Navigating Dating with Herpes: Overcoming Rejection and Stigma
If you’ve tested positive for herpes or any STI across your life, you likely experienced feelings resulting from stigma and shame.
Dating is difficult enough in today’s world, but the thought of navigating dating with an STI makes us increasingly vulnerable. We can move ten steps beyond stigma, yet one rejection can knock us back to what feels like twenty.
Rejection sucks no matter how you spin it. Especially if you really liked the person or thought they aligned with your current dating goals!
For those living with STIs (like herpes), the initial positive diagnosis, more often than not, serves as an awakening to what little you knew and were taught about STIs. This awakening has a ripple effect for some, and tends to trickle down into your dating experiences.
An unfair onus is left to this population in not only sharing your status, but re-educating potential partners. It is within these conversations that resistance and rejection meet.
Sometimes, there is no amount of educational materials that can “convince” or “prove” to potential partners to move forward. Some people will reject someone immediately because of their STI status. Sometimes these people choose to live in ignorance and denial. Sometimes, it’s a decision made after absorbing materials you’ve shared about the realities of STIs.
A partner’s rejection of you because you have an STI is not an indicator of your worth. It’s an indicator of their internalization of STI stigma.
I know the “it’s not you, it’s me” is a trope, but if you’re feeling discouraged or recently experienced rejection, I’d like you to consider developing your own mantra for if and when these moments occur. Here are a few examples below:
🩷 I am not a risk to be taken, I am an informed decision.
🩷 I am ________. [e.g. worthy, strong, …]
🩷 I don’t need to convince anyone that I am worth loving.