Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    I'm not sure why you want to discuss this here.
    
    Keeping anyone waiting is not socially acceptable or polite.
    
    Gender-based generalities are often counter-productive (*particularly*
    negative ones).
    	Mez

    I don't know where it's socially acceptable to do that.  I was taught that
    being prompt is courteous.  When you tell someone that you'll meet
    them at a certain time, then you just made a committment to them.  I
    always try to be prompt, and if I know I'll be really late, I'll call
    up and let them know.  It drives me nuts when people are constantly late.
    It disrupts your life.  You can't run to the store for something becuase
    they said they'd be there at 10:00, but if they don't arrive until
    11:00 then you've wasted an hour (and believe me, time is a precious
    commodity around here).

    ...Karen

    Re .0, I think people of both sexes do this to each other.  Many
    *people* act as if they always have good reasons for being late
    so, therefore, nobody should be angry at them for it.  Yet, some
    of these same people become outraged whenever they are kept waiting!
    
    Lorna
    

    re .0
    
    It sounds like you are blasting someone in particular.  I pride
    myself on being punctual, but there is one situation where I often
    keep someone waiting.  When my husband and I get up in the morning/get
    ready to go somewhere, it ALWAYS takes me longer to be ready (for
    real reasons, like I have to put in contact lenses, I sometimes
    wear makeup, I make the bed -- something he usually will leave,
    I eat breakfast/he doesn't, etc, etc).  He knows this and I compensate
    by starting earlier than he does, but he sometimes has to wait.
    
    This situation sounds gender-based but it has more to do with our
    personalities and priorities than it does our gender.
    
    I never keep him waiting in other circumstances.
    
    Gloria 
    
   

I think it is rude to make any one wait, and as for this being gender based.
I, having for the most part had more male than female friends have found
that if anything I have to wait more for them than for my female friends.

In specific cases, my mother was always early for everything, my father
was there when he got around to it. My husband is late most of the time.
It always takes him much longer than I to get dressed and ready to go.

And to the concept that it is expected and accepted for men to wait for
their woman friends... Well it's certainly news to me.

-vicki

    

    I don't usually keep people waiting, I am the one who waits.
    
    When I was growing up, Dad would often become irritated at waiting
    for Mother to get ready to go somewhere.  He expected her to get
    herself and three children ready in the same time it took him to
    get himself ready!  Normally people who have more to do take longer
    to do it!  How about if you men out there who feel abused by being
    made to wait pitch in with some of the work instead of leaving it
    all for women to do and then getting upset when it takes some time?
    
    It's only fair to complain if things are "equal" in the first place.
    
    Sally
    

    Re: .0, and .0's later answers -
    
    I'm a man, too. Your entire premise is sexist. It is never good
    manners, good taste, or good judgement to keep anyone waiting without
    a good reason. Gender has nothing to do with it.
    
    You sound like you are trying to put down all women, and are trying
    to make men look superior because they have to wait for women. 
    
    Shame on you.
    
    Bruce

    I remember being told by momma deary, that to be a couple of 
    minutes late was correct for dates.  Because if you were on time
    it would give the appearance of being too eager.  I am generally
    on time, but being a single parent, sometimes the little sparrow
    has a tendancy to create situations that help me be fashionably
    late.  I think my mom's been talking to her!
    
    vivian
    

    So much for this notesfile being a safe place for women.  Yet another
    instance where we're being attacked and scrambling to defend ourselves
    instead of discussing women's issues.
    
    	-Ellen

    addressing the question instead of the author
    
    Is it possible that some women may make their dates wait out
    of insecurity over the relationship? That they are testing
    the man to "prove he loves her"? and that in return she would
    become anxious when he is late because it may mean he's not
    coming? In other words describing a relationship where the
    communications aren't too great.
    
    My feeling is that more women than men act this way - although
    since I haven't been part of the social-dating world for a long
    time I could be wrong.
    
    Bonnie

Re .0:

I don't believe that the tendency to keep people waiting is sex-linked at all.
Some people use it as a slightly subtle way of demonstrating their power...
"I must be more powerful than you, because you were willing to wait
for me."  This game quickly becomes tiresome.

Re .12:

I'm not sure whether this note consitutes an attack on women.  I do think the
topic belongs in 128.* (Vive la difference).  I do not enjoy reading multiple
base notes about "Why women do XXX more than men".  This, in my personal
opinion, is quickly becoming tiresome.

Bob

RE: .0

I think the real question is why is it socially acceptable for men to
complain about the trivial and imaginary problems of sexism while women
suffer the real disadvantage?

Don.

    .0
    
    	This is bull poop. I have never in my 29 years ever been late
    for a date. I have however been stood up on several occasions and
    have had dates that are very late. Anyone who is habitually late
    for date can be labeled a creep whether male or female. In my opinion
    it is not socially acceptable for anyone to be late. Certainly there
    are times that it can't be avoided but most people I know have a
    general knowledge of how to use a phone.
    
    Bahama Mama
    
    

    Re: .13
    
    I don't really give a damn whether you think I am liberal and open
    minded, and I also don't give a damn whether you buy it or not.
    
    It is an old trick to attack the speaker when you don't like what
    is being said. Why don't you reply to the question instead of making
    personal comments?
    
    -bs

Please, folks, keep the flames turned down...

Mr. Faulkner I'm tired of you.  I don't think you've made one worthwhile 
contribution to this conference. I'd like you to go away.

CQ

Re .-1

    >Mr. Faulkner I'm tired of you.  I don't think you've made one worthwhile 
    >contribution to this conference. I'd like you to go away.

I can understand the feeling, but I'm leery of asking *anyone* to go away
from a public conference.

I actually performed a DIR/AUTHOR and went back and read all of Mr. Faulkner's
contributions.  I personally found 119.24 and 136.3 to be quite worthwhile.
Mr. Faulkner also started the very interesting discussion of "Important values"
in note 137. 

On the other hand... Mr. Faulkner, I suggest that you take a little more time
to think out and expand your contributions.  A few of your replies seem to me
to be aimed toward commenting on previous writers' opinions in one or two
sentences at most.  It might be more interesting if you explained your own
opinions, in more detail. 


On a more general topic...

I personally am *not* tired of hearing from any one contributor.  I *am* tired
of discussing "why women do ___ more than men do."  Could we perhaps declare
a moratorium on new notes comparing the sexes in this way for some particular
length of time? 

           RE:  .23
    
                 OK -- where is the evidence to back up your
             claim in .0 that it is "socially acceptable" for
             a woman to keep a man waiting, etc. ??
    
                 However many women you happen to know (who
             happen to keep you waiting) -- it is a microscopic
             statistical sampling compared to the world's
             population of women.  It is HARDLY cause for a
             generalization such as the one you made.
    
                 If all the women you know keep you waiting,
             there may be a reason....  :-)
    
                                                  Suzanne...

    re.24 yup tere's a reason they keep me waiting.
    
    they're worth waiting for. :-)
    

        .25: Suzanne didn't suggest there might be a reason why you were
        willing to wait for them... she suggested that there might be a
        reason why they made you wait.  Quite a different matter.
        
        	/dave 

    Here's one solution my therapist gave me to the incurable "late
    arriver".  Tell your date/husband/girlfirend, whoever, who is usually
    15 to 1/2 hour late, to arrive about 1/2 hour earlier than you really want
    them.  This way, if they are 1/2 hour late, they are right on time
    (cause you planned on being ready by that time).  The only draw back
    is that if they go to the same therapist and get help on
    being late, then they will be real early and you won't be ready and 
    they'll accuse you of being late, even in your own home.  Well, 
    it's worth a first shot and then you can adjust it after the 
    first situation.
    
    Another thing: I was always 10 to 15 minutes early in meeting friends,
    going to the Doctors, interviews, etc.  but if someone was 10 minutes
    late, that would feel like they were 20 or 25 minutes late.  That's
    a lot of waiting.  So, now I try to plan more accurately to be on
    time.
    
    Have you ever been waiting over 20 minutes on your first date and
    left?  I did, I went shopping and told him so the next day.  It
    took him almost 24 hours to call.  His excuse:  he was lost.  I
    guess he didn't know what a telephone was.
    
    I don't care who you are, male or female, common courtesy never
    killed anyone.  I figure, if you don't call, you don't really care.
    If you don't come at all, you really don't care, and if I don't
    hear from you, who cares? 

    With people who are chronically late, I tell them how long I will
    wait for them.  After the allotted time, I make sure that I leave.
    
    I caught on to this method when I noticed that chronically late
    people still usually manage to get to the airport just in the nick
    of time--they seem to respect the fact that the plane will indeed
    leave when scheduled.  
    
    It works.

    Getting slightly off the subject and generalizing, perhaps if
    people communicated more and were more understanding that no
    person is perfect, (taking themselves into account) I think
    these type of problems would suddenly appear miniscule.
    
    Lets concentrate on the big stuff first, hopefully if both people
    are willing to work hard at it, the little stuff will fix itself.
    
              Does this make sense or am I rambling on?
    
                                                 Mark
    

    I also want to say that when my boyfriend and I started seriously
    dating, he started to be "later than before".  So, I put up with
    it on maybe two occasions.  On the third occasion that he was late,
    and this was an important night for both of us (quiet dinner, all
    dressed up, wine, you got the picture), he was 1/2 hour late.  When
    he came to my door, I didn't want to "ruin" my evening by having
    a fight so all I said was "It gets me upset when you are late and
    you don't call me.  I worry about you and please give me the courtesy
    by calling if you are going to be late".  He got so nervous at me
    saying that that he knocked over all my magnets and papers off of
    the refridgerator and could barely speak.  He later told me that
    his reason for being late was because he went out searching for
    a notebook that I needed for my music.  
    
    The moral of the story: if you care for someone enough, you will
    wait for them 'cause there is probably a good reason for his/her
    lateness.  You just have to have the courage to say that you are
    hurt, angry, pissed off, whatever and communicate "your" need to
    the latecomer.  If he/she cares for you, they will be on time next
    time or they will call.
    
    You know, my boyfriend has never been late again (over 4 months
    now).  
    
    Also, he calls me when he is leaving his house.  That way, I can
    finish what I was doing and estimate the time he will arrive there.
    This has worked out for us.
                               
    Hope I can help others with my story.

    I have a funny twist on this subject.  My ex's father used to always
    be EARLY for things (I mean EARLY, like 45 minutes early!), and
    then would get mad (which he did easily anyways) if you didn't drop
    whatever you were doing to cater to him even though he was way ahead
    of schedule.  This used to really bug me!   
    
    I notice that I tend to be about five minutes late for things that
    I didn't really want to do anyhow or that got scheduled for earlier
    times than I wanted (like committee meetings on work nights that
    get scheduled for 7 pm instead of 8 - unless THEY are going to cook
    my dinner - I am allergic to enough things that I seldom eat out).

    First.  Yes, it used to be stylish for the girl/woman on a date
    to be late coming down the stairs to the boy/man.  I remember.
    
    However, I'm wondering if this lateness business might be more of
    a problem with perception than reality.  I can see there being
    two parts to this:  1.  If A is waiting for B and doing nothing
    else, time passes more slowly for A than for B, and A *perceives*
    the wait as being longer than B does.  Thus, if A is the author
    of the base note, he will *feel* that he spends more time waiting
    for women (the B's) than they do waiting for him -- whether it
    is true or not.
    
    2.  People belonging to the dominant gender feel that they are
    more important/valuable/etc. than those of the other gender.  Thus,
    a minute that a dominant gender person spends waiting for an other
    gender person is considered to have greater cost, than one spent
    in the other situation.
    
    Notice that I do not claim that situation 2 applies to the author
    of .0.  However, situation 2 *might* be the case for the generalization
    by men that women are always late.
    
    (I am basing this speculation on my own extrapolation from a study
    that was done on conversation.  One of the unexpected things the
    researchers found was that the women did not talk more than the
    men, or even as much as the men, but that they talked more than the
    men wanted them to. (!))
    
    							Ann B.

Please spare a thought for those of us whose internal clocks just never
seem to synchronise with the rest of the world.

No matter how hard I try or no matter how much I WANT to be on time for
ANYTHING, it just never happens.

sample excuses ...	sorry, but I lost my car keys
			the back wheel fell off the car
			the car caught fire!  (and what a traffic jam!)
			got caught in a riot while buying the wine
			got arrested for speeding! (trying to be on time!)
			the list is endless...

Some of us have the BEST intentions in the world, but just CAN'T do it!

You have all said that this is 'socially unacceptable' but so long as we
can handle the same in return, and so long as our 'intentions are honourable',
where is the problem? Aren't relationships built on 'mutual understanding'.

re .0    from my experience ... 'women don't make men wait'
re .27   I agree, some have used this technique well


p.s.  I use the telephone a lot...


      "sorry dear, but I'm up the creek and I've lost my paddle!"


					.garry.

I am chronically late.  For the most part, I have as friends those people
who don't mind my being late.  And, since I am very frequently late, I don't
get peeved if I'm kept waiting.  I very often have something to read or do
to keep myself occupied if I'm in the position of being early, the first to
arrive, or the first to be ready.  I was in the military and I _know_ that I 
can be on time (we were told "If you're not a minute early, you're a minute
late."  This was very often followed by, "...and now you can clean the 
latrines, just so you remember.")  I know that many times my lateness is an 
unconscious reaction against an external force -- I can't count the times I 
haven't "heard" my alarm clock in the morning when it's time to get up and get 
ready so that I can get to work on time (this is probably 3 days out of 5).  
Flex-time is a dream come true for me!  

I am usually on time for symphony performances, movies, plays and the like,
situations where you can't get in if you're late.

CQ

    Amen to .34 and .35.
    
    Clocks are an artificial mechanism used to enforce a "standard"
    time.  People are not standard.  (You probably have noticed this.)
    I started off being 2 weeks late for my own birth, and have had 
    trouble ever since.  
    
    My intentions are (almost) always good; I often try to allot an extra 
    10 minutes for driving time or an extra 20 minutes for the stop
    at the dry cleaners.  If I actually make it out of the house early, 
    a traffic jam or accident will magically appear en route.  If I send 
    my sister a birthday card before her birthday, it will still be held 
    up in a post office by some clerk who thinks New Mexico is a foreign 
    country.  
    
    I used to take this sort of thing personally, but it is too emotionally
    exhausting to get upset every time it happens.  So each little disaster
    happens, and the people who love me put up with me and try to help me 
    put up with life.
    
    On the note of gender stereotyping, .9 had a real point.  My father
    would get ready to go somewhere and complain that my mother always
    had to go pee one last time.  Since she was always the person who
    got the kids (4 of us) ready, it always seemed to be a catch-22
    for her.  He surely would complain, but you didn't find him wiping
    my sister's shitty little bottom in his going-to-a-party clothes.
    He used to TALK a good line about gender equality!
    
    Joanne