Setting the standards

I had once written about going for a walk in school with a lady friend that I had met for the first time and due to how amazing the whole experience was for me, I had told a close friend of mine about it, so he too had said he would give it a try.

Well, he eventually got to take the walk today but it didn't exactly go the way he had planned it. According to my friend, this was the third time he was meeting this person but actually the first time they were going for a walk. The agreed time for them to meet had been 4:00pm but she ended up coming about an hour later while he had been there even before the agreed time.

He said he had immediately expressed his anger for her late coming the moment she arrived and had cut the walk short. The whole thing didn't last up to thirty minutes before they both got on their separate way back home. But you see, my friend had said something to me that got me to actually make this post today.

He had told me that the only reason he had reacted the way he did wasn't because he was actually upset but because he was trying to set a standard, one that would see to it that she doesn't come late next time because when next she's about to be late, she would remember how big of a fuzz he made the last time and that would somehow make her arrive on time.

Now I get the point he's trying to make, I do understand it and I also do agree with him. My dad would always tell us that if there's a behaviour you don't like in someone, then you should tell them as soon as possible and not try to overlook or tolerate it while hoping it would stop at its own time because it will only end up getting worse from there.. So yeah, maybe what my friend did might be considered as the right thing in certain situations but I just don't think it was right for this situation, especially with someone you're not that close to yet.

To me, I feel there are stages to this "setting a standard" thing and that the first step would have been him trying to communicate to her calmly, letting how see why it's rude to keep someone waiting for that long, and then if the same thing repeats itself next time, then maybe he could react the way he had reacted today.

To me, I feel that way makes more sense but apparently he doesn't. He believes that in order to get results, you have to set the standards from the very beginning.

Well my question is, is that right or wrong?

_{Photo by Christophe Hautier}