My Friend Has Herpes & Men Keep Dumping Her

A few years ago, my friend was diagnosed with herpes.

She’s the last person you’d “assume” has it, which of course shows how deeply stigmatized the disease is. Anyone can get herpes. Nobody “looks like” they have an STD.

This is not going to be about how common it is, how most sexually active adults have some strain of HSV (cold sores, anyone?), or how some people may never even know they have it.

This is about how my friend is struggling to navigate the dating world with herpes.

We’ll call my friend Kate. Kate was in a long-term relationship when she had her first outbreak (you can have it for months or years without showing symptoms). Her partner was supportive throughout. But they broke up last year and now Kate has been dating again.

She thought she and her partner were going to end up together, so on top of dealing with a rough breakup, she’s now had to figure out how to date and when to tell a prospective partner about her STD.

As someone who has a friend with HSV-2 and who has done a lot of research on it, I don’t see it as a deal-breaker. I understand that it’s literally a skin condition.

But it seems to be one for all the men Kate has encountered.

At first, Kate was struggling with figuring out the best time to tell someone about it. She wanted to wait until trust was built, but then she found she was too invested at that point so when they left it hurt even more.

Should she tell them before even meeting for a date? But what if the date doesn’t even go well? Should she wait until they’re ready to get physical?

She also told me it was so hard because she couldn’t just let hooking up happen naturally like other people could. They’d kiss, and even though her body was telling her she wanted to do more, she couldn’t.

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Most recently, Kate was seeing a guy for a few weeks, and they’d started getting closer to hooking up. She opened up about her HSV-2 and told him he could take as long as he needed to do any research or ask any questions.

He did. They had sex (with protection). And two days later, he broke up with her over the phone.

Is it because of the herpes? Kate asked him.

To be honest, yes, it was a little bit that, he said.

I didn’t understand. How could someone be fine with it—enough to have sex with her—and then change their mind the next day?

This happened twice. Another guy she was seeing also said he was fine to sleep together with a condom, and a few days later he, “thought about it more,” and wasn’t as okay with it as he first thought.

In another instance, a guy ghosted her after she told him. Again, they’d been seeing each other for a little while.

I didn’t know how to help her. I wanted to tell her that these guys showed they weren’t the right ones for her by acting this way. But I’m also not in her position. It felt like there was a big wall between whatever I said and her lived experience.

Kate has said she knows she needs to take this time to reflect on how she wants to move forward. This is brutal, LJ, she told me over the phone.

She managed to speak to an HSV-2 advocate she found online and one of the things he said to her was that a big part of living with herpes is owning it. If you still feel like there is stigma, like there is something wrong with you, other people will see it that way too.

Kate talked about how for her whole life, she always felt like a burden to other people. Now, with herpes, she felt like that even more. As though she had to be as accommodating as possible so these men wouldn’t leave when she told them about it.

Maybe that’s been my problem, she said. Maybe it’s always been my problem, but herpes is just shedding a light on it.

…

Kate has taken a break from dating. I can’t speak to her experience or anyone else’s, but as her friend, I want her to know that she is enough—with and without HSV-2.

I want her to know that either these men are using her STD as an excuse, which reflects poorly on them, or they really aren’t okay with it, which may show a lack of initiative to educate themselves. Or maybe they just aren’t the right ones for her anyway.

I want her to know so badly that the right person won’t run away. The right person will see that she has so much to offer.

I want her to know that it will get easier. This is her first foray back into dating—of course it’s not going to be totally smooth sailing trying to figure out how to tell people about it.

I also want her to know that she has her friends’ support, always. And there are also communities of other people with HSV-2 who can offer support too.

I want her to know that anyone would be lucky to be with her. She’s one of the smartest, coolest, kindest people I know.

I want her to love herself enough to know she is worthy of someone else’s love.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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