I've learned a lot from reading Keith Johnstone's Impro. A lot of what Impro deals with is observing people in situations. Now whoever is higher status is not going to move and it gets to be like a game of chicken. You both go this way and that way and giggle. Once you catch on to the game, the next step is learning how to play different types of status freely.
Some people are just compulsively low status players and others are always high.
I've done some really intense status work on the street with people accosting me. Right away you scope out where this person is and try to match their status. It's like trying to endow them with the feeling that we're equal status, and right away they don't feel threatened or they don't feel like threatening me at that point. Some of those skills work really well in the outside world, like blocking, wimping and waffling. But when you're outside, it's smart to block, waffle and wimp and stay out of danger because it's a matter of survival.