Finally trying to find a way to start disclosing

[Movingforward4me]

I have lived in shame of my diagnosis for the past 13 years which robbed me of dating throughout my 20’s. I am 32 and recently entered therapy to try to work through this in an effort to find a partner and have a family someday - the pressure of my biological clock has finally kicked my butt into action. I have been talking to a guy on a dating app and we decided to chat on the phone (I was feeling more confident after a breakthrough in therapy where I revealed my whole history which the therapist responded to with empathy and understanding). The phone convo went great, we hit it off right away and easily talked for 40 minutes. He mentioned he likes to take things slow in relationships (great! Time to get to know me!) and that some girls have had issues with this in the past. He then went on to say, “all these people have std’s. I’ve had 6 girls tell me they have herpes before I even met them!” And it felt like a punch in the gut. I changed my tone abruptly and was deciding whether to blurt it out myself but instead just said, “we’ll its pretty common” and he said “I mean HSV-2....” and I was like “yep pretty common” and then he said “artie whatever you’re falling asleep” and we ended the call. The whole thing was weird but a few things make me think he has had experience either himself with a herpes diagnosis or with a partner. He seemed to know a lot about herpes for someone without it. He also had the whole taking a long time to move things along in the relationship thing. He made comments like “literally everyone has herpes” and I’m not really buying that six different people disclosed to him on a dating app (I’ve never had anyone in my life tell me they had herpes and he’s had the experience 6 separate time?) Idk if this is a defense mechanism to gauge MY response or if herpes is genuinely a deal breaker for him. If he had it too, it could make things a lot less complicated if we did meet and end up hitting it off. I realize I’m projecting but The whole conversation left me seriously scratching my head. There were a lot of things that didn’t really add up. Difficult to write it all out. Anyway, I’d like to meet him but don’t want to waste my time if he’s genuinely that disgusted and close minded to the idea of dating someone with H. Thoughts??

[_a_rayofsunshine_]

I’d ask him if he has it. He could, & also be struggling or feeling bitter/anger & that’s why he said what he said. Idk. I’d press him more on it. That’s not a coincidence.