Respond in a timely manner, but not immediately. When the topic of conversation is light, you risk coming across as desperate or clingy if he receives your reply before he can even put his phone down. If he is just casually making conversation, wait a few minutes before responding. On the other hand, if you are having an important conversation or making plans to meet soon, a late reply could come across as disinterest or detachment. Be sure to gauge your reply time according to the tone of his texts.

Skip replying all together if you're upset or you have been drinking. Your intense emotions or impairment will be obvious in your message and at least one of two things is bound to happen. Either he will take your response the wrong way, or you will say something you regret later. If he just sent a message that makes you angry, there is no way you will be able to express yourself and solve a disagreement gracefully through texting.

Make it short and sweet. Girls are blessed with the gift of gab, but most guys are dumbfounded in this department. For them, communication isn't quite so tied to emotion. For this reason, try to keep your messages under the character limit for individual texts instead of sending off drawn-out paragraphs that blow up his phone in staggered chunks.

Don't jump to conclusions and make assumptions. Many men sprinkle a lot of sarcasm in their speech, and it's sometimes hard for your boyfriend to do this eloquently when he's talking with his thumbs while hunched over a tiny keyboard. If he called you a name in person and followed it with a grin or a playful kiss, you might not think twice about being picked on. Guys are less likely to follow up a joke with an "LOL" or an emoticon, so it can be easy to misconstrue his lighthearted intentions via texting. When in doubt, play it safe and assume he is just being flirty. Throw a cute insult back at him and follow it with a winking face.

Know when to quit. Sometimes, a text may not warrant a reply, and dragging out a conversation this way can irritate or even anger your boyfriend. Unlike real life, there is no subtle way he can tell you to stop messaging him. In person, he could break eye-contact or walk away, but through texting, he is powerless to bring about a natural break in the dialogue.