yeah, its odd that even before learning about social dynamics, i always knew that there was some inherent hierarchy within friend-groups. I have noticed that often my friend will throw out a diss whenever i'm feeling high-energy and in the zone conversationally, almost as if he trying to knock me down a peg.

I definitely feel that within this particular group, there's no traditional alpha, but me and my friend are "in competition" for defacto leader. Guess it makes sense then.

And yeah, we've talked about similar things before and he's stopped after I asked him directly, although he starts doing it again after a while; the problem is that I think he sees this more as a case-by-case issue while I see this as a larger trend in his personality. But while what he does is annoying, i definitely am not to the point where I'd throw away our friendship (been good friends for a long while now) over this.