L.A.'s designer timing

t's Friday, you're invited to a party that starts at ten and you're ready to party. What time do you show up? Ten-thirty, eleven, twelve...what do you do? What do you do? Most respondents of a survey conducted by this Daily Trojan columnist said, "11 o'clock, never earlier." This dilemma is actually not new; in fact it has plagued swingers long before Austin Powers and Vince Vaughn.

For years Ms. Manners, etiquette columnist extraordinaire, gave woman advice on how to be a proper lady (back then it wasn't as evident as it is now.) At about the same time men started to read Ms. Manners, she was asked by Ms. Wannabe Cool what time she should arrive at an informal party. Ms. Manners suggested she arrive "fashionably late."

For as long as anyone can remember the rich and famous have arrived late to parties. The reasons for this are highly debated but most agree that it takes longer for them to get ready because they're asking for some motivation. In order to avoid being rude or unchic, they coined the term "fashionably late." This brought about a conundrum that has plagued partygoers for years. If everyone is fashionably late then no one really is being chic. Instead, what has happened is that people who throw parties purposefully add an hour early to the arrival time.

"I never arrive early to a party," Herolinda Soto, a sophomore at USC said. "I wait about an hour then head over because that is when the party really begins."

Other Trojans had no idea why they show up late to parties, thus affirming society's pre-conditioning process. The point is that people should really be showing up two hours later than the scheduled time, since the party doesn't really begin till an hour after the scheduled arrival time. See? Movies, television and an insatiable L.A. desire to be like the stars has fueled this obsession with arriving at the right time, how to make the right entrance, etc.

Quick! Here is a quiz to check your chicness. In the film "Swingers," the crew is getting ready to go to a party that starts at 8 p.m. - what time do they plan to show up? If you said 9 p.m., survey says rrrrrrr! Every real swinger knows that you have to show up at the party after getting a few drinks and dinner before you roll over around midnight. Although highly exaggerated, the film satirizes L.A.'s image-obsessed culture.

Another reason being fashionably late has been wiped away from the party scene is because of party organizers themselves.

"When (my roommates and I) have a party we tell people to arrive at nine so they will get here at ten," said sophomore Mary Nguyen.

Just because organizers know everyone is going to show up an hour later doesn't mean they have to set their schedules around them. You're throwing the party damnit; they'll show up when you tell them.

A survey at bravanet.com said that most people who attend a formal dinner party are "prompt." For an informal party, Ms. Peggy Post at homearts.com suggests being fashionably late (imagine that), by arriving no earlier than thirty minutes after the scheduled arrival time.

As part of the unscientific survey conducted by yours truly, students said the primary reason they don't show up on time is they don't want to look desperate, as was said by one particularly desperate respondent. By the end of the party - if it's a good one - most people are so drunk they don't care what you look like anyway, as evidenced by the screams heard on Friday and Saturday mornings at residences around the University Park Campus.

Have fun; don't worry about what you look like. Arrive when you want. Let "fashionably late" be the motivation for the starving actors of the world. People are so caught up with trying to present an image of success and trying to be suave that they forget. They're so money and they don't even know it.