What rejection taught me after 536 people knew

Somewhere around 536 people know I have herpes. I made that number up. It could easily be closer to a thousand, and that's exactly the point.

I've talked about my HSV-2 publicly since I was diagnosed in September 2020. My friends know, my audience knows, people I meet know, and anyone I got physical with heard it from me first, in a conversation about sexual health. So "536" isn't a count of partners, and it isn't 536 nervous dinner conversations either. It's a rough guess at how many people, one way or another, know I have herpes.

After all of them, the biggest thing I've learned about rejection is simple. It stops mattering once you've had wins. Here's why herpes rejection feels so huge at the start, why it shrinks, and the one kind of no that actually deserves a second thought.

Prefer to watch? This guide is based on my video above.

The room experiment

Here's a thought experiment I use all the time when I talk about dating with herpes. Picture yourself in a room with 100 people. Or 500, or 1,000. Now I walk around and tell every single one of them, one by one, that you have herpes.

You won't get one reaction. You'll get all of them.

• Some think it's gross. A few will say so out loud.
• Some want to learn more. They have questions, and they're open to the answers.
• Some have dated someone with herpes before. It's not new to them.
• Some have herpes themselves. Oral or genital, whether they know it or not.
• Some want to sign right up and marry you. Yes, really.

Dating is a numbers game, for men and for women. The people who think you're gross are in that room. So is your next partner. You were only ever looking for the second group, and once you have people in it, the toxic reactions from the first group stop meaning much.

It doesn't matter about rejections when you have wins.

Why herpes rejection feels so much bigger than it is

The trouble starts when your diagnosis becomes a huge secret. Something you keep close, that nobody can ever find out about. A scarlet H you can't let the world see. With that framing, telling one person feels daunting, and the idea of hundreds of people knowing feels impossible.

Here's what actually happened when a lot of people found out about me: nothing bad. Being open about my status hasn't brought me any real negative consequences. Anyone who won't date me now probably wouldn't have dated me before, either.

People turned you down before herpes. People will turn you down after herpes. That part of dating never changed. What changed is that every no now has an obvious thing to get pinned on.

And if a no still lands like a final judgment, look at where that weight comes from. Usually it's our own feelings: not feeling desirable, not feeling worthy, quietly believing we're somebody's consolation prize. You're not a consolation prize. You're a person with a common virus.

The rejection that actually stings

Here's something people don't expect. The harsh rejection, the "ew, that's disgusting," is the one you should worry about least. Someone who reacts like that is blindly ignorant, blindly judgmental, and doesn't care about you as a person. That reaction tells you everything about them and nothing about you.

The one that hurts is the kind one. "You're an amazing person, you have so much to offer, I just can't take the risk." That lands harder, because they actually saw you and still said no.

Here's how I look at that one. Anyone who's dating is taking some risk with herpes. HSV-1 and HSV-2 are human herpes viruses, nobody is immune, and plenty of people carry one without knowing it. So in a way, everyone is just choosing who they're willing to take that risk with. It sounds funny, but my perspective now is: be a decent person to take that risk with.

Saying no is their call to make, and it's a fair one. Just don't read it as a verdict on you. The risk they're avoiding is everywhere in dating. You're simply the person who was honest about yours.

How to deal with being rejected for having herpes

So how do you become the person who can let hundreds of people know without it wrecking you? It comes back to my 3-step system, which is the same three steps I went through to get where I am.

1. Knowledge and stigma

   Understand the virus properly, including how common it is. In a room of 536 people, a few of them have herpes, oral or genital, whether they know it or not. Once that sank in, I saw my diagnosis for what it was. It happened to me, and it could have happened to anybody. Then I looked at what the stigma is really about, which is sex. Those 536 people are pursuing sex too, and they're at risk of herpes too. I just happen to know my status.

2. Confidence and self-worth

   This is where you change what you believe the diagnosis says about you. Either remember what you have to offer, or recognize it properly for the first time, and build confidence on that, the kind that doesn't need to worry about herpes. I went in believing at least one of those 536 people would see past my diagnosis. I tell my clients the same thing: you're still in control of the chapters ahead. Herpes doesn't decide where your life goes.

3. Dating and disclosure skills

   When you treat disclosure as a mutual conversation about sexual health, it stops being so scary. It stops being a final exam on your character and becomes what it should be, a normal conversation between two adults. And a normal conversation can go either way without ruining you.

Be the scientist, not the defendant

The lesson is to turn it into an experiment. You're the scientist. Person by person, you're not on trial. You're just gauging their reaction.

Reactions aren't even fixed. One woman I disclosed to over dinner got uncomfortable and left. Later she sent me an apologetic message and ordered me sushi to say sorry. If I'd treated her first reaction as the final word on my worth, I'd have missed that completely.

Some people I've talked to online have taken this so far that they find disclosure kind of funny now. When I've reached out to ask if they need help, they've told me no, they enjoy seeing what the reaction will be. Paranoia? Panic? Something wild? That's what it looks like when someone's reaction no longer has power over you.

You don't need to get there overnight. You need one good experience. Once one person has said yes, you know you can do it again, and that belief sticks around long after any single no.

Your destiny isn't set in stone when you get herpes. It doesn't mean everyone will reject you. It means someone might. That's just dating.

What happens if you stay stuck

If you decide the diagnosis defines you and do nothing, you won't get educated. You won't detach from the stigma. You won't see value in yourself beyond the diagnosis. And you'll keep picturing disclosure as a pity party, which makes telling even one person feel completely impossible.

That's the real cost. Not the rejections you'd get, but the yeses you never give anyone the chance to say.

When you're ready for the actual words, here's my guide on how to tell someone you have herpes, step by step.