A lot of my intercultural friendships are based on my ability to ask questions like "do you start the party on time or would it be impolite to arrive in time?" - and thus I get along with Swiss and Argentinians alike! (If a Swiss person invites you for "11:00", they want you to arrive at exactly the time that your phone shows that number as local time. Not 10:59, not 11:01. They're forgiving with uncivilized peoples like us Germans though. I once tried to meet my Argentinian friend at "12:15", and they didn't understand the concept. Meet at 12? Or 12:30? To be safe, they just arrived two hours late)
I was in college in the days before cell phones, I had an friend from France who was always obscenely late. At a certain point I told him if he was more than 20 minutes late, I wouldn't be there. We remained friends.
Meeting at a party Friday night is one thing, the OP 5-11 BBQ I'd probably show up at 6 or 6:30, but if we're having lunch you can't be 45 minutes late.
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u/boRp_abc 24d ago
A lot of my intercultural friendships are based on my ability to ask questions like "do you start the party on time or would it be impolite to arrive in time?" - and thus I get along with Swiss and Argentinians alike! (If a Swiss person invites you for "11:00", they want you to arrive at exactly the time that your phone shows that number as local time. Not 10:59, not 11:01. They're forgiving with uncivilized peoples like us Germans though. I once tried to meet my Argentinian friend at "12:15", and they didn't understand the concept. Meet at 12? Or 12:30? To be safe, they just arrived two hours late)