Question:
Hey i am almost 21 and i contracted hsv1 genitally when i was 18. I am pretty sure that i contracted the virus from this guy who i thought i could really trust because he was one of my very best friends, but one night we both got a little drunk and well to make a long story short, i said no and he didn't listen. about a yr later, after not having sex with anyone else, besides my very serious boyfried, i found out i had the virus. i also found out that the guy that raped me had had the virus for six yrs. Luckily my boyfriend stood beside me and i love him very much. but the thing is, i am so terrified of what will happen if we don't work out. I mean i love my boyfriend very much, but we are both so young, and i am in college and the thought of getting married scares me. sometimes i am afraid that we are only together because i am too scared to be with anyone else, because i don't think anyone could accept me for what i have. I just feel so trapped sometimes. not too long ago i became very close to one of my very good guy friends, and there were some very strong feelings there. He would always tell me how much he wished i didn't have a boyfriend, and i really started to like him too, but i was way too scared to move on to anything else with having the virus. I just don't want anyone's perception of me to change, and i am so afraid that if i walk away from the relationship i am in, i will never again find someone that will love me unconditionally!!!!!!!! But i know it is not right to stay in a relationship because of fear, but i cant help it. it is not that i am only with my boyfreind because of the virus, i love him very much, but i can't help but wonder if i would have walked away if this never happend. I mean i , have a hard enough time accepting the virus, i just can't understand why someone else would??? Eventhough my boyfriend stayed with me even after he found out i have the virus, i can't help but wonder if it was because of the small chance that he thought he could have been the one who gave it to me,and we had already been dating for four months. But would someone accept this at the beginning of a relationship? i guess what i want to know is, can ppl really accept herpes? And is there anyway of finding out if a person will accept someone with the virus nwithout coming right out and saying "i have herpes"? Is there anyway of being able to tell that a person likes u enough to accept everything about who u are?

Answer:
I know exactly how you feel.....