142: 3 Things To Follow When Dating Even With Herpes With Alexandra Harbushka

Life With Herpes

Dating as a whole can be scary, fun, the time of your life or when will this phase be over. We put so much pressure on ourselves to not waste time and find “the one”. Most of the time we forget to enjoy the person who’s in front of us for who they are. We quickly get rid of or move on from someone because they don’t fit this “mold” we put in our heads.

It’s totally possible to date someone just because you have fun. Back to talking about being so focused on “the one”. Back when I was dating I had the guy who I chilled with and drank wine the guy who I went to yoga with, the guy who loved to take me to fancy Italian dinners, the guy who I’d hike with, the guy I’d go to the farmers market with, the guy who I’d go clubbing with, the guy I’d meet for breakfast and guy I ‘d have sex with. Keep in mind they were all not at the same time and this was over a course of a couple of years but they all survived their purpose until it was the right timing for my husband and me to come together.

Ok so now let’s add in the dreaded dark secret of having herpes. One of the things that hold us back from dating at all is the fear of having to disclose the herpes thing. Ok well, remember all the different guys I dated… the majority of them didn’t know that I had herpes. Why? Not because I was too scared to tell them but because I wasn't sleeping with them. Of course, the men I’ve slept with knew about my herpes diagnosis. I just want to make that a full disclosure.

But I want to get back to the notion that we don’t have to sleep with everyone or disclose to everyone just because we’re dating. Think about it. Not everyone can be “the one”! We can’t fall in love with everyone and have sex with everyone and be in a relationship with everyone. It’s simply not possible.

3 Things to follow when dating with herpes:

1. Did you have fun?

So when you go out and do whatever you do with this person ask yourself when you get home if you had fun. Did you laugh and enjoy your time and want to do it again? If your answer no then moves on. THere’s plenty of fish in the sea and no reason to keep spending time with someone who you didn’t have fun with.

2. Would you sleep with him/her?

This one is a great one to ask yourself too. We can get caught up in our heads about “who” we’re supposed to be attracted to and who we’re supposed to be with. Let’s face it sometimes we are attached to someone we never thought we’d be into. Before you get all worked up on the sleeping part and disclosing just ask yourself, would you?

Before moving onto the 3rd point I want you to ponder the first two questions. If you’ve answered yes to both of the questions then keep hanging out. Keep going out and doing what you guys like to do. Don’t worry if this person is the one or not. Don’t worry if he or she will be ok with the herpes thing. Oh, and we’ll get to the herpes disclosure soon but please don’t self punish and not call your date back because you have herpes.

If you’ve answered no to any of the questions then most likely you should end it right there. I mean why hang out with someone you really don’t enjoy spending time with. And if you can’t sleep with them then that’s not going to go far either.

3. You don’t have to disclose until you’re ready to expose them to the virus

Now I know this is the big one. The disclosure! It really stops a lot of people from dating in the first place. But truly keep this in mind, you don’t have to tell anyone unless you want to. BUT and there’s a huge but, if you’re going to expose them then you have to tell them. But until then no need to divulge everything. I go back to the example about if you were 500k in debt would you tell the person on the first few dated? My guess is no. So why do you need to talk about herpes? I mean you probably wouldn’t mention you had testicular cancer or abnormal pap smears until you’ve gotten a little bit deeper into the relationship. Going to yoga or a movie doesn’t mean you have to tell you’re secret.

Keep in mind these are suggestions and more like guidelines. Feel free to date who you like, when you like and disclose when you want. It’s you’re life and the great news is you get to write the script.

Let me know you’re thoughts on this. This is something we cover almost weekly in our Secret Society so if you’re between a rock and hard place with this idea of dating and telling your partner come join our next Support Group. Here’s more details.

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Xoxo,

Alexandra

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