I’m always early. Not by choice exactly — it’s more of a compulsion, an anxiety that disguises itself as punctuality.
I’d rather sit alone in a parking lot for twelve minutes than walk into a room already in progress. So I arrive first, find a seat, and then just exist there while the place slowly fills in around me, a ghost at my own event.
The weird part is the in-between time. You’re there but the thing hasn’t started. Nobody to talk to yet, nothing to do, no role to play. You just sit and watch the door and do that thing where you take your phone out, look at it, put it away, take it out again thirty seconds later as if something might have changed. Nothing has changed. You’ve been there for four minutes.
There’s also a social tax that comes with being first. When the second person arrives, the burden of greeting them falls entirely on you. You’re the one with context — you’ve been watching the door, you saw them come in, you’re the welcoming committee of one. They can look around and ease in. You have to perform having been there.
Late people have it easier in this specific way. They walk into a room that’s already warm, already mid-sentence, already a thing. They slot in. Nobody’s watching the door anymore. The social structure has formed without them and they just join it. Being late is almost ergonomic if you can stomach the guilt, which a lot of people apparently can.
The people I find most interesting are the ones who are exactly on time. Not a minute early, not a minute late. That takes a kind of confidence I don’t have — a belief that the world will hold for you, that you don’t need to pre-arrive and survey the territory before committing to being present. They just show up when the thing starts, as if that’s a normal thing to do. Which I guess it is.
Anyway I’ve been sitting in this coffee shop for twenty minutes waiting for a friend who isn’t late yet.