Dealing with herpes and rejection...please help

I'm 18 and never have been in a relationship. I found out I had herpes 6 months ago and emotionally I've been a mess since. A relationship is always something I've looked forward to but I've just never met anyone who really interests me like that. Two months ago I randomly met this guy and it was an instant connection, felt like magic every time we made eye contact, hours of conversation every single night, and things were really going well despite it being long distance (lived like an hour away from each other) . I can honestly say I've never felt like that before & it was the real deal. I considered not telling him about the herpes but I really couldn't do that to someone, so after a little less than a month I decided to tell him when I visited him. When I told him he took it okay and said this didn't change anything, wanted to know how it effected me emotionally, had lots of questions, and then it lead to a deeper conversation. I was so happy because I thought all the worry was over and that I had found an amazing guy.

However after I told him, it was never the same again. I noticed quickly he stopped making the effort to text me, called every few days instead of everyday, and was less engaged in general. I had prepared myself for him to not want to continue this but I was still very scared to loose him. Eventually I asked if everything was okay because I could tell it wasn't, but he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about and told me everything was okay and that he still really liked me.

A few weeks had gone by and he was still acting distant. Eventually herpes came up in the conversation and he said "I dont want you to think I don't like you because I really really like you, but I just want to figure this out a little bit more because i've never gone through this before" and we talked about statistics and all the info. After that it never really went back to normal, but it was better all around and I thought things were gonna work out, because he kept telling me everything was okay and acting goofy, calling me babe, and all that cute stuff.

and then after a month of trying to decide if he was okay with the herpes or not ((I'm assuming because we never got to talk about it)) he ghosted me...

I know everyone deals with this different and there is no correct way, but how do you deal with rejection. I know its not a rejection of me, its a rejection of herpes, but how do I not take it personally that a guy strung me a long for a month trying to decide if he was ok with it just to ghost me over it. The one person who told me not to be ashamed and depressed over herpes, ghosted me because of it. I honestly never want to tell another guy about this ever again. I'm so scared of not getting close to people, but I'm just as scared to get close to people because I know I have to tell them. I want my life to be normal again. I'm so angry and feel like if I didn't have this, I would be in a relationship right now.

I'm also not really upset about being rejected by him, I'm just angry it took so long for him to decide and then not even have the decency to tell me what was wrong ((even though I already know)).

I'm just having a hard to imagine dealing with this for the rest of my life. I'm so scared i'll never find anyone and I feel so alone.

Hey, keep your head up . It was his option to decide if he wanted to continue or not and he picked, he did it in a very immature way, but think about it even if you didn't have H , would you want to be with someone as immature as that dude ? There's so much to you than having a pain in the ass skin infection but he decided to judge you just for that . You lost nothing if you ask me.

It's totally normal to feel fear that no one will love you or can look past your diagnosis. There is sadly strong social stigma around herpes despite the fact of how common it actually is.

I know it's hard to see now, but you should look in the "success stories" part of this forum. Someone who truly loves and cares about you will not mind. Herpes is a skin condition, it does not take away from who you ARE. I can tell you are a very sweet person. I am 21 now, and recently got it from my boyfriend who didn't know he had it. I also felt fears like, "If we break up, how am I going to ever find someone? I'm going to have to disclose this to anyone I want to be intimate with..." etc etc. Although negative thoughts like this are understandable and normal, it's not good to think that way.

First, find that love for yourself. Be content with being alone and with your own company, find that unconditional love for yourself EVEN with the herpes. When you find self love, healthy love will gravitate towards you, it's inevitable.

It's also kind of hard to find someone who is in high school/college who can be mature about these things, but as @it_doesnt_define_us said (love the username), you aren't losing anything. Someone who failed to look past a diagnosis to see a special person, they aren't worth it. Rejection does hurt even if it was slowly happening. It's okay to feel hurt about it, but you WILL grow from it and realize how herpes can actually help us in dating. Weeds out the people who just want sex, who want YOU.