this morning. Welcome'. One check mark next to their name. After three, they collect their last check that day. Works wonders. Mean? Some think so. The employees who are there a half hour early preparing so they can start billing customers at 8am decidedly see it as other than mean.

 

The same works in relationships. We teach people how to treat us. If BF is always making you wait and is late to social and business engagements and it reflects upon you, he's not respecting your time or the time of others. To the extent that you enable that behavior, you're responsible for that enabling.

 

I recall that my exW was perpetually late and the few times I'd take her to work she would be harping at me to 'drive faster' and 'you drive like grandpa' because I wasn't doing 80 on the freeway. My retort: 'Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part' That's one part of my life I'm glad is over.

 

Suggest to your BF to try his routine when he has a court date and see how things go with the judge if he's not on time. That'll open his eyes a bit. Why? Because the judge doesn't care about him, only that he shows up on time and respects the court's time. That's really instructive.

[xpaperxcutx]

I agree with carhill. Your boyfroend is not takig you on this matter because there are no consequences to hm being late. If seeing you on time was his job, he would have been fired a long time ago.

[carhill]

OP, how I handled things at home was, if my exW was running late, she'd be arriving at her destination alone, as I had already departed on-time. It only happened very rarely, but she knew I didn't tolerate tardiness. In fact, while we were dating, her sister commented that she had never seen sis so on-time before. I have to laugh remembering the reversal when I purposely decided to be late for a MC session (we were living separately) and listened intently to them telling me about one's responsibility to meet their obligations. I didn't take psychology in college for nothing

Edited December 15, 2011 by carhill

[Els]

I think an issue here is that you two have not arranged a time for him to come over - or it sounds like it. It wasn't a, "Okay, I'll see you at 7pm" deal - to him, it's flexible and he can come over whenever he likes. I would not consider what he is doing as 'being late' - that is when a specific time has been arranged and both of you have agreed on it.

 

That doesn't mean that you should be staying up late just because he prefers to come around late. Next time, I think you should set a boundary for yourself - when do you want to sleep? If it is 11pm, politely tell him he has to leave by 10.30 because you need sleep. Suggest that he could come over earlier so you two can spend more time together in the future, if he likes.

 

Observe his response.

[lululucy]

HA, I'm in the identical boat. Although my bf's roommate is a sketchy drug-dealer (we suspect anyway -- he's moving out), this is always the case. I'll tell him I'm coming at 8 or whatever, I'm there by 8:30, easy-peasy. When it's his turn to come to my place or pick me up, I get at least one or two "Running late" texts and he shows up around an hour after he claimed he'd be there.

 

And he LOVES C.O.D-Black Ops Zombies mode. He spent at least nine hours on one tuesday. Shesh.

 

I think Elswyth has the right idea -- if you're consistent with giving him specific times you expect him over and he still shows up several hours later, then it could be a problem. I think she has a good solution though, I would follow that advice.

[ditzchic]

My last bf was ALWAYS early. In the beginning it was cute that he was so excited to spend time with me that he would get there the first second he could but as time when on it got really annoying. My life was much busier than his and I felt like I had to rush what I was doing all the time for him. I didn't want to be one of those girls that would make him wait while I finished getting ready but he would leave me no choice.

 

The one time that stands out in my mind the most was when I was taking my dad out for dinner for his birthday. It was only a few weeks after we met and I told him that I should be home and ready around 9-9:30 so we could go out for drinks. He was texting me all day about how excited he was for drinks that night, even while I was at dinner. Well I'm just finishing up dinner with my dad around 8:15 and he texts me that he doesn't want to rush me but he's waiting outside of my building. He got bored and wanted to come early. It was my father's gd birthday dinner!!! So I finished up with my dad and had to rush home and rush through the getting ready process. I actually think that's the moment I decided he wasn't for me. lol

 

So yeah, I guess the grass is always greener

[LSgirl]

I usually ask what time he's coming over and last night he said "a guy is supposed to come and buy some of ex-roomate's stuff" the guy ended up coming but didn't buy it, that was around 7pm, and he showed up around 8:45pm at my place. However, when he did come, he had bought some small groceries to cook with me. I don't cook and he knows I was sick, so he brought over medicine and light food. I was thankful for that and quickly got over that I was waiting. A couple other times he brought over flowers when he was late, but that was probably to show how sorry he was. So that shows he KNOWS he comes late, but usually I get over it within a few minutes. I tell myself, will this matter tomorrow? or in a week?

 

Last night we didn't arrange a specific time, but I don't like to pressure him or tell him what to do. When we first went out, this was such an issue for me that I would argue with him and upset myself over it, now I just try not to make it an issue and find something busy to do. BUT, I think coming over at 9pm is kind of late to be hanging out especially if I want 8hrs of sleep I should be in bed by 10pm. When he came last night, I made a joking comment about how long I waited and he tried to give me a kiss, and I made a funny face. We both laughed it off and I couldn't stay mad anymore. By the time we caught the elevator up to my room, he showed me the groceries he brought and I was happy again. Argh, somehow he always makes up for it. But the time issue is an issue I have with even my friends and past exes. For me, I don't like to waste people's time and I think it's rude to show up late even with a friend, it would be great if they could just say they're running late and give a specific time, but I can't change that about people. I can only change how it affects me.

 

I'll just have to mention when he comes over late that it doesn't give us much time to hang out and since we only hang out around 3 times a week. He knows I don't like waiting, but he's a last-minute sort of guy even with Thanksgiving, he didn't know what he was doing until the night before and bought groceries on Thanksgiving morning lol

[wezol]

If you're on time, you're late, is the rule I go by.

 

By that means, if I'm supposed to be there at 5:00 and I arrive at 5:00, I consider myself late. Therefore, I make sure I'm there no later than 4:45.

 

Carhill, I remember you saying that a long time ago (don't remember when), and ended up using it on my ex-wife when she wanted me to drive faster when we carpooled.

 

Her reaction was...nothing. She just sat quiet

[FitChick]

I had a friend in college who was always late no matter what. All of us, her friends, were annoyed. What we did was to change the meeting time an hour earlier than planned, knowing that way she would show up on time without knowing it. Worked like a charm!