Question:
I'm not even going to try to make any attempt at coherance--I've tried for the past year to sythesize all these ideas/worries/questions, and although they all stem from this intruding disease (is there any other?) they and it resist any sense of 'whole'. (please excuse the enumeration)

1. I didn't ask for it. Like everyone else here, I never wanted it. What I wanted was what I had with her... something that included that something else, that something other, that unwanted surplus. "I only tell people after things become serious," she said. I had just come from having a drink with a friend, telling him how I thought I was, for once, actually in love. (---the experience can obscure what happened before such confessions, I know; but does that change the way we feel now?---). Suddenly, after having met and experienced something with someone so right, something that leads us to that feeling of oneness, completeness, finally meeting ourselves for once in our lives, after knowing that "self" can only be, only means with someone else--after all that, to discover that theres suddenly this foreign otherness in you, despite you, intruding into that most proper and intimate sense of yourself, that is your body: theres something other in you. unacceptable.

As I said, its been a year. The outbreaks don't happen as frequently. Its been 5 months since the last one. But now, there's another question. Before, when it revealed, from time to time, its presence, I could look at it and say, "this is not me, this is something else in me. I know its not me because my body rejects it, is irritated by it." Now, since the outbreaks are very few, my body has been reconciled with it. Its integrated itself into my body, and my body is suddenly not my own. When I think about it, it isn't "what is this other thing in my body," but instead, "what is this body to me... show me this disease, break out so that I can know that my body is still mine.. tell me there is a reason that I use a different wash cloth everyday, that I eat certain foods and not others." Before, by saying that this thing is in my body, I could still say that this is my body; now, it has found a peace with my body, and my body is strange to me. Where am I if not in this disease, if I am not disease as such?

2. This is perhaps the one thing I cannot figure out: I've also started to cherish it as a reminder of the love I had for the person that I now hate; indeed, sometimes I feel as if I still love her because of it. I may have cut off all ties with her, told her that I could never be with someone so irresponsible, so unethical, so indifferent about humiliating another person like this--but it has become that most intimate part of me, in me (even though it has confused concepts of my intimacy to myself), that one thing I still share with her. I can feel, physically, and see, literaly, the love I had for her. Maybe because its there, I know its there, because I can prove it... maybe that is why that love has overshadowed all others. I feel it like it still exists, and thus, it still exists for me. I hate her for giving it to me, and yet I love her for giving me a proof of love, for giving me--despite me--something I can point to and call it love. How can you hate some one more than anything else and love them more than youve ever loved anything? How can you want to forget so badly, and at the same time refuse to stop remembering?

3. (Perhaps this is the reason I've decided to post under this subject): How will anyone ever let me run the risk of infecting them with my proof of love? And beyond that, I can only think that only loving gesture on the part of someone else would be to say, "I don't care... in fact, I want all of you... give me that something of you so that I can share it with you...infect me." I know this is not quite right. I know that after telling someone, I'd take precautions to prevent that infection, but I cant help but to think that as long as we take precautions, we would be placing a distance between the two of us.


I'd like to bring this to a final question, but I can't. Perhaps I should've posted it under the rants/raving section...

Answer:
I can relate to what you have said, although I am only 3 months into my infection. Your words are very challenging and honest. I often have non-politically correct thoughts about what this virus does to people, thoughts that I don't see much point in posting here. Nevertheless I see changes in myself, but also some hard reinforcements in myself. I suppose I will post the ideas but maybe I'll wait a while so I can have more to reflect on concerning the changes in myself. It does relate to the conflicting emotions of love and hate.

You said:

"...give me that something of you so that I can share it with you...infect me... I cant help but to think that as long as we take precautions, we would be placing a distance between the two of us."

Maybe this is what your ex was thinking, consciously or subconsciously, and why she infected you. Maybe that is why I was infected. Maybe the virus changes people's thought processes to have feelings of desire to infect others, or at least make it seem justifiable. Maybe acceptance of the virus is good, but only for the indivifual at the expense of the masses. Avoid the virus until infected, then infection forces a change in point of view which makes offering the virus easier than avoiding it.

The DNA aspect of this virus bothers me, and I wonder if your post and my thoughts are related to how the virus manipulates our DNA. Sounds like a science fiction story.

It seems like herpes forces people to surrender a part of themselves. Which part I am not sure and can not identify yet. There does seem to be something there, or something missing, that the virus causes.

I still believe that to truly love someone, one must be willing to let them go. Love is more powerful than lonliness, I think.