Me (19F) and my best friend (also 19F) haven’t been able to see each other for a few months now and have seriously been missing hanging out and just talking about our lives. We decided to have an impromptu date night at a new 007 themed restaurant tonight and I ended up ‘ditching’ her before her Uber arrived.
I have been having a seriously difficult week and start to my 2026 and she knows about most of it. We agreed on a certain time and I even gave her an EARLIER time to be there than when I would arrive. (Considering as she is ALWAYS late.)
The time for me to get there arrives and I actually arrive a good 10 minutes earlier (aka when she was supposed to be there). That’s on me I told her I would be there later so I didnt mind walking around and checking out a book store. Almost 20 minutes later she send me a message saying “Im booking my uber now ill be there in 15”. To which I reply “Im going home, I really cannot do this tonight. I would have thought that you could have a little more respect for my time to at least show up when we said we would.”
AITA? Because right now i feel like I overreacted but I also feel like no one in my life respects me or my time and waiting 20 minutes longer honestly made me feel like and idiot. I told her I still deeply care for her and I dont love her any less but that I just cannot do this tonight. Sure I couldve stayed but then I wouldve sat through being treated like that.
EDIT : I apologise if this post doesn’t make too much sense on how I feel or how I could be the asshole, english is not my first language and I’m just trying to express how this situation made me feel
That being said I can see how me leaving makes me the asshole and how I genuinely just couldve sat and waited and had a good night. I truly love my best friend and do not mean to hurt her, she is my everything. But lately things have been boiling over and her and my other friends have been hanging out without me so this feeling of not being good enough to just be on time for dinner just did not sit right with me.
I appreciate the feedback and intend on using all the feedback to talk it out with her and understand her side toooo! x
Nta at all, she doesn’t respect you or care about you enough to just leave on time.
NTA she would have been around 40-45 minutes late based on what you wrote. She doesn’t respect you or your time because you stated this is a common occurrence.
NTA, she wasn’t even sorry. She really didn’t respect your time. Hopefully this will make her think and learn.
NTA, and to be completely transparent, I am a personal stickler for punctuality. I had a friend in high school who decided not to come to my birthday party because he knew he was going to be late and didn’t want to deal with me griping about not showing up.
That being said, your friend knew you were having a hard week, knows you put a premium on punctuality, and still didn’t adequately plan to be even remotely on time. I’m not sure what it is about some people that they think it’s better to require their friends to forgive transgressions than it is to just not be an AH.
I appreciate this so much, I think I came off a little insensitive in my explanation because my english isnt the BEST and I tend to shorten how I explain things in english but this comment is exactly how I feel. Being on time has always been an important and stressful thing for me and she knows this.
Sorry about your friend missing your birthday party, thats a pretty bad move from them.
It was more than 30 years ago, and it still sits there in my head.
INFO: so you came 10 minutes *early* to the fake time you gave her because you knew she was always late?
You’re supposed to get there after the fake time I’m pretty sure 😂
Did you tell her if she wasn’t on time you’d leave by xx:xx?
I have a family member who’s chronically late and this is what we do. Because we know them. And we don’t make plans with them if we expect them to be on time. *And we aren’t surprised when they show up late*.
Edit: ah wait, I’m having some literacy issues. so if i understand correctly, you technically came *on time* to the time you told her to be there.. *but also told her* **you** *were gunna be late*?
NTA. When someone is chronically late on a regular basis, it’s hard to take that as anything but disrespectful. Especially when they don’t even apologize for running late.
I had a friend who would be late by AN HOUR at least and when they caught on to our trick of telling them to be there an hour before the actual meet up time, they were back to being late again.
If someone cares about you, they’ll put in the effort to show up on time. I’m guessing they aren’t always late for their job so why can’t they show you the same respect?
NTA. I wouldn’t have hung around waiting for someone who was supposed to already be there and hadn’t even started to leave.
NTA, you handled this well.
NTA
She’s always late. You tell her 10, you show up at 9:50. She says at 10:10 she’ll be there at 10:25. So 30 minutes after meet up time. Every right to be mad.
But seems like it’s time for a convo regarding her tardiness. Also guess you didn’t need to talk to see her all that often, if you decided to leave. Its one of those things, you could’ve waited if you really wanted to see her, then brought up her tardiness while you were meting up, what i would’ve done anways.
ESH? kind of? she’s the asshole for not respecting your time and you’re an asshole to yourself for letting it low-key ruin your night
As someone who is chronically late, NTA. I’m well aware of how some of my friends feel about punctuality, and I try my best to accommodate them, and I’ll still fail. That’s entirely on me, and I wouldn’t blame them for being upset. These are my struggles to deal with, not theirs
People who are always late have no respect for other people’s time. NTA