An incident from a while back came to mind recently, it struck me as indicative of a wider range of behavior, that is much like passive aggressive, but more so, which I'm going to call 'pathetic aggressive'.

I was walking home late one night with a group of friends, a girl who is with us has gotten into an argument with a large group of black kids about the way she is dressed, they say it's slutty (you're going to get raped dressed like that), she makes random personal insults that manage to both escalate the situation and convey that she is not tough mentally or physically.

Very reluctantly I head back toward her, she has managed to get quite far away by dragging her feet. I don't especially want to defend her, she is dressed very 'open', I'm dressed normally why do I have to defend her, I'm not the one answering back to a large group of teens, I'm not an especially confident person at the best of times. The group just walk away as I approach, though they didn't seem in any hurry to do so before. I'm still annoyed that she can be so mouthy while being so not streetwise. My wife who was with me didn't help either of course.

So anyway, her 'pathetic' lack of ability forces others to carry her. I'd also add she does a lot of stuff like this.

To clarify I have sympathy for people who are genuinely pathetic, not people who just leverage freebies with convenient and pointed inability. I'm not saying this person is otherwise a terrible person or anything, just wanted to discuss this 'tactic'.

Someone else using the term. http://competitivedisadvantage.com/ourblog/2012/5/9/lww-dont-be-pathetic-aggressive.html