When you send someone a text message the idea is that it will sit there until someone has time to get to it. It is NOT like a phone conversation or an IM conversation where they expect you to be ready to answer right after they send a message. Anyone who gets an attitude over a late text response (a few hours to a whole day) is someone who is being very demanding. Even with my best and closest friend I don't apologize for a late text message response. Between the two of us we understand that we have busy lives and something as small as a text messages is easy to forget about. It is also important to remember that any time you apologize for ANYTHING, you are admitting that YOU did something wrong and you OWE them an apology. You don't owe anyone an apology for having your own schedule and responding to their message at your own pace. If it is a simple text message like, "can you pick up some milk?" then of course, you should respond in a timely manner and apologize if you missed it and kept them waiting on you for milk. However, if it's more conversational like, "How do you feel about...." or "Do you want to come to my party next weekend?" These messages require more thought and consideration. No one should expect you to drop what you are doing to immediately respond to these messages. You do NOT have to apologize for carefully taking your time to answer. Also, if you freely and loosely hand out explanations and apologies for every little thing, people will see you as a weak person and feel more comfortable bullying you and taking advantage of you. Really, are you going to spend the REST of your life immediately responding to EVERY single text message and creating elaborate apologies for every text message you waited too long to respond to??? If that is what you plan on doing then your life sounds tiring.