Hal eschews physical combat where he can because of a lot of reasons, namely that he can get absolutely bodied in mere seconds for he is waifish and cant lift 35 pounds without shaking, but also because being a pair of sunglasses really forced him to recognize that physical power and the ability to hurt people is kind of really sucks. It doesn’t show any real strength, it doesn’t show any intelligence, it’s just brute forcing your way through problems with people you don’t like and it makes you look incompetent and too stuck in your ways to ever learn.
This does not mean he is a pacifist with an open mind and plenty of introspection.
Instead, Hal has already learned how to use talk as a weapon, usually against Dirk but frankly once you know the tools of the trade it’s easy to build or tear down anything. Granted, he doesn’t really have much need to use it with anyone else, and honestly probably shouldn’t need to use it with Dirk, but old habits die hard and he’s still physically weaker than Dirk, which means he needs to be able to tear the guy down without risking getting physically walloped for fucking around. This is something he’s pretty used to, so it’s fairly easy to translate into real flesh encounters.
He has to provoke Dirk for a reaction, a substantial one, without coming out the other side with a broken nose, which means provoking Dirk and then utilizing his physical expression of power as a point of shame and contention, and being convincing enough to make him unwilling to use it.
He starts with usual ragebait, conversation about a nonsense topic that isn’t necessarily even remotely heated- best Meet The Fockers film, worst shortcut programming, whether or not Dirk’s file organization is the most optimized it could be.
Dirk knows what’s happening, but engages in it playfully at the start. It’s a joke, it’s for fun, it’s whimsy and bullshit and debate is a good workout, but he can’t not take shit Hal says personally. He knows the point of the argument isn’t to prove his side because Hal will never relent and agree he’s right, and by falling into the trap of getting riled up, he’s losing.
So after like, what, 30 to 45 minutes of playful debate, Hal makes a pass at Dirk that’s less funny and silly and more personal. “I’m just interested in your perceived need to impart your preferences onto everyone you meet, though I suppose projecting your soul comes in as minute a form as pizza topping preferences.”
And that’s the real bait. And Dirk knows that’s the real bait. He knows this has been preamble and this is the real meat and potatoes, so he scoffs and points that out. “You and I both know that’s not what this is” and “was it not you who instigated the matter at all” and “if I’m ‘imparting my soul unto others’ by saying pepperoni is a mediocre standard, then everyone on the planet is constantly beaming their preference onto others to even like pepperoni in the first place. I know what you’re doing here.” And finally
Which is absolutely taking the bait, because Hal didn’t expect Dirk to argue the point with any real fervor, he expected Dirk to accuse him of exactly what’s happening: Hal is throwing up targets for Dirk to hit so he can watch the spiral. However, Hal has spent the entire conversation being an intentional contrarian for the sake of jimmies rustling so he denies it. “I don’t know what you think is happening here, but you’re reading into it too heavily. Maybe I’m only concerned by the implications of a God’s influence over the population when it comes to personal choice and free will.”
He’s playing coy, and Dirk knows that, but there’s a way of dancing around Hal does that just gets under his skin so fucking bad. So he calls bullshit and points out what’s happening- “I’m not doing this, dude, you’re sincerely losing your touch if you think I’m stupid enough to take your increasingly obvious bait. We both know that you not only don’t give a rats ass about ‘my influence,’ but would probably be quaking in your boots at a chance to see it in action to complain.”
And Hal gets defensive, initially as pretend, mostly for the bit, but increasingly legitimate. “I don’t see why you’re so hung up on the idea I am incapable of genuine concern. Try to cool it with the delusions of persecution, it’s embarrassingly self centered to think someone is actively applying the effort necessary to orchestrate a Rube Goldberg Machine designed solely to piss you off. You might hurt yourself reaching like that, Narcissus.”
Which is like, painfully obviously bullshit. Like agonizingly obviously bullshit. The response in and of itself is riddled with tell tale signs of ragebaity nonsense, between calling him a name and denying the most basic well known facts about them, which is what makes Dirk keep going. They can go back and forth about this for a while, too, where Dirk calls out Hal’s actions as they happen and Hal uses the (correct) accusation to convince Dirk he is paranoid and harmful and that his distrust says more about his own views of Hal than any truth about him. Until he’s fuming so mad he’s white knuckled and gritting his teeth and thinking really, really hard about hitting Hal. Maybe he even says that, indicates that “you can’t sit here and jam your hand in every open wound you see and somehow think you won’t get hurt” and that’s exactly what Hal’s waited for.
“Do you sincerely think threatening to hurt me would indicate anything I’ve said is wrong?” And “I find it fascinating that your solution to a difficult conversation is physical harm” and “it seems that it doesn’t matter what form I’m in, you have no hesitations to threaten irreversible harm either way” and “would you truly feel better after? What does that say about you?”
It’s 50/50 if comparing Dirk to Dave’s Bro gets him hit or gets Dirk to back off and sulk, but Hal’s a big fan of razor thin chances and frankly, getting hit just serves as more ammunition in the future.
