LOL, I can relate to it as well - I was doing the same thing on EU2 forums.
In fact I've been playing EU2 for more than a year in SP before I registered on thier forums and started playing it in MP. Maybe I am just "naturally born lurker".
But I always tend to sharpen my teeths on AI before starting to play vs human opponents. For me it's like preparations before real battle, although in case of EU2 it was somewhat different, since I was enjoying it so much in SP that I didn't feel much preasure to try MP.