Sample Disclosure

[shinebrighter]

Hey-- I disclosed over email a few months ago, and thought it might be helpful for some folks to see it. Context: we'd had one really great first date, live a few hours away, and planned to see each other in a few weeks. We'd spent 24 hours together and fooled around on our first date, and got close to having sex. I didn't want to wait 3 weeks to see him and then have the first thing be a disclosure conversation in person, which is why I chose email. I hope this is helpful!

 

 

"I wanted to bring something up with you that I'm really comfortable talking about in person, and normally would prefer to. Because I won't see you for a couple weeks, I thought it might be better to just email about it now, rather than kick off our next visit together with this conversation.

 

In case you couldn't tell, I'm excited to spend more time with you....and just might be a little attracted to you. : ) I hope it's not too presumptuous of me to think that you might feel similarly, and that it's reasonable/smart to have a conversation about sex. Then again, we've already established that we both have great detective skills, so I'm going to just go with my gut on this one.

 

Ten years ago I was told that I have the virus that causes herpes- it's called HSV and is the same virus that causes cold sores. The only time I've ever had symptoms of it was that one time, 10 years ago, and I haven't had any since then. However, once a person has had HSV, it doesn't go away, even if there are never symptoms again. Many doctors no longer include it in an STI test because it's so common, and the test is not always reliable. It still feels important for me to tell potential partners about it, for the sake of honesty and full disclosure.

 

How has this affected sex for me? In two ways-- 1) I have to have awkward conversations for a minute about it. : ) and 2) I only sleep with someone if I am excited enough about them to have this conversation, which has actually turned out to be a good thing. Other than that, it hasn't.

 

Here are a couple of articles about it.

CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/std/herpes/stdfact-herpes.htm)

Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/11/02/you-probably-have-herpes-but-thats-really-okay/)

 

Of course I hope you'll feel comfortable asking me whatever you want about anything related to any of this... anytime. I'm also wondering if you've been tested since the last time you slept with someone, and if not, that could also be a great opportunity for you to talk to a doctor about any questions or concerns that you have about any of this, so that you're not getting all of your information from me and google.... reliable though we are. : ) FYI, I was tested a couple of months ago, and everything that they test for came back negative.

 

I know if we were having this conversation in person you'd be exercising your calm and non-reactive superpowers. : ) I hope that doing this over email allows you the space/time to process, and I want to reiterate that I'm happy to talk about this in person, and that I hope you take whatever time you need.

 

Thanks for being someone that I'm excited enough about to have this conversation with."

[OutOfWit]

How did this disclosure go?

[julia_l]

Thanks for posting. Very nice. I will use some of this. I might have excluded links at first as it might be too much to absorb? How did it work out?

[shinebrighter]

Hi! @julia_I and @girlnamedhome -- the disclosure was interesting. it turns out this guy is a (self-identified) hypochondriac and he said it's caused him a lot of anxiety throughout his life.... and that he didn't want to see me anymore because he knew that although HSV isn't a big deal, it would stress him out too much. so it was really disappointing and i was angry with him for a while for not being able to see past it... AND i also think in some ways i dodged a bullet. yeah- the links are good links, and i also think it might be too much right away.