[rockercoaster]

The book Impro treats extensively of what it calls "status games", in the context of building believable, natural scenes of dialog for the stage (or other dramatic purposes) and as a framework for making improvisation interesting.

The author muses that the situation of feeling safe playing status games with another person—that is, treating them only as games, not as serious and with real status in play—is perhaps the definition of what friendship is.

This could include trading barbs, taking turns playing the bully and the victim, trading playing "high" and "low" roles, jokey one-upsmanship, that kind of thing. Stuff you don't do with non-friends because there's too much risk of being taken seriously, and too much risk of losing actual status or of hurting someone else's status for-real when you didn't intend to.

[hilux]

OMG. The section (and one central page) in that book about status is one of the most insightful and meaningful things I have ever read in my entire life!

Once you recognize status transactions ... they are absolutely everywhere, in every single interaction.