a made-up multiplicative theory of social interactions
Each person has a single number representing how they respond to conflict: their response is the size of the conflict multiplied by their number. If their number is 1, they respond exactly proportionally, tit for tat; if it's less than 1, they tend to deescalate conflicts; if it's greater than 1, they tend to escalate conflicts.
Thus, when two people interact and get into a conflict, if the product of their numbers is < 1, they can resolve it peacefully; if the product is > 1, it blows up. (But smaller isn't always better — having too small a number makes you a pushover.)
A normal well-adjusted person might be, let's say, 0.8.
This gives one reason friendship isn't transitive: if you're a 0.8, you can have two 1.1 friends, but they wouldn't get along with each other. More broadly, each social group can hold one person who's above 1. If there's two, it'll blow up.