If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?

The line expresses a teenage, appearance-driven calculus of romance: punctuality and courtesy are treated as trivial compared with the immediate visual thrill of a date’s attractiveness. Its blunt phrasing (“who gives a damn”) signals impatience with conventional manners and a willingness to excuse inconsiderate behavior if it’s packaged in glamour. Read more broadly, it captures a recurring Salinger-era preoccupation with adolescent desire and the way young narrators rationalize their impulses—valuing surface impressions and the rush of attraction over steadier virtues like reliability. The remark can be taken as both comic and critical, exposing how easily admiration slides into self-serving justification.