Hello,

This past April I found out I have genital herpes. Fortunately I have a really minor case of it. The only thing about it that really bothers me is the limitations it places on my dating.

I notice this seems to be an issue with a lot of people on this board. I see post after post about people asking how should they tell their partner. Problem is anymore with dating, sex usually comes up before a couple is in love (or at least that is my personal experience). Problem with this is you can count on the "conversation" ending the relationship every time.

Here's how I look at it... supposedly 20% of the population has genital herpes. Although maybe 5% of the population is aware they have genital herpes, that is still a heck of a lot of people for us to choose from. If more of us would take advantage of the herpes dating sites, dating would fun and worry free. Personally, I would feel 100% cured if I found a partner who already has HSV2. As I said, the only thing that bothers me about having H is the fear of passing it along and it affecting them worse than myself. If I'm with someone who already has it, then that risk is eliminated and in my view, I am "cured" from the disease.

Anyway, I recently joined a herpes dating site called www.mpwh.com. (http://www.mpwh.com.) Just this weekend I met a really cool girl through there. Not sure where it's gonna go cause it's too early to see, but I just wish more people would take advantage of the site (and others like it) so there would be a bigger selection.

Anyway, has anyone else used any of the online dating sites? I'm wondering which ones people have had the most luck with.

Also, I'm just curious, how bad can herpes really be for someone who's body doesn't tolerate it well? I read at times that it can be very painful, but what exactly does that mean?

Regards,
OV

Just in my brief tours of some of the dating sites I've come across two things:

1. The only thing the two have incommon are herps

2. The other person is solely interested in a sexual relationship or wanting to jump into right off the bat.

The ideas of these sights are great but I will not necessarily say the look of finding a match with H is anymore greater than finding someone not infected. Just my little cheap opinion. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

Hi O_V,

I've found that having herpes can definitely skew the typical progression of the "getting to know you" stage of things. Telling a prospective partner that you have herpes can be awkward for sure, and the timing that works best for each of us is different. I prefer to tell someone fairly soon when it looks like we're interested in each other and want to continue beyond a few emails or dates if I don't know the other person's H status yet. But it means I have to bring up an awkward subject sooner than I'd like to.

I think the subject of sex tends to come up a bit sooner than would be preferred when there's any kind of issue related to sex in the person's life. That can also happen if the person has particular sexual interests, or if there are sexual activities they really want to avoid, or if they have experienced sexual trauma. A new partner's attitude about herpes (or any other chronic STD) is just another bump in the sexual minefield.

I've met some interesting people through MPWH. None of them worked out unfortunately, but that's not surprising considering the small percentage of people that any of us is compatible with in the general population. I haven't had any better luck, percentage wise, with regular dating sites either. When you think of all the people you meet in your daily life and how rare it is that you meet someone whom you really click with, it only makes sense that you'd have to wade through a lot of people in any dating service before you find someone you'd even seriously consider. You just have to keep trying. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

In answer to your question about "how bad could it be," how herpes manifests varies considerably from person to person, and even at different times in someone's life. Some people never get symptoms at all (and don't know they have it until their partner suddenly gets it). Some people get very mild and infrequent OBs, which often happens with genital HSV-1 and sometimes with genital HSV-2 as well.

Some people have a very bad time of it though, and there's no way I know of to predict who will experience this. These people may get frequent, long-lasting OBs that may cause nerve pain or serious discomfort. Much can depend where the OB location is, too. One bad OB site I have is at tail of my spine which makes sitting very uncomfortable and it tends to heal very slowly. Plus, the blisters there will seep through my clothes which is annoying and embarrassing. I've found I can put a pantyliner on my underwear back there to keep it from leaking through, but it's a pain in the behind at best.

TheOneInFour

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to reply http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

It seems we are all in agreement that these H dating sites are good IN THEORY, but they aren't as effective as we would like. However, this is not due to any shortcomings in the H dating sites; it's due simply to the fact that the membership base is still rather limited.

If more of us who are single and interested in dating would join these sites, their effectiveness would improve. Each one of us who joins adds diversity to the mix in terms of our values, interests, age, gender, physical appearance, intelligence, location, race, etc. The more of us who join these H dating sites, the greater their diversity and the greater our odds will be of finding someone we are truly compatible with.

I personally don't like the idea of dating someone who does not have H. Consider the possible scenarios of explaining H to your partner and their respective outcomes:

1. Upon introduction, I say, "Hi, my name is Tony and I have herpes. Would you like to go on a date?" This is the most noble approach and will obviously get you nowhere, unless you are speaking with a completely desparate individual.

2. You mention it while you are in the initial dating stages of the relationship but have not reached the point yet where you are in a committed relationship. This won't work either because your partner hasn't had a chance to become attached to you yet. She or he will be pissed that you wasted their time.

3. You mention it once you reach that committed stage of the relationship and have feelings for each other although not necessarily sure if you are in love with each other yet. From your partner's point of view, this is probably the worst time to bring it up. She or he will be torn about what to do. Things were going perfect up to this point and then you dropped the bomb. The partner will be torn between rational logic (why should I date someone with herpes?) and emotional confusion (but I thought he was going to be THE guy!). It's a tossup here. If it falls through, there's a good chance if she or he is pissed off or hurt the word will get spread about your condition because his or her friends will want to know why this great relationship suddenly ended.

4. You mention H once it is clear the two of you are in love with each other. This will give the H victim the best odds of keeping his mate, but I feel this is totally unfair to the other person. Once two people are in love, their partner basically becomes an extension of themselves. Breaking up at this point is extremely painful. So now the partner is presented with a huge decision to make: risk getting H, or going through a very painful breakup without knowing if you will meet someone else better than this person you would do anything for. Love usually overpowers logic, so odds are if you made it this far, the H will not end things for you. HOWEVER, the odds of getting to this stage (falling in love) PRIOR TO HAVING SEX seems to be as big of a challenge as figuring out how to tell your partner you have H. Hmmm.....

Of course, all of the above problems would be avoided simply by datng someone who already has your same condition. I'm willing to bet there are a ton of formally outgoing people in this world who have become withdrawn from the dating scene because of the fear of having the dreaded "talk". I invite all these people to place an add on an H dating site who haven't already done so and enjoy some stress free dating once again!

Thanks for your time reading this, I know it was long.

Regards,
OV

Hey O_V,

Wow, you sound pretty convinced that herpes will always mean an automatic rejection unless you trap the person in emotional blackmail! LOL You probably didn't mean it that way but you seem very pessimistic that you'll be rejected. I won't say it doesn't happen as obviously it does, but telling a new partner you have herpes doesn't always mean the person will run screaming from the room! LOL

Why would someone want to become involved with someone who has herpes? Why would someone want to become involved with anyone who DOESN'T have herpes? Because they're a wonderful person, they care about them, they get along with them, they connect at a deep level with that person, they find them sexy, etc., etc., etc.

No one is perfect and everyone has something in their life that could be a blocking concern to someone else. Maybe it's their weight/shape, maybe it's a personality quirk, maybe it's their family or an ex-partner, maybe it's a disability, maybe it's their education or their career, etc.

I'm trying to say that while herpes isn't exactly insignificant, it's not the worst thing that someone can bring to a relationship as part of the baggage we all carry in some form. The right person for you isn't going to love you because you "don't have herpes," they're going to love you because of the person you are and the way you click with each other.

Some people won't be able to see beyond the herpes and that is their loss. They might just as easily have a problem with your choice of career or friends or family or something else about your life that scares them. Then again, there are people who are able to see the person beyond your life circumstances.

I completely understand the desire to avoid having "The Talk" and I have often prefered to avoid having it myself. But I've advertised on non-H dating sites too and sometimes people say no thanks, but many people are open-minded enough to realise that every relationship involves some element of risk and that the right person makes that risk worthwhile and that maybe it's worth sticking around to find out if we're right for each other.

I agree that announcing your herpes when you're shaking hands on first introduction probably isn't the best timing, although some people prefer to get it out of the way right upfront. Others prefer to wait until some pretty solid feelings have been established before having The Talk, but as you say this means abstaining sexually until much later in the relationship, which doesn't always work well for people.

I prefer to get to know the person a bit, at least until it seems clear that we have enough in common to want to check each other out in a bit more depth. Then I'll bring it up and see what their reaction is. If they're going to run for the hills, I haven't invested enough feelings that it will be devastating. If they stick around then I'm fairly clear that I like them well enough (and they me) that there's a reason to keep going and see where it leads.

I find this works pretty well for me, but everyone is different. And there was a time when I couldn't bear to be rejected for H, so I'd avoid anyone who didn't have herpes. And it certainly makes things a bit simpler when you don't have to worry about passing it on. Each of us has to find out what works best for us.

But please don't think you don't have anything to offer someone just because you have herpes, or that there aren't people out there who are capable of seeing you for who you are beyond having a health condition. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

TheOneInFour

1in4,

Thanks for your optimistic views on dating someone without H.

If only there was a way to predict how bad a person's body would react to H, things would be a lot easier. As I previously mentioned I have genital H but my symptoms are negligible. If I knew this is what I'd potentially give to my partner, I'd say no big deal. However, if I give it to my partner and she ended up having terribly painful experiences on a regular basis, I'd feel like crap.

I don't know for certain who I got H from but I have an idea. After each of the first couple dates with this person when I'd drop her off and lean in to kiss her, she'd deny me because she claimd she had canker soars at the time.

I didn't equate canker soars with herpes back then (last fall)... I thought canker soars are something most people have from time to time. I've had them and they are no big deal and I told her I wasn't concerned, but she still refrained from kissing me. I was confused and thought something else was going on she wasn't telling me, but rather than suspect H, I thought maybe she had no intent of dating, but rather using me to wine and dine her.

Anyway, I went out with her again (3rd date I believe) and while we were out, she mentioned something about a guy she started to date. She explained how she dated him for a while and he told her he had H just before they became intimate. She said it was hard for her to make up her mind because he was a great guy. Of course my overbearing logic kicks in and I say, "Why the heck would you continue dating someone with H when there are so many people to date who don't have it? It's not like you'd have any trouble meeting a dozen other guys." She agreed and that's about the extent of the conversation. In hindsight, I bet if I wasn't so blunt with my views, she would have told me she has H and asked me what my thoughts were.

Anyway as the night went on, we went to our favorite bar. To this point, in my perspective anyway, things were going well. Then she starts talking to and flirting with every guy who starts hitting on her. I'm not one of those control freaks, but I consider it disrespectful when you are on a date with someone to blow them off for extended periods of time and flirt with various other people you don't know. Anyway, I politely mentioned something to her, and her view is we are not in a committed relationship so it's ok to flirt with random people for extended periods of time while your date just stands there. I disagreed and at that time concluded that our values are not in sync and she's not someone I care to continue dating. I proceeded to meet and flirt with other women that night, and then when the bar shut down, I took her home. We got into a big arguement on the way home and ended up giving each other oral once I dropped her off. We eventually kissed each other for the first time too. This is supposedly after her canker soars were gone. What's odd is I've never had any problems with my mouth after this incident. This incident happened last fall and I didn't have my first gential OB (to my knowledge) until April.

So in summary and in hindsight, I bet how I got H is this girl tried to tell me she had it, and before she got it all out she realized I would not date her as a result. She probably became hurt and therefore started flirting with other guys at the next bar we went to. I pointed out that I took offense but she justified her actions, so I did the same since at this point I had no interest in her. She was probably so pissed about everything at this point that she didn't give a f**k about me and said screw him, if he gets H that's his problem.

I haven't said anything to her about this after the fact. There's nothing to gain. If she has H, then I know she gave it to me. If she doesn't have H, then each time I run into her or her friends when I go out (maybe once every 6 weeks), I risk word getting spread around the bar that I have H.

Wow, sorry to ramble but it helps to vent. The reason this story came to mind is my initial point that I would not have knowingly dated anyone with H when I was negative. Still, I will not date anyone with AIDS, kids, or a husband (LOL). Fortunately for me, there are people out there who are more open minded than myself http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

Best of luck to everyone with your dating experiences!

OV

Wow O_V, that's quite a story! Some things seem to fall into place, though, about why your OBs are so mild. If indeed you did get herpes from her via oral sex, chances are what you have is genital HSV-1, since the vast majority of cases of oral herpes is HSV-1. When HSV-1 is transmitted to the genital area, the OBs tend to be very mild and infrequent. If this is what you have genitally, then if this gets passed to someone else genitally the chances are very good that their OBs will also be very mild and infrequent.

Have you been tested to find out which type you have? If not, you could find this out by getting a swab culture on a fresh sore (ideally within 24-48 hours). If type-specific blood testing is available where you are, you could also get that done (with or without an OB happening). Enough time has passed that you should be able to trust the results.

If you have to pay out of pocket for the blood test and money is tight for you, you could get the POCkit test which is much less expensive than the other tests. It only tests for HSV-2 and isn't *quite* as accurate as the other tests but almost. It should at least rule out HSV-2, implying that what you have is genital HSV-1.

If test specific blood testing isn't available where you are, I believe you can get your doctor to order it directly from the people who manufacture the test kit. It gives results in minutes right in the doctor's office.

Anyway, I'm suggesting that in some cases we do have a way to reasonably predict how severe herpes is likely to be for someone...but based on which virus type is being transmitted to which part of the body. If you have genital HSV-1 then chances are very good that if someone gets this from you they will have have very mild and infrequent OBs too, simply because that's how HSV-1 typically behaves when in the genital area. And 90% of us have HSV-1 already orally...which means this woman may or may not have got hers from her ex-bf. Most of us get it in childhood.

Anyway, maybe that will give you a new perspective on it too.

Oh and btw, cankers are different from herpes, believed to be caused by a fungal or bacterial infection, not by the herpes virus. Sometimes the symptoms can be confused with each other though.

TheOneInFour

Originally posted by Optimistic_Victim:
I'm willing to bet there are a ton of formally outgoing people in this world who have become withdrawn from the dating scene because of the fear of having the dreaded "talk".

That is a very real yet unfortunate truth. What makes the "talk" is so difficult is rejectioned AND the additional factor this person can tell the whole world your health status. It gives a person too much power and top of being able to reject you.

The mental plague with H can be severely more damaging than the physical.

When I first got herpes almost 20 years ago, I was told to avoid sex ONLY when blisters were present. So I must admit being ignorant to the reality of the situation made my dating situation a lot easier than it is for most people today. From what I have read on this group, the members of this board are all incredibly responsible and doing everything they can to make sure they are educated and knowledgeable in how NOT to pass on this virus to a sexual partner. But given the number of people who do have herpes in the world, it appears that the majority of people really don't seem to care about passing herpes on to others. Education is greatly needed. Educating people with herpes about their responsibility of making sure they are not passing this on to others. Educating the general population about what herpes is, how it is contracted, what signs to look for and most importantly, just because you have sex with someone who has herpes, it doesn't mean you are going to get it. Without this education, the majority of responsible people who have herpes find themselves avoiding the dating scene because of the fear of rejection. I have slept with the same person for 13 years and never given him herpes. To the best of my knowledge I have never given herpes to anyone. So by being responsible and abstaining when necessary it means that people can have a sexually fulfilling relationship and not necessarily pass the virus on. The general population needs to know and understand this. Right now the general population's opinion of herpes is "it a nasty disease, the subject of a lot of jokes, and that if you touch someone who has it, you are now going to automatically have herpes. I doubt that most people on this board have given the virus to anyone simply because they are responsible enough to know when to abstain and do so even if no blisters are present yet that familiar tingling sensation is present indicating the possibility of viral shedding. The virus is will continue to multiply if uneducated herpes positive people continue to knowingly pass the virus on to unsuspecting others. People like that are the ones who are giving people like us a bad rap. They are spreading the disease because they are sleeping with others when they know they are contagious. If they were responsible, 1 in 4 people would not have it and people would not be so paranoid about it. They hear how many people have it and associate the high numbers because of how contagious the virus is. In reality, it's not how contagious the virus is that is making the numbers of herpes positive people grow. It is the people who chose to knowingly risk spreading the virus because they choose to have sex on a day when they shouldn't be. The public needs to know this so responsible people are not left with low self esteem caused by rejection when dating.

You make some excellent points, HB. Sadly, the rate of herpes transmission is growing, whereas the rate for other STDs is decreasing. But I'm not sure the majority of people who are transmitting the virus to new people are doing it knowingly or recklessly, though. Call me naive *LOL* but I think more people are ill-informed than we realise.

For years I too thought I could only pass it on when I had an OB present. I had a rude shock when I discovered after 13 years of having it that this was definitely not the case. (Thankfully, to my knowledge I've never passed it on either.) The research that proved the old theory wrong was published only about 10 years ago or so. Sadly, many doctors still aren't really up to speed about this and I still see posts here from people who were just told by their doctors to simply "use a condom" or to "avoid sex during OBs," period. Both are outdated and dangerously misinformed.

I too am in Ontario and I've even heard Sue Johansen (the Canadian counterpart to Dr. Ruth, for our friends down south) tell people sometimes to "just use a condom" in order to avoid getting or passing on herpes. *shaking head*

I suspect that for many doctors and medical people, this may not be about being misinformed as much as just oversimplifying. It takes time, energy and patience to sit down and explain the complexities of herpes to a patient who might not "get it" right away. Many doctors don't have or want to take the time -- at least not for this. It's easier to just tell them what works in most cases: Use a condom and don't have sex during an OB.

Most of the time the risk of herpes transmission *will* be greatly reduced using this strategy, but it's far from all the time. Unfortunately when transmission takes place anyway, the recipient is left with a lifelong reminder of how doctors' information may not be completely accurate or trustworthy. So I think a lot of people (possibly the majority) who pass on herpes to others may do so not knowingly but because they're going on less than totally accurate information. Or maybe I'm just naive enough to think that most people will be responsible when they're well informed. LOL

I think, like you, that public education is sadly lacking and sorely needed, to de-mystify and de-stigmatize herpes and to inform people about the facts. Maybe we need someone who has the time and energy to take on the crusade of getting information brochures into every doctor's office across North America.

As for most of the people here being responsible I think that's true for those who post, although I suspect we don't hear much from lurkers who may not be quite as stringent about it. I like to think that message boards like this one give people better information without them having to talk about their own experience.

TheOneInFour

1 in 4:

You bring up a very good point that I have been wondering myself... I may have HSV1 (as opposed to HSV2) although it's in my genital area. When I got my results, they simply said "genital herpes". I figured odds are it is HSV2 although I realized that is not necessarily the case. Since then I've heard from various sources that HSV1 in the genital area is typically much milder than HSV2. I called the test facility to find out which HSV I had, but they no longer had the info on file. As you suggested, I'm going to get retested so I know for sure.

Thanks to all of you for your supportive words and constructive comments. It's much appreciated http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

OV