Don’t post something stupid on Reddit if you don’t want people calling you out for said stupidity.

So you’re saying you wouldn’t touch anyone with it. Period.

Tell your wife/husband you wouldn’t be with them over a few bumps (if they ever manifest). Unless you’ve both been tested beforehand, very likely he/she has it (it’s not included on standard STI panels).

Would you engage in a romantic relationship with someone with them?

And again, you can have sex with someone and you’re both virgins, and still get it genitally.

It’s not just prevalent, it’s more common to have it than not.

YOU are the outlier if you don’t have either strain. You almost certainly have Chickenpox or the Epstein-Barr virus, two other members of the herpes virus family that like HSV1 and 2, are incurable.

It’s not. Unless you’re testing every person before you even kiss them, in the US it’s a coin flip that the person you’re with carries the virus. In most European and Asian countries it’s 2/3 to 90 percent. For most of human history, having herpes was an accepted part of being human. Only in the last generation or two are we seeing thoughts and posts like yours.

While herpes is shed with a cold sore present most definitely, it can also be shed asymptomatically. So Just because someone never had cold sores, doesn’t mean that they can’t give you them. 80-90 percent of carriers are again, asymptomatic.

You not having either strain doesn’t mean you’ve done everything right, it just means you’re lucky. It’s pure chance. You can do everything “right” and still get it.

Of course. You can choose to not share items with people or test them before you kiss them. But imo, that’s overkill.

They only way you can truly avoid herpes is avoiding human contact and swearing celibacy.

Not fairly easy to avoid. 2/3 of the global population has HSV1 and 1/6 HSV2.

If you’re scared of both, you’re cutting your dating pool much smaller than someone with it. 80-90 percent of people that have it are asymptomatic. I’m one of them and doing just fine.

FYI chickenpox is also a lifelong illness. So is mono. We don’t think anything about those.

Std herpes is literally the same cold sore in a different location. This ^ is the most frustrating comment of all.