The 10 Commandments of Living and Dating with HSV

At Top Herpes Dating Sites, our team consists of people who are living with HSV, just like you. We’ve put together this list of the 10 Commandments of living and dating with herpes. Just because you’re seropositive doesn’t mean you can’t live a rewarding and fulfilling life, and find someone to love.

1. Don’t settle or get desperate.

People with herpes grapple with many common fears.

You have to stop this cycle of negative thoughts and negative feelings. You have to stop letting yourself have these inaccurate, irrational, and negative beliefs about yourself. You need to believe the real truth: that you have something wonderful to offer. The person you’re “meant” to be with is out there somewhere.

You need to re-train your brain to think differently about yourself. This helps prevent you from getting desperate and getting into relationships that are dysfunctional or dissatisfying.

Don’t get into a relationship with someone you wouldn’t normally be interested in if you didn’t both have HSV. Ask yourself this: if they found a cure for HSV tomorrow, would you still want to be with this person? If not, they’re not the right person for you.

You are still the exact same person you were before you were diagnosed with herpes. Nothing about your personality has changed. If someone isn’t the right match for you, it’s not fair to you or to them, regardless of the HSV.

2. Learn to love who you are.

Every morning that you wake up, you have the choice of being happy with whatever circumstances you find yourself in. Sometimes, you don’t have control over every single thing in your life, and you need to be able to accept and reconcile yourself with those things. At the same time, you do have complete control over how it affects you.

You have to empower yourself to be happy. The way to do that is to take back control over how things in your life that you can’t control affect you emotionally.

Learn to appreciate the good things in life, including the good qualities in yourself. In fact, to be honest, I think one of the most important aspects of personal happiness is the ability to be happy while being single. If you feel like you have to find a partner or you can’t be happy, you need to take the time to figure out why. You can’t let your sense of peace, happiness, and self-actualization in your own life be contingent on anyone else but yourself and, if you so choose, any higher power you may believe in.

You can never be happy if you force someone into your life to fill a short-term need for personal validation that you can’t get without a relationship.

3. Don’t get discouraged if someone isn’t interested in you because you have HSV.

My defense mechanism used to be to brace myself for the worst whenever I got to the point where I told someone I liked about my HSV. I fully expected them to start running away and screaming at the top of their lungs that they never wanted to see me again.

After all, compared to that, any less traumatic reaction was acceptable by comparison.

The reality, of course, was that I never had anyone act in any way other than offering kindness, compassion, and understanding. Every single person I told ended up seeing me again.

At the same time, the truth is, there are a thousand reasons why two people might not be an ideal fit for one another. Herpes is just one of many things that can be a deal breaker. Just keep searching for someone who’s willing to love you the way that you are.

4. Take better care of yourself.

Herpes is a chronic condition that doesn’t currently have a cure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take good care of yourself. This includes both your mental health and your physical health. Eat better, get some exercise, go for a walk, read a nice book, pick up a new hobby. Do whatever it takes to feel good.

5. Kick HSV’s ass.

HSV can own you, or you can own HSV. The choice is yours. Choose to own it, and put it in its place. When we’re first diagnosed, HSV makes us all feel pretty awful. You have to work to get rid of the fear and shame that you feel because of it. HSV doesn’t define you, and it doesn’t control your life. It’s just a medical condition. That’s all.

If you’re afraid of your friends or family finding out, just tell them. The fear will go away. If you’re afraid of telling a potential partner, figure out the best way to tell them and just do it.

There is no right way or wrong way to do any of this. There’s just your way.

6. Use available resources for information and support.

The internet is full of smart, caring, compassionate people who can provide you with the social support you need when you get an HSV diagnosis. You can find them on herpes dating sites, in local herpes support groups, and on many social websites like Facebook and Reddit.

Many of these people have been living with HSV for years, and they’ve lived through the exact same things that you’re feeling and going through right now. You can ask them about how to cope, learn from their mistakes, and feel better knowing that you are not alone.

7. After you get diagnosed with HSV, you will go through a period of not enough sex and not enough love.

Before you had HSV, you still went through periods when you were single and not getting enough sex, as well as not feeling loved. If they find a cure someday, you’ll still go through periods of time like this. Even married couples go through rough periods.

It’s just called “life.”

On the sex subject, you can often find casual partners through herpes dating sites. This lets you find short term sexual partners, without any concerns about transmitting HSV.

8. It’s okay to grieve. It’s normal and natural. But at some point, you have to accept it.

After your diagnosis, you may go through a process that is essentially akin to grief. But the final phase of this process is ultimately acceptance. Be thankful it wasn’t something worse, and that your life is not at risk. Take it as a hard lesson learned, pick yourself up, and move on. Herpes is not the end of the world.

9. Don’t lose hope, ever.

Unfortunately, many people with herpes are also people who need validation from others. People with this issue take other people’s opinions and judgement to heart, and often have a great deal of interpersonal rejection sensitivity.

When someone is ugly toward you, whether it’s about your HSV or about something else, it’s a reflection of that person, not you. It takes a lot of self-love and many years of work to get to the point where you have realized this, on a deep and intuitive level.

Many people also find themselves surrounding by others who are toxic and negative. Sometimes, you even believe those people are your friends. It’s incredibly important to surround yourself with people who are positive and open minded, and it takes a lot of self awareness to realize which people in your life are really there for you.

When you’re living with HSV, you have to learn to be compassionate and non-judgemental toward yourself. This can take a lot of work, but without that, you can easily be influenced by the opinions and judgements of others.

10. Always give your partners the choice.

After you’ve told partners who are HSV negative, some may overreact. Others won’t bat an eye at it. Since many people have genital herpes, or have at least heard about the fact that it’s not that uncommon, a lot of people won’t be shocked or surprised.

From the stories we’ve heard at herpes dating sites and herpes support groups, the majority of people that you tell will react well. They will appreciate your honesty and your respect for the relationship and for their wellbeing.

A negative reaction is possible, but this doesn’t mean a bad ending. If the person values you as an individual and is interested in a relationship with you, something as minor as herpes probably won’t stand in the way of that. If it does, the person may not have been a good fit in the first place.

Whatever happens, though, try to be flexible. Give your partner some time to process the news and respond to it. Let them think about what you’ve said and absorb the information. Remember when you first found out about your own diagnosis? It probably took you some time to adjust, too.