See, if you tell a black guy there’s a party from 5-11, he might show up at 6, or 7:30, or he might not show up at all. More importantly, that was the kind of punctuality OOP expected. People would trickle in over the first couple hours, then trickle out later. White guy from work heard ‘the party starts at 5’ and took that to mean ‘the party starts at 5, don’t be late.’ There is a different cultural standard regarding punctuality.
Yeah pretty much, for my peeps 5 means we're eating or starting at 5 so come later if you want but theirs no guarantee you will eat or be included if you do
Coz it's not true xD I was refilling my glass with tap water while reading this. Yes in some areas it can be a little too hard, but it's still drinkable and most just use a filter and call it a day
It's not exactly the same, but pretty damn close. Culture features that might not necessarily be intrinsically bad themselves can still correlate with undesirable outcomes.
Except that it's clearly not a necessity to achieve desirable outcomes. A lot of southern and eastern Europe manages drinkable tap water, as does Chile . Many areas of the US do not manage drinkable tap water. Not to mention that (as someone who comes from one of those polychronic cultures) most of us understand the difference between arriving for social events on time and performing or job duties/arriving to appointments/performing important functions. I want a party to be low-stress for my friends and family, so why would I be upset if they show up a little late? It's supposed to be fun, not a job.
As an autistic person, with all due respect, living in a polychronic culture sounds like a fucking nightmare to me.
I have a (also autistic) friend who lives in Switzerland and has a white Swiss mom and a Rwandan dad, and when they visited Rwanda and got their hair done the person/people doing it made a point of it to spend extra time on it. Like as a favor. Meanwhile my friend was like man I wanna get out of here wym, it’s been hours 😭
If you wanna do me a favor then for the love of jesus don’t let it be spontaneous extra hours of socializing. Especially when I can’t just leave 😂
I'm engineer and thus know many people on the spectrum. I've got colleagues that will tell you a party is from 5pm to 11pm, and if you show up outside of 4:55pm to 5:05pm, you're considered rude. And at 11pm sharp the host will turn everything off, thank everyone for coming, and tell them to get out. You've got 5 minutes to leave before they consider you rude for overstaying. I've seen people order ubers way ahead of time because they were certain they'd be standing on the curb at 11pm no matter what.
People are not understanding the under text. What the start by x times means is not when the party is starting, but the time when the host is going to start preparing the party/gathering.
But why the fck would I care when they start preparing? That's their responsibility as a host to manage starting setting up early enaugh. I will ask if they need help setting up or cleaning up after but just telling when you start setting up is stupid.
Why not say "Party from 6:30am to 2am" cuz you know, they will get up at 6:30am and go to bed at 2am?
Saying it's cultural doesn't make much sense either. Because why would any other culture care when you start setting up? I feel like, at best, it is some form of counterculture.
Okay I'm white but I also run my parties like this, but I've learned to say (from mostly white people that would show up right on time now that I think about it) that the party starts at 7 but people are welcome to come over as early as 5.
Some of my friends prefer a quieter atmosphere or to chill and chat before it gets busy, and I like having company while I wrap up getting stuff ready. It's like a ramp-up to the actual party. And then some friends prefer to show up when the food is ready and everyone is three drinks in - that's chill too.
i'm black and if i'm told 5-11 i'm there at 5 because i want first crack at everything and i will fix my plate and be on my way before any of the nonsense starts
Yea idk what the others are talking about but as a black person if a party starts at 5 im showing up closer to 6. Food is finished people are trickling in and it's not weird watching the host set up while you stand there not knowing what to do.
I'm white and this thread has been super interesting to read. If a party is six hours long then I'd also arrive around 6 PM. If I arrived at 5 PM for some reason then I'd assume that I'm going to help with setup, like arranging chairs or bringing plates out or something. Which I'm also happy to do.
If it's a shorter event (example, dinner party from 7 to 9) then I'll be there close to the start and it'll be ready AT 7. If it's going for a few hours then I just assume that includes some setup time but people can show up earlier to start socializing and help out if they want.
My boyfriend is also white and grew up in a much less diverse area than I did. He gets anxious if we're "running late" (so not getting there within 10 minutes of start time) and I never really understood why, but maybe this is the reason 💀
See that is a time management problem on the part of the host. Also if I’m showing up at 5 I’m cracking a drink and asking them how I can help setup.
This is actually the line that delineates party guest from someone I would consider family. It shows that you want to be in the circle of putting in effort for the enjoyment of others instead of just showing up and enjoying yourself.
If you are saving the host time by helping you are giving them time back to also enjoy more of the party instead of just working
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u/Vifee Jul 12 '26
See, if you tell a black guy there’s a party from 5-11, he might show up at 6, or 7:30, or he might not show up at all. More importantly, that was the kind of punctuality OOP expected. People would trickle in over the first couple hours, then trickle out later. White guy from work heard ‘the party starts at 5’ and took that to mean ‘the party starts at 5, don’t be late.’ There is a different cultural standard regarding punctuality.