>>12943030It politely implies that a decision has been made after internal dialogue and due consideration. "Time for me to be heading off" is a unilateral statement. "Right, time for me to be heading off" implies that you have weighed up the pros and cons of staying a while longer, but on balance decided you can't, awfully sorry old bean.
It also shows to others that you are not an NPC, because an NPC would not have the capacity for such internal dialogue. Brits picked up this habit when they first began ruling Imperial conquests and discovered that many of their new subjects were philosophical zombie üntermensch; the verbal cue serves to differentiate from them.
t. Bong linguist on holiday
