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Zim was never a quitter and he would rather die than become one.
So that's why he kept pretending to make easily foiled plans to "take over Earth" even after he found out the tallest lied to him years ago now. That's why he kept musing the idea of ruling Earth.
Because,If he stopped doing those things then that would mean he would quit, and that would mean that he lost.
And, well, everyone knows what happens to Irkens that lose.
The longer he remained on this planet, the more he got educated about emotions. The one thing the Irken Armada never taught their people and now he knows why.
Emotions sucked.
He watched human smeets cry for such meaningless simple things like losing a pencil, then, he saw humans cry when their loved ones died, giving them something called "burials". He thought at first that they just fed dirt with their bodies,which would honestly be a lot more beneficial than just another human cultural thing that it ended up to be. They had lots of those, he realized, because cultures hoard positive emotions and, as Zim learned, emotions rule human masses.
Another idiotic thing about humans, Zim reasoned, why would you gift something to someone who's dead?
When he got "infected" by an emotion for the first time, he had thought that emotions were like diseases and tried to cure himself with alternative medicine humans provided. Bad idea, since his skin was allergic to most things this planet has to offer.
With all that in mind, when Dib started to go from infuriating to arch nemesis to annoyance and then to tolerable, getting close to something...more, Zim completely logically decided to kill Dib before that emotional disease could take form., but...
But. When push came to shove and he was standing beside Dib's bed, energy dagger inches away from Dib's neck, Zim hesitated. Zim DOES NOT hesitate. Ever.
Looking at that huge head, bird nest of a hair and those dorky glasses on the nightstand, looking at the mess that was the Dib, he just couldn't bring himself to do it.
Ha. It's almost as if he was...
...
When Dib woke up the next day, he had tiny, colorful dicks drawn all over his face with waterproof markers.