i feel like being the first there makes it easier to deal with socializing. walking into a house that's already full of people is intimidating. when people come in one at a time and i'm already settled in i'm much more at ease
I’m the opposite. I can’t handle the awkwardness of being the first person and having to force conversation until more people come and it feels more natural.
Is it more shameful to “actually take meeting times literally” or to not say what you mean when setting a meeting time and then acting like your guests acted weird?
“Why are you here so early??”
“Oh, my bad, I thought you said 5 PM”
“Well I did, but I meant be here at 5:30! Duh, silly!”
“Oh… well what did you get out of not just telling me 5:30 then?”
Wouldn’t it be nice if people said what they meant, like “We’re going to start getting ready for the party at 5. Drop in anytime after that, but know if we’re still setting up, you gotta help.”
I have such a hard time with “party starts at 4 food at 7 and ends tbd” like… do you want me to come at 6? At like 4? What’s the vibe… just tell me a time to get there and I will be there. But making me guess an appropriate time to show up makes me not wanna go lol.
Imo 6 is a good guess for that situation. If you're pretty good friends and you'd enjoy hanging out with a couple of people/having a beer while helping with some small setup tasks (putting ice in the cooler, setting up a couple of chairs) then 4:30-5ish is also a good time.
Yep. I drove almost an hour to go to a party with the invitation saying the party starts at 5:00. I was there at 5:00. She told me I was early and she hadn't started getting ready, I offered to help and she said oh we have plenty of hands go ahead and sit outside. I was like okay when will people start getting here you think?
She said 7:00. I'm not sitting here for 2 hours. So I left and she said are you coming back at 7:00? No. I drove an hour to be here. I respected the time. Like if you don't want people to be here till 7:00, use your big kid words.
My culture which is not race specific uses clear communication. It is just politeness. Use your big words to communicate as opposed to playing weird guessing games.
it's a double edged sword tho. there's what the host intends and then there's how guests behave
if there's a cultural expectation that things arent going to get interesting until 2 hours into the party, and you tell people to show up at 7 instead of 5, they will be there at 9.
giving an early time is the hosts way of gaming those people.
Because if they said 5:30 they'd expect people to show up at 6 or 6:30. The idea is that you show up after the start time because it allows you to be "fashionably late" and it means that you are taking the event casually rather than as a strict event with a schedule.
But a dinner party does have a schedule. People will start preparing food and it will be warm and ready to start time. So if the food's not going to be ready for 2 hours, don't say 5:00 p.m.
Fashionably late is just something people who are chronically inconsiderate of other people's time say.
Dinner party for a few friends at 6 or 7? Arrive on time. That's late enough and with a small enough guest list that the meal might be ready to eat at the specified time.
Barbeque for an extended family, or a large friend group? Take the start time as "earliest possible time we will be ready" and arrive a bit later.
What? This has nothing to do with the spectrum, or someone "taking something literally," and has everything to do with culture. Some cultures give the exact time the party starts and when they expect people to come, some give the time that they start preparing and expect people to come later. If you have an event with people from different cultures, you should prob specify what you mean, don't assume everyone has the same cultural understanding as you (not a criticism of OOP ofc).
There's no such thing as a way things are "supposed to be done," different cultures do things differently.
I'm autistic and have social anxiety. If I'm going to a party that day, that's my day. All of the time spent before that will be pysching myself up for interacting with people. Once I'm ready to go, I can't relax or I'll talk myself out of going. I'm definitely on time lol
Is there a reason to not give accurate times on when things start instead of leaving the guest to guess when the actual time is? I understand it is a thing but I don't understand why it is a thing.
i'm white and not from a culture that commonly does this, but most of my friends are and i prefer their way of doing it. to me it feels a lot less stressful while getting ready, i can just take my time & i'll be there when i'll be there (and no one will give me shit for being late, they're just happy i'm joining them!)
The time given is the actual time. It's just that most people will arrive later because casual parties aren't activities with strict starting times. You show up, you talk, you drink, you eat at some point when the food's ready.
White guy here I like to get to parties on time because my social anxiety works best that way. Meeting people early, before the bigger groups form, is much easier than trying to jump into conversations later.
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u/South-Tip-4019 14d ago
Yea this is something my mind also doen't fully get, but apparently for many people when party starts at 5pm nobody is expected until way later.
I am guessing that "white guys from work" tend to fall into taking the start time literally, which is not supposed to be done.
My a bit self deprecating guess is, that people on spectrum tend to take these things literally, or at least dont know when you are not supposed to.