They are constructed with love, designed to be indistinguishable from the original specimen down to the smallest quirks and tics and mannerisms. Indistinguishable, that is, aside from the potential to have various behavioural traits dialed upwards or downwards as desired to increase their effectiveness against the desired target – only in tiny increments, however, as otherwise they would cause damaging feedback in other areas of the personality.

When the moment of crisis is upon him, instances of potential desire looming large on the figurative horizon, these decoys are then deployed – thrown out like chaff to snare the attentions of those in pursuit of his affection and his heart, thereby allowing the original to flee, to retreat once more into his dark and lonely den and resume the incessant and erroneous lament that nobody could ever possibly love him.