champagne

heart sand

On M being late

M has nightmare time-keeping.  I have no doubt that this fact provides my lady family members with not a little glee, as I’m not exactly known for my slavish devotion to arriving on time.  I’m what I would call a solid ten-minuter: I’m almost always 5-10 minutes late, usually through underestimating how long something (a shower, the walk to the station) will take me. And even when I haven’t assumed I can blow-dry my hair in a minute and a half, I factor in no wriggle room so if a tube doesn’t come immediately I am, yet again, running late.  I’m rarely so late you could be annoyed with me, but I’m like sand under the fingernail, irritating you.

So what better punishment than to love deeply a man who procrastinates himself into constant lateness?  I am very uptight about travelling when it involves something that can’t be changed, like a flight, a funeral, a pre-booked train.  I am happiest when I can get to the airport two and a half to three hours before the flight, so that I can relax and have breakfast, and feel smug.  It’s true that I haven’t yet flown with M, and I’m sure that’ll be a post all of its own…  For now, I mainly have his every-day lateness to deal with.

The man is awesome in a million ways and moaning about lateness is dull for everyone, so I will just sum it up by saying that he struggles to get going- and lord knows, so do I- but he completely ignores the fact that time is getting on and just says “in a minute”.  We can end up leaving hours after we originally agreed to.  I am still trying to tackle this and the furthest I’ve got is to tell myself that there’s no deadline.  Except when there is.

His other timekeeping skill is saying he’ll be done in a certain amount of time and then it being absolutely nowhere near.  Case in point, two weeks ago: he said he’d be done in 30 minutes: we ended up meeting an hour and a half later.  I don’t mind that it took that long!  It can’t be helped!  But not having that information, or an update, stops me from being able to make an informed decision.  If it’s 30 minutes, I’ll work late; an hour and a half and I’ll go to Westfield for the shops, or a glass of champagne and a read.  And that is too, too frustrating.

I enjoy a glass of fizz. Regularly!
I enjoy a glass of fizz. Regularly!

But this has led to a major- and healthy-revelation to me.  Communication is all-important but when all is said and done, the only person’s behaviour you can affect is your own.  It’s a big thing for me to realise because it’s so counter-intuitive for me.  If someone (ok, M) is late and not that great at communicating how late he will be, then the natural reaction is either to get passive aggressive and annoyed, or to take that person at their word and be caught out sitting and waiting and feeling like you’ve missed out.  I’ve chosen in the past not to go for that glass of champagne because I don’t want to keep him waiting, and then been disappointed and hurt that he’s not there when he said he would be, and I still didn’t get the champagne.  I’m not negating my own feelings, and it would be nice if he could estimate and stay in touch a little bit better.

But if I want the champagne I should have the champagne; if I don’t I only have, to some extent, myself to blame.  It’s not unfair to take care of yourself and it avoids the petty gripes and niggles a little.  Communication is important but it’s a hard-to-swallow truth that you can only affect your own actions (and reactions).  It would be passive aggressive to think “right, I’m buggering off then”, but thinking it would be nice to do something with the waiting time, and knowing that it’s not unreasonable to please yourself in that situation, is very freeing.  I tend to worry that if M arrives exactly when he says he will, that it would be awful to not be instantly available.  But that just adds to the potential reservoir of resentment.  When push comes to shove, if I’m having champagne when M arrives, he really won’t begrudge the fifteen minutes it takes for me to finish it. And I won’t begrudge the time I’ve spent waiting, and pleasing myself.  But I still don’t know how to solve the politics of procrastination.

Category: Life