How Herpes Saved My Love Life

I always rushed into bed and trusted unworthy men with my health and body, but when I got an STI, would that help me explore being LGBTQ?

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I thought I had a yeast infection. Or BV. My vaginal PH had been oscillating between the two for the better part of a year, and I’d run off to a clinic and get tested for a full STD panel on my parents’ insurance at least six times. The stack of reports from the insurance company all went to my parents’ address. I found them at Christmas the following year, opened and neatly stacked on the Ikea desk in my childhood bedroom, under a pencil case full of Crayola markers, on top of my high school diploma and next to a sparkly framed photo of my friends as eighth graders at a pizza party.

So, when I felt a burning and itching and overall discomfort down below in April of 2020, I slathered myself in Monistat and went back to my daily, freshly unemployed routine of watching old seasons of America’s Next Top Model and trying not to drink alone. It was the next day in the shower, after I’d lulled myself into a fitful night of sleep with fantasies of finally telling the guy I’d been seeing for almost a year and a half that I was in love with him, when I knew that something was wrong.

The water hurt. The soap hurt. The pee I’d taken before had hurt. I ran a hand along my labia and found bumps. I took pictures to inspect, then deleted them and went into my deleted photos to delete them more permanently. I knew what it was. I’d done a presentation on herpes in high school health class. But I denied it, fiercely googling things that could imitate herpes. I did an at-home blood test, just to be sure, pricking my finger and smashing the wound onto circles marked HSV 1/2, HIV, Hep. B, Syph., on a piece of cardboard, before mailing it back to the company.

They called me a week later and said, “Sometimes we get false positives on this one, so don’t be alarmed.”

I wasn’t. The last we’d talked about it, the guy I was seeing hadn’t seen anyone else in months. And he didn’t foresee that changing. He was just afraid to put a label or rules on our relationship, that it might make him “want out.” And anyway, the first time I found out that, to him, choosing to not use condoms wasn’t an unspoken agreement of monogamy like it was to me, I’d freaked out that he wasn’t using them with other people. And even though he couldn’t promise me monogamy, he could promise that. He’d told me he could promise that.

But in a conversation that led to the end of things between us, he told me that he had slept with a few people since—with a girl he’d introduced as a friend, with several people I knew in a full-blown orgy, and most recently, a random girl from a dating app, sans condom, a few weeks prior. It was late April 2020. I’d felt guilty about seeing him over the past month and a half, the label-less quality of the relationship making it feel non-essential.

This story is not about him. Obviously. We’ve had each other blocked for years now, beyond non-essential.

The first time I was rejected for having herpes, I understood. I’d done a terrible job with my first official disclosure, telling someone I wanted to sleep with about my diagnosis after we started making out. When I got the text the next day, after we’d already slept together, that he’d thought a lot about it and he would be too worried to keep seeing me, I stood in the mirror and told myself through tears, “I am beautiful and special and worthy of love.” This silly affirmation pointed out the true problem, what was holding me back from romantic love: that I didn’t believe I deserved it. And because I didn’t believe I deserved it, I wasn’t looking for love, I was looking for proof that I was worthy of love. I needed to be able to tell, before it was safe to really feel.

And so, over the next year, I learned how to tell. Herpes slowed things down, giving me space to listen to my gut feelings, my heart feelings, my body feelings. I learned to figure out how they all puzzle-pieced together. I taught myself to believe that what I wanted mattered. I taught myself that love wasn’t a test to be passed, a random gift from the universe, or some mysterious mathematical equation that everyone else had somehow learned young. But mostly, I learned how to communicate, without fear that I’d never be loved if I didn’t follow the other person’s script.

I learned how to tell people that I didn’t see things going anywhere, instead of just deciding that I liked them because they sort of liked me. I learned how to tell people that I was interested in monogamy with them, even if it ended things that were nice. And I learned how to tell people that I have herpes, over text or while we were both fully clothed and not planning to sleep together that night—for the most part. I had one or two more spur of the moment disclosures. But all operating under the assumption, however wild it felt to me at the time, that I could be loved.

I’m not proud to say that a man wanting to have a threesome with me is the reason I figured out I liked women. I’d always known, in some way, but the repression ran deep. The man in question was refreshingly open, telling me all kinds of wild things about himself and his past and his thoughts. He read me like the gossip magazines in a dentist’s waiting room, telling me, “I don’t think you’re self-aware, I think you’re just self-conscious,” within hours of meeting me. I knew I’d never love him. Love wasn’t even on my mind. At that point I knew it could happen for me, so there wasn’t a rush anymore. I was about to leave to spend the summer building trails in the Rocky Mountains anyway, so I didn’t want something serious. He asked me how I’d describe the period of life I was in, and I told him it was like the chapter in The Grapes of Wrath where nothing happens but a turtle crossing the road. No major plot points, just symbolism. It was the perfect time to do something crazy, I thought. He knew a girl who was interested, too, so we just needed to find a day for it to work.

It was almost my first herpe-versary when the man told me that he had chlamydia, as a result of a condom-less dating app hookup. I told him that I didn’t want to see him again, because he’d promised me that he always used condoms with everybody. I’d learned to always use a condom with everybody and not to fuck with guys who didn’t care about me being safe in my own body.

I added women to my dating apps after that failed opportunity and chatted with a few, but primarily sought out a threesome. A threesome felt safer than just meeting a woman—I could test out the waters without leading a woman on, and I could maintain my death grip on the idea that I was straight, and on the white wedding dress fantasy of being loved by a man. I chatted with a couple, even made a plan to meet up. It was thrilling. I listened to Ashnikko’s song Slumber Party on repeat. I played around with the idea of calling myself bisexual. I decided to wait until after it happened. But I told the couple that I had herpes. They said it was too much of a risk.

That gave me time to dream and ponder and realize that when I fantasized about a threesome, I didn’t imagine the man being there. He was there as a pin in the grenade. If he was gone it was all over, every fantasy of love I’d ever had would explode.

K was the second girl I ever went on a first date with. The first was openly dating a man and told me that the vibe I’d given her had been more of a friend. I got that message while I was in a man’s bed, and with my disappointment, felt like I was lying to him and everyone else in the world. I told myself it was time to really try to date women for a few reasons: my best friend was dating a woman now, I’d joined a women’s rugby team and experienced queer community for the first time, and I needed to get it out of my system before I could be happy with a man.

My first date with K was fine. We had two drinks each and a good conversation. She ordered one fish taco. I’d already eaten. That was a green flag to me, that she could eat without me needing to eat, too. Despite the date not feeling like love at first sight, I found an open road on my bike ride home and steered in wide, looping swerves, heart bursting.

I told K that I had herpes over tacos, too. We were trading our most embarrassing dating stories and I saw the opportunity. It was our fifth date and we’d only kissed in cars so far—the slowest either of us had ever taken things with anyone. We met up in the morning to walk her dog and the miniature dachshund puppy I was watching. I had a Christmas party I asked her to, later that night. We were having a meal in between the two activities, individually silently weighing if she should come to the party with me and meet my friends, who all thought I was straight. I told her the whole story with the guy and the herpes and she took it well. She asked a few questions and we moved on. Without the herpes to disclose, maybe we would have slept together sooner, after our first or second date. Maybe I would have rushed it, gotten it over with so I could try to get back to the regularly scheduled programming of attempting to get men to fall in love with me. Regardless, though, K would have stopped me in my tracks. If it hadn’t been herpes, it would have been her.

We slept together for the first time that night after the party, where she’d fit in just fine, and we’d kissed in front of people after a good beer pong shot. She was wearing my Christmas sweater. I was afraid to take it off of her, afraid to touch her. We stayed up until nearly six, laying there, naked and talking. This became our pattern over the next few months—we couldn’t stop talking. It wasn’t long before I got over my fear of touching her.

K told me that I’d given her herpes right after Mardi Gras 2022. I was home sick with Covid, laying in the rock hard single futon I had at the time, unable to watch TV on my laptop because the sound was broken. She called me. I was so sad and trying so hard to not make it about how sad I was. I remembered myself when I had my first outbreak; in so much pain, so terrified, so alone. I couldn’t believe I’d done that to someone I loved. But it was a complicated situation and it was no one’s fault. She understood the risk and loved me anyway.

And through these past few years, we’ve understood the risks in loving each other and done it anyway. We’ve fallen apart in front of each other and pieced ourselves and the other back together more times than we can count. We’ve told each other all the dumb things that the other has said in passing that poked tender spots no one else knows exist. We’ve laughed so hard we’ve risked losing breath. We’ve become versions of ourselves we would have made fun of in our cynical youths. We’ve faced a world that diminishes a love so fierce and strong and true that neither of us ever knew we could have it. And with coordinated, but not matching, rings, we’ve promised that herpes wouldn’t be the only thing we’d be stuck with forever.

Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Hallenberg