Online herpes dating sites give you a virtual meeting place where you can connect with other singles who are living with herpes. It’s a great way to start getting back out there after you diagnosis, while avoiding the stigma, fear, and guilt that you can sometimes experience when dating people who aren’t seropositive.
Dating can help you build your self-confidence and feel more empowered, but as long as you’re looking for someone else to validate your existence, you’re setting yourself up for disaster. You cannot rely on someone else’s approval to feel fulfilled. You have to be whole and complete in yourself, and that’s something that no one else can do for you. You have to know who you are, and what other people say is irrelevant.
So with that said, should you take the plunge and try signing up for one or more herpes dating sites? Doing so could be a great idea for you, and could bring a lot of happiness into your life. But at the same time, it’s not necessarily the right choice for everyone. If you’re struggling to value yourself without other people’s approval, or you’re still coming to terms with the reality of your diagnosis, it might not be the right time yet to start looking for love.
Here are some of the good things about using herpes dating sites to connect with other singles.
● Meeting someone else with herpes can be a great source of comfort for you.
A lot of people feel alone when they receive a diagnosis of HSV-1 or HSV-2. Chances are, you don’t really know anyone else who’s living with an STD. It’s very common for people to go through grief or depression after getting diagnosed, and to have trouble even facing the world outside their front door. Online herpes dating sites can help you connect with other people who have herpes, without necessarily even needing to meet them face to face. If you do go on a date, you’ve already got something in common.
● Dating someone with herpes means you don’t have to deal with the fear, shame, and guilt involved in dating someone without the virus.
If you meet someone and want to date them, but you have herpes and they don’t, you’re going to have to sit them down and tell them. This is an experience that can produce a lot of anxiety for you, and you can never be completely sure how they’re going to react. Sometimes it’s a deal-breaker, and sometimes it’s not. But either way, you still have to worry about the risk of transmitting the virus to them. When you date someone who also has herpes, you can both come to terms with it together, and accept each other for who you are. The virus ceases to be a factor when you both have it, since you can’t re-infect one another if you have the same type of herpes. You can be at ease with each other, and you’re in this together. This bond can help contribute to the formation of a very healthy relationship.
● Herpes dating sites can help you avoid withdrawing and avoiding social interaction if you’re having an outbreak.
When you’re dating someone with herpes, you don’t have to feel awkward or ashamed if you’re having an outbreak. They understand completely. Herpes is part of their life too, and they’ve probably had an outbreak at some point themselves. It doesn’t really even phase them.
So as you can see, herpes dating sites a can be a great way for you to not only find dates, but just be more social in general. They can also help you find the social support you need to cope with the process of coming to terms with your diagnosis.
But are there any reasons why you wouldn’t want to use an online herpes dating site? Actually, yes, but it all revolves around how you’re using these websites. If you’re not in a good place to start dating, you may want to hold off until you’ve addressed some of the things you’re struggling with inside.
If you’re using these sites the right way, and for the right reasons, you shouldn’t have any problem at all. In fact, they can be a welcome addition to your social life, and finding romantic and sexual intimacy can be very fulfilling.
However, there are a few situations where you may want to avoid using herpes dating sites, or just dating sites in general. If these issues are affecting you, you’re not in a good place psychologically and personally to start looking for a long term relationship. You have to love and accept yourself before you can love another person. Plus, there are always things you need to watch out for, like scammers, catfishes, and people who take advantage of you and manipulate you.
Here are the “don’ts” of using herpes dating sites, which you should keep in mind before you decide to give them a try.
● Don’t feel like you can never be complete or happy without a relationship.
Dating shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all for you. Romantic love and sexual intimacy are important to the majority of people, but there’s more to life. You shouldn’t make your search for a partner into the center of your entire universe. That isn’t a healthy perspective. Remember, you have friends and family who love and understand you, even if they don’t have firsthand experience with what you’re going through. Also, meeting people only in a virtual environment -- which is something herpes dating sites give you the opportunity to do -- can become a crutch sometimes. It’s no substitute for real one-on-one interaction in the real world.
● Don’t develop a mindset that herpes dating sitesare the only option left for you.
When you get diagnosed with herpes, it’s easy to start feeling like your love life and sex life are over forever. But this isn’t necessarily the case by any means, and although there’s a lot to be said for dating other singles with herpes, there’s nothing stopping you from dating people who don’t have the disease. It’s quite possible you’ve dated a couple of people who haven’t been supportive about your health condition, and you may even have faced a painful rejection. But it’s possible you just haven’t found the right person or yet, whether or not they have herpes. Plenty of people are open minded about this kind of thing, and having herpes isn’t a guarantee that your sex partner will contract the virus. Plenty of people with herpes are in long term relationships with people who don’t have the disease. If you look at herpes dating sites as a desperate last resort, rather than one of many options for meeting people, this defeatist attitude is going to prevent you from having a good experience with them.
● Don’t let poor communication leave them with the wrong impression of what you want from the relationship, or vice versa.
When you and your date don’t have herpes, that’s one less awkward conversation you have to deal with. But there’s an important conversation you do need to have right off the bat, and that’s a conversation about what each of you wants from the relationship. Different people want different things out of dating. Maybe you just want to spend some time casually, including sex, but they’re looking for a husband and holding off on sex until marriage. That’s not a good fit. It’s also possible that you’re looking for someone to date long term, while they’re really just interested in casual sex. That, too, is a poor fit. Have this conversation right at the start -- it can spare both of you from accidentally getting hurt.
● Never give out your personal details online.
You don’t always know who you’re talking to. Be careful about giving out information like your physical address or where you work, at least until you’ve met the person face to face. It’s okay to keep things somewhat anonymous at first, until you get more comfortable with each other.
Eight Simple Rules for Getting the Most Out of Herpes Dating Sites
These eight rules can help you have the best possible experience with whichever herpes dating sites you decide to try. We’ve come up with these based on our team’s own personal experiences.
1. Be yourself. Don’t misrepresent yourself in your profile, whether it’s in the text part or your photographs. You want someone who likes you for who you really are, not a false impression based on stretching the truth.
2. Be honest about what you want. It’s okay if there are things that are a dealbreaker for you in a partner. Maybe you have kids, and it’s essential that you date someone who’s okay with that. Maybe you’re looking for a long term relationship and you want to settle down, so you need someone with the same goals. Be honest about these things in your profile, and you’ll have a much easier time finding someone who’s a good fit for you.
3. Avoid cliches in your profile. Be honest about yourself, and you’ll reveal how unique and one of a kind you really are. Boring text about walks on the beach or you love of cuddling don’t really tell people anything about who you really are.
4. Avoid negativity. Everyone has a bad experience or two on dating sites. After all, there are catfishers, scammers, and even software bots that seem like real people at first. There are also the routine problems of dating, like people who make you feel manipulated or used. Don’t talk at length about anything negative in your profile. If you need to vent, there are forums where you can do so. Your goal is to find the right person, not inform the world about what went wrong in the past. Positivity attracts people, but too much negativity turns them away.
5. Be polite and diplomatic. On dating sites, you’re going to get messages and interaction from people who, frankly, you’re just not interested in. Treat these people as you’d want to be treated. Be kind and polite when you turn someone down.
6. Pay attention to nonverbal communication. Body language can tell you a lot about a person. You can talk on the phone for hours and send dozens of emails back and forth, but you’ll still learn something new from their body language when you meet them in person.
7. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. With herpes dating sites, you can meet a bunch of new people pretty quickly. Unfortunately, this can leave you juggling too many contacts, making it hard to really get to know any of them very closely. Be selective about who you spend your time with, and don’t feel like you have to go out with anyone who asks. Give yourself some time to get to know a person before you decide whether or not they’re a good fit for you.
8. Have fun! Dating shouldn’t be a stressful experience. Go out, meet people, and have some fun. Go on dates to new and exciting places. Learn new things from people with different life experiences. Even if it doesn’t work out with someone, you might still make a lifelong friend.
