What Every Woman Should Know About Dating with Herpes
Dating with herpes can be challenging, no doubt, but there are some key things you should know before you go out there searching for a mate. Each and every woman is different and so it should not come as a surprise that each woman has her own unique approach to finding a great partner. Here are some tips to help you move beyond your herpes diagnosis and prepare you to enter the dating pool.
1. Know that you are an amazing woman and a fine catch. Do not allow herpes to define you!
2. Always disclose your status before exposing your partner. Believe me, doing it after the fact never works!
3. If you fear having the talk, know that you are not alone. Consider reading Having The Talk: How To Find Intimacy After An STD……or join a local support group and find out how other women are disclosing.
4. If you are new to dating with herpes and the thought of having “the Talk” terrifies you, consider joining a herpes dating website like www.PositiveSingles.com or www.HSVSingles.com. The upside to dating within the community allows you some time to get more comfortable with your diagnosis and talking about it. Be forewarned though, you still need to have some form of “the Talk” to find out whether or not your potential partner might have other STD’s or health challenges that may put you at risk. Remember, “the Talk” allows you to learn more about your partner’s sexual health history so that you can make an informed choice of whether or not to become intimate. Your health and wellbeing should always be of utmost importance.
5. “The Talk” does become easier over time and most women report positive experiences with disclosing their status to a potential partner. A great “icebreaker” for having “the Talk” with a new partner is to ask them if they have ever had a cold sore or known someone that has. Most people say “yes” since over 80% of the population has HSV 1, the cause of oral herpes. This allows you to bridge the gap to disclose your herpes status. For many partners, you will discover that either they too have genital herpes, oral herpes, or that they are open to learning more about it to move the relationship forward.
6. Don’t confine yourself indefinitely to only date other people with herpes. There is a whole world out there and your Prince or Princess might never be found if you continue to look in the same place. Break outside your comfort zone and consider dating outside of the “H” community.
Live. Love. Thrive.
Dr. Kelly- Amazon best-selling author of Live, Love and Thrive with Herpes: A Holistic Guide For Women
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As a woman with HSV-1, both oral and genital, I find the issue of disclosure a tricky one. Even in reading Live, love, and thrive with herpes. Just as an example, I believe, by her own admission Dr. Kellys first talk, came after things getting “hot and heavy”, I can only assume this involved kissing. Though I believe disclosure is very important, I struggle to see why the line seems to be drawn with genital herpes and not oral. There seems to be so much stress, and I feel rightfully so, on informing a potential partner of your status before engaging in sexual contact, however I never see this extend to kissing. Obviously the stigma is greater for genital herpes, so understandably the weight of the conversation lies there… Just wondering if anyone else spends as much time thinking about this conundrum as I do. Can you kiss before you tell?