Half the fights between friends start with a text read in the wrong tone. Call before you conclude.

A message arrives with no face and no voice, so your mood fills in both. Whatever you were already feeling becomes the tone you hear, and then you reply to a version of that person who does not exist. Twenty minutes later there is a real argument built on an imagined one. Nobody meant anything by it.

When something lands wrong, assume the flattest possible reading before you answer. If it still stings, call or ask in person rather than typing back. One short conversation ends most of these before they get big enough to have a name.