pjeby:

The jerks, on the other hand, like to bait cats, because we're easy to provoke a reaction from. (Most of the "dogs" just frown at the asshole and get on with their day, so the jerk doesn't get any fun.)

So now, if you're a "cat", you learn that only jerks do these things.

Your cat/dog analogy is very good, but this requires some extra elaboration.

As you say, in regular socializing, this "cat-baiting" behavior is characteristic of jerks and bullies; regular people will typically leave "cats" alone rather than provoke them. However, in male-female interactions in which the woman deems (consciously or not) that the man might have some potential mating value but requires additional assessment, or if she perceives that the man is actively trying to win her favors, she'll typically engage in some "cat-baiting" to test him for undesirable "catlike" traits.

There's nothing surprising there once you really understand what's going on; it's simply a regular way of assessing a potential partner's fitness. Sometimes this "cat-baiting" will be subtle and entirely unremarkable to the man, but sometimes it has the form of harsh and unpleasant shit-tests which can leave him angry and hurt, and which go far into the jerk territory by the standards of regular socializing. The latter will happen especially if the woman generally imposes high standards, or if the man looks like a poor prospect who could redeem himself only with some amazing bullet-dodging. (Hence guys who give off a "catlike" vibe often get the worst of it.)

For many guys, understanding this would, at the very least, save them a lot of pointless anger in situations like the one described above by Mallah.