I want to shout to the world that I have herpes

I have had HSV2 since April of 2015 at 20 years old after that, I started practicing abstinence and stopped dating. I began my relationship with God and started to accept my consequence. For awhile.. I thought my dating life was over.. I began to become okay with being alone the rest of my life. I told no one...not my parents or my close friends. I suffered silently..just trying to be able to love myself again. The only out break I ever had was my first one that sent me to the doctors..I struggled long and hard with having herpes. I started dating again recently .. told the guy and he accepted it..but only on a friendship level. I don't want to do a disclose talk every time .. I just want to scream to the world that I have herpes ..that I'm still a great person, beautiful and ambitious. I finally love myself again and I fear the disclosure talk will hurt my confidence each time

Xoxo

Hi, Thomas. If you haven't read any of the success stories yet, I think they will give you hope! Mostly, I wanted to say I admire you for having the courage to get back out there, even if it means a few rejections. The rejection part sucks, of course, but I like to think (hope) that you'll actually get *more* confident with each disclosure.

I read this joke about rejection last year and it has become one of my favorites:

"If you walked up to a homeless person and offered them $100 and he didn't take it, would you feel rejected? No, you'd think this guy is an idiot. Well in life there are a lot of idiots. So keep doing your thing."

:-) {hugs!}

Don't lose hope! I was diagnosed in Sept. of 2014. I was 28. I also stopped dating and thought my dating life was over. It took a while to tell my friends about it, but I'm glad I have. Made me feel like I'm the same person as I was before. It also helps to have someone to talk to about possibly disclosing to someone. While none of my friends have H, they know other people that do and that also made me feel like I wasn't so alone. My sister even connected her friend with me since she had been recently diagnosed too. That helped a lot. Anyways, I've been very cautious telling guys I like about it. I've told 2 and both have been ok with it. I knew a relationship wasn't going to come from the first guy regardless of H or not, so that made it a little easier, but I was still super nervous. I disclosed to him about 6 months after being diagnosed. I just disclosed to the other one last week. His response was, "Ok, so does this mean you can stop being awkward around me now :) ." He could tell I was worried and made jokes to try to make me smile. I was convinced both would freak and wouldn't want to see me again, but that wasn't the case. I'm sure I'll run into that situation, but the point is, you will have the positive reactions too. Even if you are dead convinced it's going to be terrible. Try to remember that if you don't get the reaction you hoped for. Just because he doesn't want to dive all in, which would be his loss, it doesn't mean the next one won't! :)

I'm with the other two on this one: It gets easier every time I tell someone! I got herpes from my ex, and when we broke up I was horrified of going into the world of dating again and having to have "the talk". So I started slow. I told a few friends, and they loved and supported me just the same. In fact, like mentioned above, most of them knew other people that had it, and one of my friends actually had it too. Then I started going on dates and over the course of time, told a few guys I felt potential with about it before things became intimate. They all took it well and appreciated me telling them. Some just wanted to be friends, and some wanted to continue to date and get to know each other better before sex got involved. The more I talked about it with people, especially my close friends, the more freeing it felt. Almost as if letting it out to those I trusted allowed me to let go of any misguided shame or fear I felt. Now, a year and a half later, I barely recognize that I have it (besides the symptoms here and there). I'm realizing the more I love me and how important I am, the less control herpes or anything else has over me. The last guy I dated and told about my herpes was amazing. He wasn't weirded out at all, immediately looked up all the facts and discussed them with me, and was honestly just bummed we'd need to used condoms all the time to keep him safe. Needless to say, he liked me for me and we had pretty amazing sex. Sadly we had to break up due to scheduling issues, but after such a great dating experience I'm looking forward to the future and have so much less fear about telling a future partner. If my friends and these great guys can accept me for me and not care about my herpes, then anyone who does care, doesn't deserve to be with me. So there is definitely hope out there!! There is a world full of people who are in your position, know someone who is, or are just kind and educated enough to realize that no one ever asks for this. It's not who you are, just something you have.