Indeed. It's much easier to romance someone when you already know what he likes and what flowers make him sneeze, and that for some reason he doesn't think he's much too good for you.
It sounds as though your experience in service was rather similar to my first round of it, with the Templars. The transition to seeing people as people again is a difficult one. When I was first out of there, if "to the void with all of it, I'm a barman now" had been an option, I might have taken it.