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wow. i can't believe how much you sound like i did a year ago. i'm 21 now and this time last year i lost my virginity on the last night of a summer fling during a summer abroad. the week i came back home i found out the guy had given me herpes. he'd never had symptoms before and we used a condom.i was so humiliated and it took at least a couple months to come to terms with it. i had all the same concerns. i was terrified of dating. i was thinking as far ahead as getting pregnant years from now and would anyone be willing to have unprotected sex with me then? literally the day the test results came back i joined positivesingles.com, convinced that a site like that was the only way i could have a relationship. but amazingly enough, the first guy i dated since getting diagnosed was a friend from college and he was totally fine with it. within just a week of dating he was already asking to have sex (i said we should wait a couple more weeks and we did, but i just remember being so surprised that he didn't need to be in love with me to want to have sex). anyway, i think it depends on the guy. i'm still in a relationship with this guy (9 months now) and we probably stopped using condoms just a month or so into the relationship (his choice) and we've never used protection for oral sex. i'm also on daily valtrex which he didn't ask me to go on but i felt i should for his sake. and he hasn't caught herpes. just know that 1/4 of women have this and at least you know it so you can protect your partner. and at first i was resentful that most of the people that have it don't know they have it, the whole ignorance-is-bliss feeling. but then the thing is for women it can be really dangerous, i.e. if they have an outbreak while pregnant and don't know it, it could be fatal to the baby. and just remember if a guy really cares about your relationship, he won't be phased by it.