"Must get out of this habit", he told himself, as he added another 17 November to the appropriate stack. He had to get out of this bloody stupid habit of falling in love the way a cat bats a bit of string. "It's embarrassing and it's got to stop". It wouldn't be quite so bad if just once he had the guts at least to try and make something of it, but he never did. The string twitched, he batted, missed, and immediately panicked and hid under the table till the danger went away. "Pathetic".