Drama said:
I don't mean to be patronising, but it seems like you've got some bigger self-image/inner game problems if you're worrying this much. Try focus on getting on your purpose, hitting the gym, getting into abundance mindset and you won't stress about herpes.
First of all, 80% is likely an exaggerated number, I do not believe that the infected population is that high. I know many stats say 50-80% but that's just an estimate. The CDC said about 45% iirc, which is still a lot but that still means over half the population does not have it.
I'm not really concerned about oral herpes, at least not anywhere near as much as genital. I mean, it's no surprise that it hasn't affected your sex life given that you don't disclose.
However, I personally don't think I could live with myself doing that.
Yes I have those problems, and that's why I'm working on them. If you look at the first post on this thread, you'll see I posted this like a month after I joined the forums.
The reason why this makes me so neurotic is because I can barely get girls to have sex with me as is. So why do I need this added obstacle?
Not disclosing just seems wrong. It's taking away her ability to make an informed decision about sexual health, and in the small chance that she does get infected, what am I gonna do? I'll have a whole slew of drama to deal with.
Point is, I can't really accept your reassurance. If you don't disclose, obviously it won't affect you. My fear and neuroticism has never been related to herpes itself, but the burden of having to disclose. I'm less afraid of getting HIV than I am herpes.
I think oral herpes would mostly be a non-issue even for guys who aren't very high value, even if disclosed. I wouldn't doubt that most girls either already have that or are not too concerned about it.
I'm much more scared of genital herpes. Genital herpes on the other hand has a massive stigma, and it's much less prevalent than oral herpes (only about 15% I believe). You can get HSV-1 genital from a blowjob. I've literally refused blowjobs because of this. The girl mentioned in this post ended up being HSV-1 positive. I think her behavior was wrong. Not because she didn't disclose upfront (still kinda conflicted about that), but because I did bring up the subject of STDs and she did not volunteer the information at that point, rather saying she was clean. Not disclosing it unprompted is one thing, given how common it is. However, I feel like here she basically lied by omission.
I just can't wrap my head around why any girl would knowingly sleep with a guy who has herpes when she has hundreds of other options on tinder at any given moment. I honestly wouldn't blame her. Why would she risk getting a life-long STD just to have sex with some guy who might ghost her the next day? Just some food for thought. I'm not a 0.1% guy who will be so valuable that I can't be replaced. I don't mean to be doomer, I'm all for making myself the best I can be and becoming attractive and high value, but I don't think any amount of self improvement would get me to the point I just specified. I could be wrong about this, but I'm hard pressed to believe that it would.
I guess if I had enough abundance herpes wouldn't be an issue, I'd be bound to run into a girl who has it or doesn't care at some point. But with my currently limited amount of options, this is not something I can afford to deal with right now. I'm working on changing that, but as we all know, that takes time. I hit the gym 3-4 times a week now. I'm currently in the best shape of my life but there is still a lot of work to do.
I digress. Whew, that was a mouthful. Sorry for all the rambling.