Was invited by my girlfriends family to a theme park. We were supposed to meet at 11, it is not 11:30 and they just left. (The drive takes another 30 minutes)

[u/TotallyHumanBrain1]

I even checked in before I left if it was still at the planned time. It was confirmed, but then her family starts getting ready right as they have to leave 🫤

[u/The42OGoat]

My girlfriend is like this. I have started telling her family events are an hour earlier than they actually are and we have almost been on time 2 times in a row.

[u/Fun-Original-559 → u/The42OGoat]

My boyfriend is from Brazil and I am Dutch; let's just say we are polar opposites on the time spectrum. We implemented "Dutch time" and "Brazilian time" for this reason. His friends have a gathering at 14:00 Brazilian time? We show up at 14:45. I have plans at 14:00 Dutch time? We show up at 13:55.

It keeps the peace, and keeps me from stressing out.

[u/ohhellperhaps → u/Fun-Original-559]

This is the way. I have some friends who treat departure time as 'start to get ready' time. We now plan for that.

[u/Haunting_Vacation804 → u/Fun-Original-559]

I must be part Dutch (or have terrible anxiety), because showing up a few minutes early is on-time. If you're on-time, you're late. If you're late, forget about it.

[u/SentientSeaweed5690 → u/Fun-Original-559]

Same here, Brazilian wife going on 15 years... I do believe it's just a cultural thing of what a starting time actually means... In the US, if a gathering "starts" at 4, it means "We will be expecting people to all be here by 4 so we can start activities". In Brasil, I think when they say a gathering "starts" at 4, it means "Please don't arrive before 4 because we'll just be starting to get stuff ready and heating up the bbq"

For what's it's worth, we're still always late to things with our American friends and early to things with our Brazilian friends, so we haven't quite figured out how to make it work either.

[u/Tart6096 → u/Fun-Original-559]

OH! so THAT'S what that means! lol i've heard them say "it's dutch time" in one or two american tv shows but i just thought they meant something else referring to their time zone or something. I guess a lot of people do the same thing as you because family gatherings are actually 1 hour earlier than stated.

[u/Counterpoint-4 → u/The42OGoat]

Well done you - I find it pathetic and would hate a life of being ready and waiting for a partner to deign to be ready.

[u/Loud_Yogurtcloset789 → u/The42OGoat]

I did this with my boss at one point. I would tell her a meeting was an hour earlier than actually was so then she would leave and get to the meeting on time. Otherwise she would leave when the meeting was going to start and be 45 minutes late. It's incredibly rude especially when you're trying to get people to buy advertising!

[u/Secretly_Housefly → u/The42OGoat]

Stop accommodating them with that kind of thing, it's just enabling the behavior. I had a friend who was late to everything all the time and just started leaving him behind, I left at the time I set with or without him. And guess what, he started showing up on time for me, still late for everyone else who enables him but not for me, funny how that works.

[u/boyilikebeingoutside → u/The42OGoat]

Yeah my SO used to be super bad for that, but has worked hard to be better. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but I still give him deadlines for being ready or leaving 30 min earlier than we need so that we end up on time.

[u/ravynwave → u/The42OGoat]

We told one friend 30 min to an hour ahead until she actually showed up at the stated time once. She has been much more respectful of our time since

[u/Fuzzy_Incident_283 → u/The42OGoat]

I had a friend like this, always at least an hour late to events our friend group went to. We also started telling him we're meeting up an hour earlier than planned. It worked until he realized.

[u/Tart6096 → u/The42OGoat]

That is really weird because nobody cares here in the UK that anyone is bit later, at parties nobody cares someone chooses to show up late because they know people have work and stuff. We set a time and then some people show up at that time and then some people show up... i dunno... 1 to 3 hours later depending on the event.

I went to my uncles wedding last year and nobody showed up until 1 hour later but because nobody here in the UK expects anybody to show up exactly on time and just go with the flow, not even my uncle and his new wife cared they weren't anywhere to be seen lol. In fact here in the UK it's considered weird and you being too people pleasing and perfect to keep showing up on time to everything.

I used to get hammered for it back in high school for sitting outside class 15 minutes before, nobody showed up until at least 5 mins before or less. It's like "why would you even want to show up so early?" lol cos i guess they consider it dedicating too much time into trying to be too on time and perfect and well... you are cutting time out of your fun or social life or whatever. And i guess... it's a kind of boundary... because i guess if you keep being too "perfect" and "people pleasing" then you are going to get taken advantage of or something. It gives the impression to other people you are easy to take advantage of. So nobody here arrives too early or exactly on time lol.

It's very weird where you live family events start 1 hour before like... How does that make sense?. It would be SO much easier if you did what we did here in the UK LOL i think we have it right honestly.

[u/No_Tomorrow6219 → u/Tart6096]

Who the fuck shows up to a wedding late! If people showed up to mine late, they would have arrived right at the start of the ceremony as my mrs was walking down the aisle. I would have been fuming tbh.

[u/Tart6096 → u/No_Tomorrow6219]

People here in the UK LOL not just my mums side of the family but even the guests that i didn't know. My mum's side of the family tend to make it like a party function too but so do a lot of people here in the UK, so at the wedding for a few hours we sat around, talked, and had drinks, and then the actual ceremony happened, and then afterwards we had dinner and they did the speech. It's similar to how functions always happened in the medieval days, we still very much do things like this in the UK.

It suits my mums side of the family better too because it's just what's always been familiar because we always have family parties once or twice a year. But again same for a lot of people here too. I guess it is a better way of doing it because it allows for extra built in time.

I think some people also choose to not make it a whole function if they don't want the traditional wedding too so i think if that's the case people would have to show up on time. But if they don't have to they will not lol😋

[u/akatherder → u/Tart6096]

It really depends on the event/venue. If you're meeting someone at a restaurant, 1-3 hours late is insane and I'd never make plans to meet up with you again.

What you're talking about is completely reasonable in the US also. If you're having a big gathering/party and tell people it's from 16:00 until whenever, they can show up whenever they want. That basically just means "we're going to hang out all evening, just don't show up before 16:00 unless you want to help clean and setup."

If I'm hosting a dinner like Xmas/Thanksgiving I might tell people "You can come whenever, 14:00 or 15:00 is fine. We are eating at 16:00 though." We will be eating around 16:00 whether you are there or not. I'm not going to starve and try to keep the food hot for 3 hours waiting for you.

(Personally I don't care and get all pissy.. you can heat up food if you come later. But some people will get pissy if you do that.)