I thought I couldn't afford to take her out and smoke as well. So I gave up cigarettes. Then I took her out and one day I looked at her and thought: "Oh well," and I went back to smoking again, and that was better.

In this wry anecdote, Hill frames romance and smoking as competing expenses and habits, then undercuts the expected moral arc. He initially quits cigarettes to afford dating, but the relationship disappoints him (“one day I looked at her and thought: ‘Oh well’”), prompting a return to smoking—presented as the preferable comfort. The humor relies on anticlimax and reversal: self-improvement is temporary, and the “better” choice is not virtue but a familiar vice. It also reflects Hill’s comic persona—cynical about love, candid about appetites, and willing to puncture sentimental narratives with a shrug.