Dating by Disease

Dating Websites so specific, it may feel a little strange.

By Anna David

There are options galore when it comes to online dating--sites so specifically tailored to various types of people that the goal seems to be less about finding a mate than it is about finding a twin. After all, there are dating sites for pet lovers, video gamers, political junkies, and every subset of humanity in between.

But while on Facebook one day, I stumbled across an ad for a dating site that I'd never even imagined existed: a site for people who have STDs. Within a hot second, I was on stdmatch.net's home page gazing at the lovely photos of smiling singles, all of whom were happily advertising the fact that they had herpes or HPV. As I perused these profiles, it hit me that catching an STD was seemingly the major focal point of their lives.

One pretty Hispanic girl explained that she was just seeking "friends who can understand me" while others simply wrote that they were looking for a partner who had their same strain of STD (HSV-2 herpes type 2, usually genital, reads a typical profile). There were the requisite dating success stories, of course, but these included lines like "Is herpes a curse? Hell no--it is the gift that keeps on giving, and in this case it gave each of us each other--the perfect spouse / friend / lover!!!"

Digging further, I saw that there was a section containing "facts you need to know," which explained, in no uncertain terms, that "you will be rejected, probably more often than not" because of your condition out in the real world but which also offered the reassuring message that "there is hope in finding someone who will love you for you" (on this site, of course). There were also STD blogs, chat rooms, news, forums, and counselors listed.

Is it just me or does this site cause those suffering from nonfatal STDs to feel unnecessarily ostracized? I don't think I know anyone who hasn't come across a would-be mate who had herpes (the statistics are that one in five has it, so you do the math). And I've never heard of them summarily rejecting the person when the information was revealed. Is this because the people I know are more open-minded, or perhaps less careful, than the rest of society? No. It's because in this day and age, herpes--and, increasingly, HPV--is something that people get. And most of us understand that the afflicted aren't those who sleep around or have unsafe sex but simply those who are unlucky.

While I can't speak for the rest of you, I know that I meet men who I like so infrequently that when I do, I'm willing to work around any baggage they're trotting along with them...including something like herpes. It can't be passed along unless you're having unprotected sex--and I practice safe sex anyway, so I'm not even certain how this would impact my sex life with the guy (unless I decided I wanted to have children with him--and even then, there are workable solutions).

Look, I'm happy that the people on stdmatch.net can find each other and feel less alone. I'm merely pointing out that they needn't have been so isolated in the first place if they'd just accepted their diagnosis--and not let it define them.