Sticking up for yourself over text is easy to do badly. Doing it in person, calmly, is braver.

A screen lets you be bolder than you are and worse at it. You get to draft, escalate and admire your own best lines, while the other person loses your tone and fills the gap with the worst available reading. In person you have less control and far better information, because you can see what is landing. Calm face to face is harder and settles what texting only stretches out.

If a conversation is going badly on your phone, stop replying and ask to talk. Pick a time and a place with no audience. Say the one thing that matters and then listen.