I see what you mean. I had a similar situation today where I raised ATs into the naturally aggressive, shortstacked BB and he thought for ages and folded. You could tell he thought it was a steal and really really wanted to fight back.

Next hand im delt QQ and raise to just under half his stack. I expect him to push allin with a very wide range. No way is he going to let me bully him off twice in a row. Sadly I misjudged. He used up the entire timebank and then folded.

I made that descision based on our "relationship". Sadly he either didnt have Ax, or I misjudged the relationship. I guess Ill never know which but it was worth a try.