Thanks 'hippyherpy' ( great name by the way !) . Yeah , I know what you mean . I also think part of it is the thought of not being able to convey articulately enough all the facts about herpes ( in a way non scary way too ) . Truth is I'm absolutely exhausted from all the worry about this and from all the hours of reading I've being doing about it online ! I've got myself into a situation whereby I like this guy , he's wanting to see me etc and I can tell he wants to get more physical , as do I , but I'm making up excuses for not putting myself into an intimate situation and it's really hard ! It has to change things when a person knows they could catch something from you , no ? If it wasn't so stigmatised then everything would be ok . Nobody really worries about catching coldsores do they . If they included Hsv testing in an routine STI test then lots more people would be diagnosed and it would be much more out there . You would come across more people disclosing to you . That's one of my theories on debunking this stigma !