The Luv Doc: The Way They Process Time
Oblivion and lack of ill intent might be good explanations, but they’re not good excuses
By The Luv Doc, Fri., Sept. 16, 2022
Dear Luv Doc,
My boyfriend is habitually late. It doesn't matter what the occasion ... concerts, weddings, funerals, or who is involved, he can never seem to make it on time. He does get there at his own pace and oftentimes with some cute excuse – like having to go find his cat or talking to his mom on the phone. I have tried a lot of different strategies to get him to be more prompt, but all of them have failed. Last week we had a dinner reservation with some friends and he was nearly 30 minutes late. Fortunately the restaurant seated us but I was basically a third wheel until he got there. I was embarrassed and angry at myself for not allowing for his habitual lateness and then even angrier that I had to allow for it. What should I do to get him to show up on time?
– Still Waiting
Wow. I just read a magazine article the other day that said that chronically late people aren't purposely trying to annoy or disrespect you, it's just the way they process time. Yeah, fuck that shit. Oblivion and lack of ill intent might be good explanations, but they're not good excuses. This might come across to some as radical thinking, but lack of self-awareness is not a fucking excuse. Ignorance doesn't get you off the hook. We don't excuse drunk drivers from plowing into pedestrians because they process alcohol differently. No, by the time someone reaches adulthood, the presumption is that, by and large, they are a decent fucking human being.
Don't get me wrong, there are countless examples of people who fall well below that mark – and with astounding regularity, but we don't give them a pass simply because their aberrant or often downright repugnant behavior clearly indicates some profoundly disturbing underlying pathology. Hell no! I mean, we might vote them into the Oval Office because ... uh ... her emails, but on the whole, thankfully, society has a fairly low threshold for narcissistic assholes. That seems to me to be a smartly designed evolutionary instinct. Sometimes the slow water buffalo is the one who can't properly apply spray tan. That's also a pretty decent indication it isn't going to be able to easily negotiate a handicapped ramp or bust a move to the Village People, but hey ... tigers gotta eat too.
Anyway, it's not my intent to plunge headfirst into some Darwinist rabbit hole. All I am saying is that, with very few exceptions, whatever your boyfriend's reasons are for being late – cute though they may be – they are not an excuse for being late, certainly not on a habitual basis. If they are an excuse for anything, they are an excuse for him to get his shit together. Clearly abject shame and embarrassment isn't doing the trick.
Please keep in mind that I say this as someone afflicted with the same malady. I come from habitually late people myself. I struggle with the errant optimism that I can get five more things done before I have to leave, that I-35 at 5pm (or at literally any other time of the day) will miraculously part like the Red Sea and that I, like a modern-day Moses, will perform the additional miracle of making it from the Chronicle to Slaughter Lane in eight minutes. Yes, I am an incurable optimist, but that doesn't excuse me from being an insufferable asshole. I am working on that. I got watches. I got apps. They all have alarms that do their very best to penetrate my fog of multitasking oblivion, but at the end of the day – and sometimes well past it – it is I alone who is the asshole responsible for disrespecting other people's time. No one should tolerate that regularly, nor should you. Give your boyfriend 15 minutes and then leave ... no explanation, just leave. Do that habitually and he will come around. If he's smart enough to find his cat, he's smart enough to find you before you leave.
