How thoughtless is it to be late?

Hostlery!! Very Freudian slip

a local 'hostility'? Please tell me more!

Crossed posts! I thought it might be that but i love the Freudian slip

Both my DH and myself are always early for almost everything. We often stand in the hall, all ready to go, saying "we can't leave yet as we'll be too early"
Drives me mad when people are consistently late [grrr]

Hostelry, surely Aka?

I m always early and cant abide lateness If I know people are habitually late I make up an earlier time to pull them in. My son is a clone in this matter and will start pacing after a couple of minutes of someone's lateness, my daughters are less demanding

Penstemmon your husband is a man after my own heart. We would get on like a house on fire as I am exactly the same. It costs me a fortune at eg airports as I arrive so early if picking somebody up and parking fees are ridiculously expensive.

I went to a school where unpunctuality was regarded as a crime more or less on a par with regicide so I have spent almost all my life being 1 hour early to avoid being 1 minute late. My pa was also a very punctual man in both his business dealings and on social occasions. My ma, on the other hand, was a terrible last minute faffer and left a trail of missed planes and ships, first acts of plays and ballets, first items of concerts and anxiety-induced indigestion in her nearest and dearest.

How stressful Soutra, you must have felt wrung out by the time they arrived. You're right, they won't change, and I sympathise with you wanting to avoid unpleasantness. Maybe next time, as others here have said, tell them food will be served at X o'clock. Go ahead and eat. Microwaves are wonderful things for late arrivals, but maybe don't dish up for them. They can make themselves a cup of tea and some toast for supper (10 is too late to be eating imo)

Soutra you delayed supper . Wonder the rest of the family were not having a low blood sugar induced brawl by 10.
You are too polite for your own good I reckon. This is family you are talking about, not a touchy foreign delegation that must be appeased at all costs to avoid the outbreak of WW3.
An appropriate response might have been to gobble up all the lovely food and when they arrived say "I'm sure you must have eaten, but if any of you are starving do make yourself a sandwich."
Then the rest of you would have felt less cross. But maybe you are feeling a bit cross with yourself for being so darn accommodating?

Great post JessM.

I love Agus's solution of just doing your own thing and letting the latecomers chase you up. I would hold supper for no longer than 20 minutes or so, then do as JessM suggests. They'd soon get the message.

On the other hand, I'm pleased to see that all the folks who like to arrive early talk of waiting in the car. I have a couple of friends who habitually arrive up to half an hour early and just want to sit around making small talk or, worse still, offer to help when there's nothing they can do but get out of the way. This is infuriating when you're trying to get ready for a dinner party and are still rushing round hiding dirty pots with curlers in and your old jeans on!

Tee hee jessMbut no not cross with myself as an atmosphere would have ruined our Christmas together. There are other undercurrents which I won't go into here. DH went off to 8 o c mass so the rest of us carried on with drinks and copious nibbles. DDs 2 & 3 who were here won' t hear a word against their bohemian if not downright eccentric aunts whereas DD1 agrees with DH that they are daft as a box of frogs!! She would have left a key under a flower pot and gone to bed!! Charitably I assumed they had got caught on M25 or Dartford crossing and let it go. A few years ago when timing was tighter i.e. Christmas day Iblew up when they went off to check into their rooms at the pub and instead of coming straight back as requested decided to "have a little rest " which delayed lunch/dinner by 30 mins or so and meant things were overdone. However I prefer to pick my battles now!!! Spirit of goodwill and all that.

Yes soutra presumably picking the battles you can win!!
They sound as though they just don't operate according to the same standards of behaviour that most of us on this thread seem to expect.
If I were in your position and couldn't avoid inviting them, as others have suggested, I would simply tell them what time the food was going to be served and stick to it - then all you have lost is their company, rather than possibly ruining everyone else's meal.

What happened to "Your dinner's in the dog?"

Soutra My son was late for our family meal.

I do understand the motorways were busy on Friday he lives south of London and had to get to Cheshire starting off around the M25, M40, M6! I really do not know how bad the traffic was.

But I do not believe know exactly what time he and his girlfriend left home. 5pm turned into 8pm. As it was DD fed DGs and had him in bed asleep before we all ate.

My DH is really bad with time. Often never getting ready in time or finding something to do last minute. When I can now I have taken to going places without him. I have also joined a different choir to him so I will not be late.

I do suspect DH's behaviour is part of his Asperger's syndrome. He seems to have some sort of silly reaction to having to be reminded about the time. I have never yet thrown his dinner in the bin when he CBA to get down in time but I do just eat mine.

We once had a conversation many years ago when he had Christmas cards to write as he rarely did them in time to post. I reminded him they were there but his reply was an angry "I would have done them if you had not mentioned it." !!!
I don't know why but this sort of behaviour is at the root of lot of my problems at home. I am not diagnosing but it seems like a sort of oppositional defiance disorder problem.
He does manage to get trains and planes I hasten to add.
As far as I can see it is just plain bad manners.

nellie I love your "oppositional defiance disorder" diagnosis, I'm sure that my DH suffers from this too

I hate being late and think it is incredibly rude to be that late. I always feel it is saying my time is more important than yours. I would make a casserole, eat at the time you said and offer to heat it up when they arrive. They must be so thick skinned it probably wouldn't make any difference. :D

From reading some of your posts Nellie I think that my OH also suffers from "oppositional defiance disorder too". No wonder I have a BP crisis now and then argggghhh!

That really rings a bell. My brother has always done that- being intentionally very late to show he was not going to conform to silly and Bourgeois social rules! (He is 65 now, and still does it).

So rude and so unfair on those who have lovingly prepared a nice meal- and other guests. So, next time, I'll follow the advice- give him 20 mins, then sit down and eat dinner with the other guests (that will be Saturday.. see how it goes). Last time he was invited, he 'missed the bus' - because we would not do a 100km round trip to go and pick him up and take him home - OH and daughter went to pick him up half way so he would not have to change bus... and 5 mins before they got there, he phoned to say he'd missed the bus (which he must have known about at least 15 mins before! Grrr).

ODD sounds like what teenagers and most men suffer from! I love "I would have done it if you had not mentioned it!!"