Let's Chit Chat About ARRIVING LATE

I would rather a guest arrive late and spend whatever time he or she could fit in than not come at all. If it's the kind of thing were the hosts pays per meal and the late guest totally misses the meal it would be nice to know in advance so that the paid meal doesn't go to waste but other than that, who cares? Get there when you get there and enjoy whatever time you have together.

If it was MY baby shower and my friend had to work and then STILL tried to get there, just to be there for MY special day, I would be flattered!

Now, just "late" ALL the time? That's annoying. I have a friend who was habitually late. Whether we were meeting for drinks, dinner, whatever. She is my BFF but my time is just as valuable as hers. I finally said something and it has been much better. :)

I have had events over events and had to come late but people were well aware of my schedule.

On a baby shower you should have enough notice to get off work. It is also the type of event that trumps other events like say a BBQ.

Still if I know someone is going to be late it is no big deal, if you don't tell me it is rude but still really doesn't bother me.

It sounds more like they were adding drama so they could get their video on TV but I am skeptical like that. :)

Now if someone shows up late and expects food to be pulled out just for them and that type of stuff I would tell them forget it.

My rule is 30 mins left. If I am running late or have to work can't get there on time and there will be less than 30mins left of the scheduled time before I get there, then I don't go. Otherwise, I go and enjoy the last 30 mins. Yes I know I missed the presents and the cake. To me it shows that I was thinking of the guest of honor and made an effort to be part of their moment.

Oh goodness.

I am CHRONICALLY late. And not for good reason (my car wouldn't start / I got stuck working / family emergency). The bottom line is that I get distracted along the way and suddenly the clock has JUMPED forward. I always think I have much longer than I do, or that I can do more in a short amount of time than I actually can.

My friends kid around that they won't go into the grocery store with me if they are on a time table. Inevitably, I will have a LONG conversation with the check out person, will get stuck deciding between crunchy and creamy peanut butter, and then won't know what I did with my keys.

*Sigh*. I am working on it. I'm doing a little better, but still, time is an elusive companion. So, if a friend is late, I'm actually glad. I mean, for ONCE it's not me.

Offend me? Oh dear god, no!

If I've invited someone I WANT them to come. If they can only come for 5 minutes, GREAT! Yay! I'd be (and have been) thrilled to see them. And, quite frankly... if someone is going to drive 10, 30, 60 minutes round trip just to put in an appearance that is anything BUT a slight, imho.

I laugh about situations like this on "reality shows." The way that they speak to one another is NOT how anyone speaks in real life.

I think it's a bit disrespectful. I understand that sometimes, even when we have the best of intentions, things happen. I think it would be better to call and say you had an emergency and wouldn't be able to make it, then to show up that late with an, "Oops" on your lips.

Also, I think that whole, "At least I came" attitude would make me angrier than being late. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, we wouldn't have known what to do had you not shown up and we've been waiting all this time with baited breath to see if you would ever arrive!

If I was going to be THAT late, I'd let the host know so people knew to expect me later than usual. I think then it's between the host and the guest and I wouldn't rip anyone a new one for having to work first. Similarly, if I had to leave for work, I'd wish the Mom To Be well and quietly leave. That happens, too. If someone is horribly late and I was waiting on them? Grrr. My aunt does this and I hate it when people wait for her. Half the time you have to call her and ask her if she's coming - for things like Christmas dinner! Let's eat! WE were on time! I have a friend I don't see much of. He and his wife were an hour late to their own (cold, drafty) wedding and I had to leave before the cake. Sorry, but if you can't start on time, your guests might not be able to stay. Before that, he and his then-fiancee were supposed to come over and well after the time of arrival, I called and they hadn't LEFT yet! Okay, so they had a dinner fiasco, but CALL! It was so rude. His lateness was one of the reasons I never considered him dateable. It drives me bonkers.

Better late than never I guess. However there have been sometimes when I asked myself "why bother going if I am only going to be there for the last hour?"
IF it is a no excuse just show up late thing I would probably be annoyed possibly offended but it also depends on how well I know this person b/c there are people I know that will ALWAYS be late no matter what!

It wouldn't worry me, except if they wanted to stay after everyone had gone and finished. I like an event to end, because I get tired and don't like to socialise too much.

We have a friend who, when we invited him for parties, he'd come at the end time. So if the soiree was from 2-6, he'd show up at six. And want to hang out and have a beer.

Notice how I said "invited"? We don't invite him anymore. We realized he wanted the one-on-one with us, so now we invite him to do those one-on-one things at other times.

I don't think I'm offended by people arriving late, really. It's more that, now we have Kiddo, I don't really want people hanging out while we are getting him ready for bed and move on with our evening. We just kind of shoo stragglers out, tell the late-comer "Thanks for stopping by. We'd love to talk with you more another time. Call us when you want to get together!" and leave it at that.

And I'd never take a reality show as the norm (not that you were, but reality shows are often so unrealistic as to be absurd.;) ). I can't imagine a gathering at our house where our guests would behave that way toward each other. If it happened, I'd hardly invite them back. How rude.

Well, it's one thing if you've given me the heads up & you know that you'll be late, or if it's a rare occurrence/emergency.

If you just can't get your ish together & are habitually late, then I have an issue with that & will probably get sick of it & just not invite you anymore. It's when people have the self entitled notion that there time is more important than mine that it bothers me.

In the instance that you described, I would not be irritated. I would be happy that the person was kind enough to spend time with us to celebrate even after working a full day.

I wouldn't mind one bit. People get too uptight about stuff like that. Why look for reasons to be offended. Be grateful for the extra effort this person probably had to make to get there at all. And hey...she showed up just in time to help with cleanup!

I have noticed more and more, people do not seem to think anything of arriving an hour late or more to birthday parties, showers, etc. I find it very annoying.
I had a pretty intimate baby shower.....around 20-25 people. MOST of my guests were close to a full hour LATE. These were close friends and family members. I've gotta tell ya....after about the first half hour of my shower had gone by and it was just me, a few guests and the hostesses (my friend and my mom) looking more and more worried and concerned.....I really started to feel depressed.
Everyone else eventually showed up and we had an almost-full house and a great shower....but i still remember how awful i felt sitting there wondering if I was really about to have a baby shower with only, like, three guests.

Same thing at my birthday party....we planned a big blowout at the house and the majority of the guests showed up at least an hour late. Until then, I was sitting there with my husband and our elderly neighbor wondering if we had wasted our money on all the food, beverages and rented tables.
No one apologized either.
Sigh.
I didn't say anything; but I'm now a lot more jaded about hosting anything due to this new ethic (or rather, LACK thereof).

I would expect such a person to have informed me before hand. My policy is this: if you are running late for a particular reason or may run late, please let me know. If you are just one of those people that is always late because you can't get your act together? That is another story. In fact, a very close friend of mine is never on time, and last time she came to dinner, she was over an hour late. This pisses me off because it messes up cook time, etc. I also just don't understand how people can lose track of the clock. If it's important enough to you, you pay attention.

I don't think it's ever polite to have people wait on you. My in-laws are always late. When I say dinner is at 5 p.m., we're eating at 5 p.m. I always give two hours before that to socialize and have appetizers. If they can't come in the two-hour window, we're eating without them. One SIL calls when she's on her way. It's so annoying. Just get here on time.

Likewise, when someone invites me to their house, I'm on time. Someone once told me when you make people wait you're essentially saying the waiting party is no worthy of your attendance and their time doesn't matter. If someone shows up when it's time to leave, then yeah, they shouldn't have bothered to come.

If I'm going to be late somewhere I probably wouldn't go. But if people show up late, it wouldn't bother me.

Is someone I care about very much shows up late with no reason, I think I would just be happy they are there. If a random person who I sort of know (like a child from my son's school to a b-day party) I honeslty don't care enough to be offended and would (again) just be pleased they took the time to come and wish the party honoree well.
Life is too short to get my panties in a bunch over something like arriving late.
Is it rude - yeah, but as we stated, it depends and having been that person who showed up 45 minutes late (sleeping baby) I appreciated the forgiveness, pleasure of my arrival and no attention being placed on my tardiness when the event was about someone else:)

There's a huge difference in my mind between someone showing up late for an event (no matter the reason) as opposed to someone running late & therefore holding me up &/or making me wait for them.

The first, I guess is situational. If I'm having a dinner & they were invited it kind of stinks, but if I'm paying for a dinner & it's gone to waste then I'm annoyed.

The second, well, it pisses me off pretty much no matter what the reason is. My husband is late for everything & it drives me batty. I've got at least 3 friends I can think of off the top of my head who are also late for everything. I know it seems like I've got enough people around me that I should be used to it, but it never ceases to really get me riled up.

For me it would depend on the attitude of the person who arrived late and whether this is a habit or not.

I have a few friends that are ALWAYS late. So late that it's annoying when you're standing around waiting for them. OR ones that habitually cancel at the last moment.

I would prefer someone to arrive late than not at all, and for something like a shower it's okay if you're just "stopping by" to drop off a gift and hug the expectant mother.

It's only offensive if they do it ALL THE TIME, and seem to think their time and work is more valuable than yours. Then I think they are not a true friend, and may find they have fewer invites to arrive late to.

My husband's family is always at least 30 minutes to an hour late! I used to get offended when the grandma would call us in the morning to say "good morning" and ask us AGAIN when we were leaving. Then she'd call us around the leaving time to see if we were "running late." We are always on time! Then I found out that his family tends to not get up on time, not leave when they say they're going to, and are always late. She calls everyone to make sure they are "out of bed" then later to remind them to leave. Hey grandma, way to make it work!

Better late than never I say! Between kids, work, etc, things come up all the time. Just because someone is late doesn't mean they meant to hurt you. If they didn't care about you, they wouldn't come at all! So many bigger things to worry about, it's not always disrespectful, especially if one calls or texts to let you know they're running behind. It happens!

This reminds me of what my mom used to do to her mother when invited to birthday parties and such. She was also always late - usually an hour plus a few - so mom started telling her whatever event started an hour before it actually would ... seemed to have worked back then...

I saw that show too. Not only did they arrive 20 minutes before it was over, but the husband almost started a war before storming off! Tacky! As for an answer, it would depend on how close I was with the guest. Someone I expected to be late, I could forgive. Someone like those clowns..I think I would have to rethink my friendship/invitations in the future