Some Tough Love
Hey y’all. I am a 32M with GHSV2. I was diagnosed about 7/8 years ago and am currently engaged to my partner of 4 years.
This may be a controversial post and in no means am I writing this to bring anyone down. When I was first diagnosed I felt my life was over. I’m writing this to provide some tough love in hopes that all of us can find love and happiness, and this is just my observations and advice from getting back involved in this thread after many years of dealing with herpes and finding love and a future with an incredible partner.
When I got diagnosed, I was depressed and sulked for months. After a few months, I reflected and said wtf am I doing. I have one life and am I really going to let herpes define me?? I said absolutely not. From that point I became the best version of myself. I got in the best shape of my life, excelled in law school and got an excellent job, and when I dated and disclosed I was confident in me and what I brought to the table. Because of that, my disclosures were always positive and herpes did not impact my sexual and dating life.
In reviewing this thread over the last week, I have seen many other people share similar experiences. I strongly agree with those posts that herpes becomes a non issue when you demonstrate to a potential partner that you are everything they see for a future husband/wife.
To the contrary, I see many posts where people seem to blame herpes, and herpes only, for negatively impacting their sexual and dating life. I’m not ignorant or dismissive to the stigma of herpes, the negative impact it has on our lives, and the difficulty in disclosing.
That said, I’m concerned many people in our community blame herpes alone for their current relationship or sexual status and that’s where I disagree. Let me explain.
I have a large friend group and work for a large company. Many of my friends are single. Let’s assume no one who is single in this group has herpes. So, the logical question is why are they single too? The answer is dating in our society is hard. Finding your person is hard. People look for certain qualities in a future partner, like looks, personality, career status and aspirations, and so on. My friends and colleagues who are single tell me constantly they don’t find those qualities in others, which is why their dates fizzle out and lead to nowhere.
What I’m trying to convey is I fear many of us might blame a disclosure for the reason a potential partner cuts things off. What I implore you all to ask yourselves is that really the reason why or are you just providing that person a scapegoat for underlying issues as to why the flame sizzled out.
Let me give an example. I lived with a girl who dated for years. She is very anti commitment and always looked for an easy way out to end things with a guy she didn’t see a future with after 2/3 dates. I can easily see if that guy the disclosed a herpes diagnosis, she would end things not because of herpes, but because she really didn’t like the guy in the first place,
To conclude this long rambling post, I strongly believe if someone really likes you for you, disclosing our diagnosis will be irrelevant. I want everyone here to be happy and love themselves, and I’m confident if you become the best version of yourself, herpes won’t matter.
Get in the gym, crush your career path, become an awesome person, and I believe you’ll find the same love that I have with my fiance. My tough love and advice is look in the mirror and ask yourself is it really herpes that is stonewalling your dating life or is it something else, just like the 20+ people I know in their 30s who are single and struggling to find their person because dating is hard.