The Exact Point Being Late Starts to Become Rude, According to a Survey - VICE

You used to get a text that said, “Stuck in traffic!” and that was pretty much it. Now you can check their location on Instagram and see they’re still very much at home. Then 10 minutes turns into 25, and that little dot still hasn’t moved. So, when do you give up and stop wasting your time?

There’s now an official-ish cutoff for when being late becomes rude. A survey of 2,000 British adults, commissioned by SVEDKA Vodka and reported by Metro, says it’s 29 minutes. Fifteen minutes was generally forgiven. An hour was an absolute dealbreaker for about a quarter of respondents.

More than a quarter of respondents admitted they regularly send “I’m five minutes away” when they are, in fact, not five minutes away. People waiting on them have learned to adapt. Nearly a third said they learned to lie right back and give late friends an earlier time.

Etiquette experts put the bar much higher. “In a professional context, we would suggest that if you think you are four minutes early, you are in fact one minute late,” Rupert Wesson of Debrett’s Etiquette Training told Metro. Social plans get more breathing room, especially if you text ahead, but he had little sympathy for people who haven’t even left the house by the time they’re supposed to arrive. He called that “self-deluding, dysfunctional and discourteous.”

Some psychology explains chronic lateness. Diana DeLonzor, author of Never Be Late Again, led a San Francisco State University study that found about 17% of people were chronically late. She has also said habitual latecomers underestimate how long basic tasks take by 25 to 30%.

DeLonzor calls it “magical thinking,” a nice way to describe someone who is absolutely sure they can shower, get dressed, find parking, and be across town in 20 minutes.

“Telling a late person to be on time is a little like telling a dieter to simply stop eating so much,” DeLonzor wrote in her book. She learned this one the hard way. “In my case, I thought it took me 20 minutes to get ready,” she told Chatelaine. “In fact, it took me 45 minutes.” 

Her advice is basically a reality check. Figure out how long getting ready really takes and work backward from there.

And if you still insist you’re “five minutes away” while sitting on your couch, just know that people are onto you.