So what's next?

Hi everyone! I've been a member of this site for a few months now and this is my first post.

I've had herpes for 6 years now and have had maybe 3 outbreaks during that time. When I found out, I was with my boyfriend at the time for only 4 months. I of course told him and he was OK with it, which leads me to believe that he knew he had it before, but who knows; even with protected sex the virus can lay dormant for awhile (am I right when I say this?)

We stayed together and just recently broke up (8 months ago). He's gone on and found a new girlfriend through a popular herpes dating site very soon after we broke up. I've been trying to deal with the break up and the stress of wondering if I will ever find someone as well. Problem being I'm from a relatively small town in Canada and "people like us" are hard to come by.

I've been trying to just live my life and do things for myself, but am scared to death about the whole dating scene. I know i'm ready to date, but how hard is it really? How do you go about it? Use dating sites? or just act nornal and play the field so to speak until you have to have "the talk"?

It's hard because none of my friends know and they try to set me up with guys or pick out guys for me and I have to turn them all down or make some excuse; honestly having "the talk" terrifies me, especially being from a small town.

What have some of your experiences been? Is it different in Canada than other places? I do get down a bit thinking about being alone and never finding that special someone, but on a positive spin even with all the stress and emotional rollercoaster I've had no outbreaks..so that's good. I have everything in my life in place, but just that one little thing holding me back from having it all.

Any advice? What's next? How do you get past that feeling of being alone and that it will be harder to date (not that dating is ever easy)?

I hear you, I also come from a very small town in Atlantic Canada. I'm married and we both have HSV2, so the dating thing isn't an issue for me. I have at least ten friends in town (that I know of) with HSV2, and they never seem to have issues with partners. BTW, take a look around your town, every 5th person you see walking down the street also has HSV2.

One girl is extremely popular, she got it when she was 18, and everyone in town found out. I guess there was a few years of stigma (I was never in her shoes), but she got over it, is in her mid-20's now and like I said quite popular. Being beautiful helps I suppose. To some extent I guess some people do say "Oh she has THAT", but there are lots of guys still chasing her. In the 6-7 years she's had HSV I have never heard she gave it to anyone. She's a bit of a butterfly, always discloses, and it hasn't slowed her down.

One of the guys is now 35 and has always been a total man-whore, he gave it to two classmates where they were in high-school, both girls got it within a few weeks of each other and had only been with a couple of partners so they are certain it came from him. Yet in this province with no blood testing for HSV, he always denied he had it, and continued to bang as many chicks as he could (I'm guessing 40-50 in a town of 4000) and you never heard of another girl getting infected from him. Nobody ever even mentions his name and H in the same sentence anymore.

As far as I know, of all these cases, after each of them found out they had it, none passed it on in town. You know how small towns are, word would leak out, at least about one here or there, but nothing. So that's been my experience with small-town Canada and HSV2, it really isn't as bad as you think. You really do have to "play the field" and not limit yourself, once you have the talk some will go but some will stay, those are the ones you want anyways.