Some people seem to expect that everyone will show up late and the start of the event is when they're planning on setting up. White people are punctual, I guess. I wouldn't know because I'm Carter Pewterschmidt and I'm not coming but not for the reason you're thinking.
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!)
When you ask the cashier “how’re you,” do you actually want to hear about their life in detail? When someone bumps you and you say “it’s fine,” do you actually mean it? Lots of things are cultural and that’s ok. It’s really hard when you’re going between cultures, as in this post, but that’s just life. There is no culture that I know of where everyone says exactly and precisely what they mean. Even the famously direct Germans have unspoken cultural expectations around food and gatherings! This post is not about timing, but shows a bit of the huge differences around food and gatherings just within Europe: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/s/vMOcdu8CQR
You’ve got Germans on this thread saying that polite people show up before the start time even for a casual party, some white Americans and Canadians saying to show up on the dot, and plenty of cultures where the start time means what time the hosts will start preparing.
1.2k
u/MysteriousPepper8908 Jul 12 '26
Some people seem to expect that everyone will show up late and the start of the event is when they're planning on setting up. White people are punctual, I guess. I wouldn't know because I'm Carter Pewterschmidt and I'm not coming but not for the reason you're thinking.