I have <em>never</em> solved this problem, even talking as a U.S. native to another U.S. native. (There's the extra complication that U.S. natives do not customarily use 24-hour time, although I think we all understand it perfectly). As I write this, it is 17:30 here and 23:30 in Warsaw.

It is <em>correct</em> to say "Warsaw is 6 hours <em>ahead</em> of us" (i.e. you get to midnight before we do) or "We are 6 hours behind Warsaw," but it is confusing, because it is <em>equally</em> correct to say "Warsaw time is 6 hours later than ours" or "Our time is 6 hours earlier than Warsaw." Later = ahead, earlier = behind, it's just plain confusing.

One way that isn't customary but works is "subtract 6 from your time to get our time."

It is very, very, very helpful if you are talking to someone just to say "It's 5:30 here, what time is it there?"

And of course it's helpful to tell people about timeanddate.com.

The correct way to ask would be: "What is the time difference between our cities?"

It would be correct to say, "You are one hour ahead of me," or you can say, "I am one hour behind you."

Yes, Richard is correct.

For me, having a friend who has time differences with me is cool. When I should have to go to sleep, then he is about going to work. But I am a night person, so I have no problem with that.. :D

Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of time zones would be to have the world stop spinning :)

Here is a great website to see the time in all the major cities in the world:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/full.html?sort=1