🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
A man received support from fellow Reddit users after he explained how he caused his friend to miss a seminar she needed to give for her Ph.D. program.
Reddit user u/Lateforexams115 said in a post on the Reddit forum "Am I The A**hole" that his friend, who is often 15 to 20 minutes late to activities, asked him to drive her to the university where she was scheduled to give a seminar.
He told her that he would only drive her if she was ready to go by 8 a.m., but when she was not outside, he decided to leave and declined to come back and pick her up when she called him.
"AITA for making my chronically late friend miss her seminar?" asked the title of u/Lateforexams115's post, which amassed more than 22,000 votes since it was published on Sunday.
Is It Rude To Be Late?
An article by psychotherapist Phillipa Perry published by The Guardian examined why people are habitually late.
One theory that was discussed was that the individual may be overly optimistic about how long it can take to get from one place to another, while another suggested that someone who is often late may be reluctant to end one activity and start another.
"Stopping something we are absorbed in to do something else can be annoying," she said. "It takes willpower to carry out. But if we don't change gear in time when someone is waiting for us, we are in danger of being judged as selfish."
'And Not a Minute Later'
In his post, u/Lateforexams115 said he once offered his friend a ride to work, but when she was 20 minutes late, he ended up being late as well.
"She is always very apologetic about her lateness, but never changes," he said.
When she asked u/Lateforexams115 to give her a ride to the university, he agreed but on the condition that she was ready to go by 8 a.m. and "not a minute later."
He said he arrived to pick her up at 7:55 and let her know he was there. She said she would be out shortly.
"At 8:00, there was no indication that she would come out (and she didn't text anything), so at 8:01, I drove off," u/Lateforexams115 wrote.
20 Minutes Later...
The Reddit user said that she called him 20 minutes later and asked where he was. He told her that he was at work and was serious about leaving by 8 a.m.
She told him she had a difficult morning and asked that he come back to pick her up for her seminar. Although u/Lateforexams115 said he could have picked her up and driven her to the university without it affecting his work, he said decided not to.
"She was crying and hyperventilating at that point and said she'd promise to never be late for anything else again and reemphasized that this seminar was crucial for her Ph.D. and that she absolutely cannot miss it without severe consequence," u/Lateforexams115 said. "I responded with 'oh well,' and hung up."
Redditors Respond
Most fellow Reddit users supported u/Lateforexams115 for his decision in leaving without his friend.
A Redditor said that while he could have been kinder and sent a "final notice" text message, his friend was also responsible for managing her time.
"Doing something like this is the only way some people will ever learn," a Reddit user wrote. "It's sad that OP's friend had so little concern for her friend's time when he was trying to help her."
Another said that while they sympathize with her for missing an important event, she should have been ready early, rather than on time.
"You could have picked a less painful time to do this but I honestly think it would have continued until you ended up doing this at another crucial event for her," one comment read.
One Reddit user said both were at fault.
"Putting up a boundary is understandable (and respectable) but you didn't give your friend the wake up call you think you did," they wrote.
They continued and said u/Lateforexams115 could have warned his friend that he was leaving and she should arrange to get to the university another way instead.
Newsweek reached out to u/Lateforexams115 for further comment.
Many, in fact, turn to Reddit's AITA forum because it's a place, according to its description, "a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that's been bothering you."
A woman received support from Reddit's "Am I The A**hole" community after she called the police on a man that was knocking on her door in the middle of the night.
Now, she says, she's the subject of local gossip, topics of which cover from her driving to her walking her dog "without a bra on."
Another woman told her pregnant friend that the child's father would not love her and that trying to force her way into the family "through an unplanned one-night-stand baby" was not the same as marriage.
One woman said she filed a report against a co-worker she said was going through her purse. He claims he was looking for her phone charger.
About the writer
Catherine Ferris is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting for the U.S. Trends Team. She ... Read more