Godfather Advice Notes – No.6

Girls 5/423000

Tardiness. Why is your girlfriend always late? Because she’s a woman.

Once you are in a steady relationship you will notice fairly quickly that your girlfriend’s ability to be ready for anything on time is nil. This can cause arguments. The most common example occurs when going out socially in the evening, but has been known to extend to all kinds of events including, and I’m speaking from bitter experience here, weddings and, yes, even funerals. (Your Dad will back me upon those!).

There seems to be no way to manage this. Initially lying about the time that, say, the taxi is arriving, by knocking off 15 minutes, may help but she will soon become wise to this. You might suggest going on ahead and she can join you later when she’s finally ready; but this does not usually go down well. Providing countdown information by shouting upstairs “10 minutes”, then, “5 minutes” etc can be stress relieving for you, but will only promote further argument, and be later cited as a reason for her tardiness because you were hindering her – I am not joking. Physical violence is not an option, albeit tempting.

The basis of this problem is akin to Parkinson’s Law where it is said that work expands to the time available. In our situation the getting ready expands to the time available plus 15, 30, 45 minutes or even an hour. You see, not all girls are the same; they are all late, but by differing amounts of time. Some of them take up to two hours to get ready, and others, in my opinion the more desirable ones, somewhere between 15 to 30 minutes depending on the occasion. You can put on too much dog.

Solution; accept your fate.