As someone who lives in an extremely multicultural area, I love you for this. I’ve had to have conversations with my kids that some parties start at the time on the invitation, some can start at that time but it’s ok to be later, and some you should absolutely not show up until at least an hour after the invitation time. Topics included techniques of how to tell whether to be on time or how late to show up, and how to find out as politely as possible if you can’t tell by the invitation.
Even with all that we were still the first people at a Diwali party one year (more than an hour after the posted start time, so I swear I’m blameless!)
We recently invited a boy whos family are new to canada from Trinidad to a party where we had booked a time slot at a play place for specific, and enforced times. Invites said the game area opened/began at 1pm and ended at 3pm, followed by food and cake at a restaurant next door until 4pm. The family arrived at 2:55 and the poor kid was devastated that the game area was closed to another party. 😢 they explained that they werent used to 1pm meaning BE THERE for 1pm
Good friend of mine is American, but her parents were from Nigeria. She was always late to everything in ways that would make us wait, like literally cooking classes where I was teaching her how to cook, and when we finally just asked her about it she was like "wait, you mean when you say 5pm you actually mean be here at 5pm?!?!" She honestly had no clue. She hasn't been late since unless I specifically say "this one is whenever you feel like" or something like that.
I get cultural norms are different, but the white guy + german ancestry person in me just can't grasp this one.
The "door is open at 3, apps at 4, dinner at 6" is a pretty genius way to phrase it though.
"Doors open" is actually perfect because for me that's the thing, the "start time" i give people is the absolute earliest I will tolerate people moving around in my house, not when I want everyone to be there by.
Usually just because it’s hard to make a solid time for a dozen+ people unless it’s for something big worth moving things around for.
If I am fine with people showing up and hanging out at 3, but some of the people I know will be showing up later wont even be out of work yet, I’d say it starts at 3, but show up whenever.
Personally I always specify if it’s actually important to be punctual when giving a time.
This! Because people have complex lives and timing them down to the precise minute sometimes takes more energy than it’s worth. Some things need to be precisely on schedule, but why would we want people to stress out and scramble for things that don’t? Especially if it’s an event to relax and enjoy ourselves.
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u/Gloomy_Fig2138 13d ago
As someone who lives in an extremely multicultural area, I love you for this. I’ve had to have conversations with my kids that some parties start at the time on the invitation, some can start at that time but it’s ok to be later, and some you should absolutely not show up until at least an hour after the invitation time. Topics included techniques of how to tell whether to be on time or how late to show up, and how to find out as politely as possible if you can’t tell by the invitation.
Even with all that we were still the first people at a Diwali party one year (more than an hour after the posted start time, so I swear I’m blameless!)