Comment by rayiner

Sure, once you're already in a relationship, it's not good to apply that label. But how many people do you know that are: {vacuous, boring, self-centered, naive, capricious, overly sensitive, insensitive, uptight, etc}? These are characteristics we gloss over when we first start dating in favor of characteristics we like (attractive but vacuous, exciting but self-centered, funny but overly sensitive). But over time those flaws become more apparent. That makes it harder to be kind to someone you've been with for five years than to someone you just started dating.