A Tale of Unfortunate Timing

[BadJuju]

A few days before Christmas of last year, after a few month break period, my girlfriend of three and a half years broke up with me. It was mostly mutual, thought admittedly I was less ready to let go and had a hard time adjusting. After sulking for a couple weeks I decided I needed to reinvigorate my life with a few lifestyle changes. I decided to pick up an instrument, start going to the gym with a buddy of mine, and just overall experiencing new things. I felt pretty good at this point.

 

A girl I knew when I was very young (our mothers were good friends at one point) and briefly again in high school posted a request on facebook for volunteers regarding a documentary she was working on. The documentary focused on "first experiences" and was to be filmed interview style mixed with stop-motion animation. I thought this sounded cool and it appealed to my goal of experiencing new things. I was hesitant to respond because I hadn't spoken to her in years and at first I didn't. Eventually I decided "fuck it" and told her I'd be willing to participate. She responded a few days later and we arranged to meet at her place the following sunday.

 

That sunday I made the hour trip to my hometown, bought coffee for the two of us, and arrived at her home. She answered the door and I immediately noted how she'd really grown into herself since high school. She looked great. We chatted ostensibly about our current situations, our parents, and my nervousness regarding the interview. The first half went well enough but my anxiety was notable. We decided to take a break and we ended buying a bottle of Jack Daniel's. We had ourselves a few drinks and finished up the interview, me being far more expressive and entertaining with a little booze in my blood. At this point I could tell I was making an impression her.

 

I'm going to fast forward a bit because I'd rather not bore you with a novel and I have class soon. To sum it up: her friends came over, we drank some more, went to a party, had a blast, and returned to her place. She said I was welcome to sleep in her bed and I readily obliged. We made out for a good while but didn't do anything else.

 

A couple weeks later I decided to make the trip again to meet some friends at a bar. This time I got way too drunk and thought it'd be a bade idea to drive home. I also, heavily intoxicated, thought it would be the perfect opportunity to resume the romance from a few weeks ago. The documentary girl, we'll just call her Mary, lived only a few blocks away. I called her up at around 2 in the morning and surprisingly she picked up and said it was ok. I managed to make it to her house despite my impairment and immediately jolted for her bedroom. We started making out within seconds and at first it was very hot and passionate, which led to an exchange of oral. Eventually we attempted sex with a condom. Embarrassingly I had a bad case of the ol' whiskey dick and couldn't keep it up. In my drunken stupor I decided the condom was the root cause of this sexual deficiency and asked if I could do away with it. She hesitantly agreed... But to no avail, I just couldn't maintain an erection (though plenty of contact was made in the attempt). We called it quits and I fell asleep with whiskey in my belly and shame on my mind.

 

The morning after was expectantly uncomfortable, but eventually we discussed it and, for the most part, alleviated the awkwardness. During that same conversation the subject of STDs was brought up due to the partially unprotected nature of our encounter. She'd been tested the month before and was clean, I two months before with the same results. Relieved, I went back home thinking I'd incurred nothing but a little loss of pride... I was very wrong. About a week later she texts me saying she thinks I gave her genital herpes and should get tested. Of course I freaked out a little and denied her accusation. I'd only been with two people sexually prior to her and they were both longterm relationships where nobody had displayed symptoms. I asked a million questions. She explained the virus could've remained dormant for some time... I still didn't buy it completely, but conceded it was possible. During the aforementioned STD talk I asked if she'd had any partners between her test and now. She admitted that four days prior she'd experimented with her female best friend, the whole works. At the time I just raised an eyebrow and poked fun at her a bit, thinking "well they couldn't have had (penetrative) sex, nothing to worry about."

 

Well as it turns out, her friend is quite prone to coldsores... And oral pleasantries had been exchanged. Again, this was four days before my excursion. Mary started showing symptoms the following monday and got the confirmed diagnosis wednesday for HSV-1. After doing some homework, I thought the pathology was clear. Yet, at this point asymptomatic, I couldn't completely dismiss myself. I made a doctor's appointment for the very next day. The doctor (not my usual doc) was completely unhelpful and disinterested. He prescribed me some anti-virals and said use a condom if I have sex during the next five days. Wtf? Wasn't this lifelong? Wasn't this serious? He remained unconcerned. Without symptoms he couldn't confirm a diagnosis. I did however have a fever, was extremely achey, and had no appetite. A few days later however, blisters began forming on my face near my chin. I'd never had a cold sore before. My penis seemed fine, minus very minor irritation around the urethra. I made a doctor's another appointment to see my regular guy. He was far more helpful but still treated it as a minor issue. I implored him to swab my penis, which was looking slightly more irritated by this point, and he agreed though told me by the looks of things I probably had nothing to worry about. Well, a couple days later I received the call I'd been simultaneously dreading and desiring all week. The man on the phone explained... "Well, at first it looked like it was negative... (Oh fuck).... But by the second day it was confirmed positive for HSV-1. Just take the medicine as prescribed, ok?"

 

I was crushed... My only relief being that I hadn't had it before and didn't have to make some terrible phone calls. I couldn't believe how atrocious my timing was. If it'd been a week earlier, I'd have been fine. A few days later and she'd have had her initial outbreak and have warned me. We had sex in the perfect pocket of time for nobody to be aware. Add that to this being my first sort of "fling" and the comparable promiscuity of my STD-free friends and I felt totally cheated. I know that's an egocentric mindset to have, but still I can't help but linger on how unlucky I was.

 

Between being actually sick and the resulting depression that followed my diagnosis, I've missed two weeks of class (though I did manage a doctor's note for most of this time). I've stopped working out... Mostly stopped going out. I've read many posts here, and they've helped me put some things into perspective, but it's so hard to get over that "my sex life is over. I'm newly single and in the prime of my youth (21) and my sex life is kaput" mindset. I have it both orally and genitally. Another horrible thought is that, through masturbation (I occasionally use my own spit if I'm feeling lazy), I infected myself through autoinoculation.

 

Sorry for the enormous length of my post, just wanted to get it all out.

 

Tl;dr version: Contracted HSV-1 genitally and orally from someone that'd contracted only a few days before from a cold sore but had not yet started showing symptoms. My first "fling" and seemingly my last. Horrible timing.

[Sil88]

Thanks for the novel! Hope it helped you to write it as much as it did for me reading it. We have quite a lot in common in terms of recent long term breakup, 2 partners, unfortunate window of activity and the thing about std-free promiscuous friends. Although you've got 5 years on me and I've got type 2.

 

I think you've got a lot else going for you so it won't be the end of the line for your dick. Are you gonna make anything from the situation with this girl? It'll be hard to prove who gave who, but my finger's leaning towards her. Not that it really matters, but she was a bit quick to blame you.

 

Anyway, in a year the virus should be way less active, you'll have got over the emotional toll and become a stronger person. That's just the minimum, who knows what else might happen.

[WCSDancer2010]

Honey ... most "bad" things in life are a case of bad timing. Unwanted pregnancies. Car accidents (if you left home 5 min later it wouldn't have happened), ANY accident for that matter, even most cases of Herpes (given that we shed only part of the time, it's just bad timing if you have sex in that 5-20% window of shedding AND that the virus gets through your skin).... as they say ... shit happens. And when it does, you've got to get up and kick some dirt over that shit and move on :)

 

I know right now you feel like you are deep in the mire ... it stinks and it isn't where you want to be. But I'm a 35 yr veteran and it's hardly been a speed bump most of the time in my life. Sure, I've had the shitty days too ... but I've learned that the people who are my friends... the men who are worthy of my love, don't care about the virus. In a way, it's helped me to clean house and make better choices in life.

 

Also, you have HSV1 genitally from what you say. AKA: the cold sore virus ... IE: the same one that 80% of the population has. So most of the women you are with will already have it *somewhere*. Anyone who is reasonably sexually active/dating will come in contact with several people at least who have oral herpes ...sometimes we get lucky and don't get it ... sometimes shit happens and we lose the lottery. But point is, there's a VERY good chance that most of the women you may want to date will have it orally if not genitally already.

 

For those who don't ... you may want to look at anti-virals to protect them ... but you are more likely to give it to them from oral sex than genital sex because it sheds about 3x more in the mouth than the genitals... so to that point you are just right there with the 80% who have oral herpes already ... you need to just plain be very cautious about learning your symptoms and not performing oral when you have any suspicion of having an OB coming on.

 

In the end... again ... you will be fine. Get back out there and enjoy life ... don't let a shitty little virus get you down... ok?

 

http://herpeslife.com/herpes-forum/discussion/6070/it-gets-better great tips for newbies

http://herpeslife.com/herpes-forum/discussion/2886/herpes-yoga-and-self-love

 

http://herpeslife.com/genital-hsv-1-herpes-and-oral-sex/

 

Handouts + disclosure e-book:

http://eepurl.com/b4IPP

 

Herpes facts video

 

[BadJuju]

@Sil88. Thanks for reading it through, didn't expect to write that much ha. At this point the girl has retracted her accusation and is almost completely sure she gave it to me. You're right though, it doesn't really matter. At this point we still hang out occasionally but she's giving me mixed signals on the sexual side of things, so I'm not entirely sure what she wants. Me, personally, as shallow as it is, I kind of want to pursue a further sexual relationship with her just because she's the only person I know for sure who has it; just for the sake of still having a sex life while I get used to the whole idea of disclosing, tracking my symptoms, etc. I do like her as a person, but I'm not sure if we click enough for a serious relationship. Plus we live in different cities, about an hour apart.

 

Do you/did you talk to the person whom you contracted it from, assuming you know it was them? I've found it hard not to, as it means not having anyone in person who understands.

[Sil88]

Good that she's reconsidered, I guess she feels worse than you at this point. It's probably killed her libido for the time being - maybe another time you can set things right without the whiskey! I had the same feelings, thinking that in a year my body would have pinned it down, so I would be less contagious and in a better position to move on. It does sound a bit shallow but it's also a bit like survival instinct - same reason I've heard 'fight or flight' mentioned so many times in the last 6 months.

[whitedaisies]

I am a causality of bad timing too. Actually really bad timing. It's still one of my biggest obstacles bc the odds of it happening were like infinitesimal.

 

In time and analysis u will be ok. Or at least ok with it enough to move on.

 

I am working towards that too.

 

Good luck.

Hugs

[whitedaisies]

The key is acceptance!