Picky Eater--but the WEIRD kind?

[VelkynKarma]

I've only had my BP for about six months, so I'm curious on getting feedback from more experienced BP keepers.

When I was first researching to get a ball python, I learned all about their notoriously picky eating habits. I was prepared for that, and prepared for weeks of a snake refusing food outright or going on hunger strikes. I was not prepared for a different kind of picky eating entirely.

Phantom hasn't done a lot of outright rejecting meals, outside of breeding season and when he's shedding (both perfectly reasonable reasons to reject food). But he is a weird eater and never seems to eat the same way from week to week. Different ways of eating include:

1. Barely being presented with a meal before he strikes (preferable)
2. Spends a good five minutes licking the meal before deciding, "Actually, yeah, I could go for a bite" and striking.
3. Shows all the signs of interest in food (intensely staring at and following the meal, lots of tongue flicking, going into a strike position) but refuses to actually take from the tongs. (Usually when he does this, if I leave the meal in the enclosure with him, he'll eat it after I go to bed. I guess he just wanted to eat privately lol).
4. Shows all the signs of interest in food (intensely staring at and following the meal, lots of tongue flicking, going into a strike position) but I guess he needs to think about it for a bit because it takes him a good 5 minutes to decide to strike
5. Shows all the signs of interest in food (intensely staring at and following the meal, lots of tongue flicking, going into a strike position) but needs to spend 5-10 minutes carefully adjusting all of his coils into the perfect-est strike pose ever for maximum effect. My arm gets tired for this one.
6. Strikes, constricts, and kills his already-dead f/t rat, and then forgets/loses it and spends a while looking around for it

He's eating his meals in the end in all these cases, so I'm not really concerned about his health or weight. I'm mostly just curious if this is a thing all ball pythons do, or if my snake is just a weirdo.