Originally Posted by plantsower
I've deleted all my texts, but the next time it happens I will try to remember to send a screen shot. In short, when I send a text to someone and it looks like I received a text back, I check and don't see their answer until I look above my original text. It should be below my original text.
No need to post a screenshot, I understand what is happening now, the message sort order has reversed. I can't replicate that in either Catalina or Big Sur, nor can I find any preference setting relating to the message sort or display order. I did find a few instances the similar questions on Apple's Discussions, some going back 10 or more years and some with 60 or more "I have the same question notations", but none of them flagged as solved. The few that had answers had either one of two answers;
  1. "You can't change it" and
  2. "Update to the latest version of MacOS"

I realize that is very little no more help than my usual, "Are you sure you're holding your mouth right?" but its all I've got. 😢 By the way apparently there were some view sorting options in earlier versions of MacOS, but those appear to have gone by the board in Catalina and Big Sur 🤷‍♂️

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein