SPFPP 379: Dating with Herpes - Should you Only Date People with the Same Type?

Should you only date someone who has the same type of herpes as you? I don’t know, maybe. What if we challenge this idea that our options are limited to being with someone who, if the relationship ends, there won’t be any feelings of guilt for passing your type to them, or even the fear of them passing their type to you. What if a person likes us more than they don’t want to contract herpes? Have you thought about that?

I get passionate about this topic because I’ll hear people stay in harmful, unhealthy, abusive, or just non-reciprocal relationships with someone because they just have the same type of herpes. Rejection is challenging to deal with for sure, but we reject ourselves sometimes far sooner than we’d ever give someone else the opportunity to. I see this as one more self rejection at the expense of experiencing it from an external party.

In SPFPP Episode 33: Ask a Doctor About Herpes our Doctor guest explains the difference between HSV1 and HSV2 that no one likes to talk about and that’s that they are treated by the same medication, present the same symptoms, and that one is associated with sex while the other isn’t. While both are passed through sensual contact, people just do not want to associate an STI with children and that’s the only difference. We place a stigma on herpes type 2 because it is primarily associated with sex and often diagnosed genitally. We are seeing more cases of herpes type 1 genitally on the rise, which historically has been primarily associated with oral sex.

I hope you’ll listen to this with open ears and get the experience you need to navigate your reasoning for asking this question because there is far more relevant stuff to consider than just “does this person have the same type as me?”.