Many people are out there labouring under the impression that lateness is always terribly rude. I am here to tell you this is totally wrong. There are situations when, yes, it is rude. There are situations when it basically doesn’t matter. But there are also situations when being late is actually the height of good manners and decorum.
If you are invited to dinner, especially by a person who you can sense is an inexperienced cook or host, you should endeavour to be late. By at least 10 minutes I would say. But, honestly, if your host is a 25-year-old who has sent you a message saying, “I’m going to try making this :)” and then attached a picture of an elaborate recipe with two separate kinds of molasses, then I would say half an hour is probably best.
Their oven gloves will have caught fire and they’ll have had to sort that out. They’ll forget to give themselves time to shower. They will have started a step and realised they’re missing key equipment and then they’ll have directed a piercing scream at the recipe book, and so forth. When you arrive half an hour late they will be so frantically grateful they’ll try to lick you. Just say, “Oh no, that’s fine, no need” if they do.
There are other situations too. If you are going on a date with someone who has a huge crush on you, you should arrive 10 minutes late to give them time to calm down and sort themselves out. If you’re meeting a new mum with no baby attached you should be 15 minutes late to give her a rare window of time with her own thoughts or her book. If you’re meeting someone who is too rule abiding at the cinema you should disobey them and arrive after the adverts, to teach them that the meaning of life is to break the rules. Likewise, if you’re taking them to the airport, don’t let them get there three hours early.
If you are going to break up with someone who is still in love with you, you should be half an hour late so they remember you as squalid and disorganised instead of perfect. If you are going to collect a beloved pet to rehome, you should be 20 minutes late to give everyone extra time to say goodbye or change their mind.
There are many other such instances. You must use your own judgment. But instead of seeing good manners as a set of catch-all rules, my feeling is we should treat them instead as the answer to the question: what does this person truly need from me in this situation?
Rachel Connolly is the author of the novel Lazy City
