This is a linkpost for http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/submission-and-dominance-among-friends
That all entirely depends on the context and the particulars. Compare:
So, relative status at the end of the interaction depends on how someone responds to "fake" aggression, and one possible outcome is that it's the same as it started.
This isn't the same thing at all as not being a status transaction.