If I can rattle your cage and then stand beside your reaction looking calm and reasonable, I can create a defining contrast: you unstable; me credible. Your distress is excellent leverage. I get to have my way with you and come out looking better for it.

Have you ever known someone with the kind of energy that would steal your wallet, watch you become rightfully upset, be the first to publicly comfort you and help search for it—and then somehow be the one to find it and hand it back?

It is a hell of a trick to create friction, then step forward as the hero for managing the fallout.

Have you ever experienced a situation where the focus immediately pivots from what happened to how you reacted—as if composure is evidence of innocence, reasonableness, or rightness?