I have a confession to make. I am a text-holic. And now that I have unlimited  messaging on my iPhone, I have made it my mission to get my money’s worth. I use it to send quick messages to people I don’t really want to talk to. I use it to convey important information when talking on the phone isn’t practical. (i.e. “Movie starts @ 7:15. See u there,” from staff meeting) And I use it to flirt.

Clearly I’m not alone. At least, you know, not in one sense. Text-flirting is sufficiently popular — and landmine-laden — to have spawned not only the unseemly neologism “flirtexting,” but also the book Flirtexting: How to Text Your Way to His Heart and more Web sites than you can shake a rotary phone at.

But of all the tips available — including these new ones from Your Tango — the most important is this: Do not text while under the influence. I have sent out more mortifying texts than I care to remember.

Fortunately, friends don’t let friends text tipsy. My roommate has actually taken to giving me her phone at the start of a girl’s night out with the admonishment, “No matter how hard I beg for this back. DO NOT GIVE IT TO ME!” It’s the same category of bad as drunk dialing, only somehow so much worse as it’s down in the written word, memorialized for all the world to see, and undeniable in the sober light of morning. And likely full of typos.