The comfort zone is a very real thing and aggressive men exploit it to their advantage.
A few years ago I watched an engineering manager from another group bully one of the guys in my group in a hallway discussion. The manager was smaller than the guy, but kept asseting himself by leaning forward a few inches closer than would be normal. My guy kept taking a half step backward each time, and was yielding any sort of technical foothold each time.
In that my guy was right and that I don't like bullies, I inserted myself into the conversation and started arguing my engineer's point for him. Now it is important to remember that I played outside line in small college football, and still carry most of the bulk (It makes it soo hard to find airy and frothy summer things
) in guy mode. I waited for him to lean into me to make his point and as he started I stepped 3 inches closer to him. He jumped back a foot, started mumbling, conceded my guy's point, and scurried away.
Being a good manager, I explained to the young guy what just happened and he spread it around the group. The team was much more effective after that.
BTW a few weeks later one of the guys tried tried the step-closer gambit against me. I saw it coming and hugged him, saying "aww I'm so proud of you!". They never tried that with me again.
-jj