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" My ex who said he loved me dumped me because I have type 2 herpes. I&amp;#039;m currently back in the dating scene, and I&amp;#039;m dating a guy who is lovely. I&amp;#039;m thinking about taking the next step with him, but I&amp;#039;m worried he&amp;#039;s going to reject me like my ex did. If your ex truly loved you, he wouldn&amp;#039;t have broken up with you because of the herpes. So, screw him. Moving on, you&amp;#039;ve got to put the ex behind you and put yourself on the line. It&amp;#039;s great that you&amp;#039;re dating again, and it must be hard to make yourself vulnerable again after an experience like that, but it&amp;#039;s either hide or ride \u2014 and I&amp;#039;m glad you&amp;#039;re not hiding. I imagine dating with an STD is just like regular dating with the same questions of trust and intimacy intensified. It must make it tougher to get real with someone; it must require an extra level of vulnerability. And it gives the guy who&amp;#039;s on the fence an excuse to shut down. On the other hand, you don&amp;#039;t want a guy who&amp;#039;s on the fence about you anyway. Right?  My advice is that you try to separate the anxiety you&amp;#039;re feeling about his reaction from your comfort level with your STD. People can get a little hysterical about STDs. But you know it&amp;#039;s not that bad, that herpes is incurable but very treatable, and that by having safe sex, you can dramatically lessen the chances of him contracting the virus. Plenty of people are familiar with type 1 herpes, but he may not know much about type 2. Don&amp;#039;t self-destructively frame your conversation as something terrifying or dramatic. Just calmly and confidently explain your experience. Odds are, he&amp;#039;s not going to know the basics about symptoms and treatment and prevention. So break it down for him. Educate him. Then give him this link to the CDC&amp;#039;s clear-headed information on herpes, so he doesn&amp;#039;t start Googling random bullshit on some website run by Big Pharma or some moron. He might need some time to think it over. Another piece of advice: Remember that sex doesn&amp;#039;t have to be now or never. You two can always decide to date for a while longer before you get naked. I&amp;#039;ve been dating my boyfriend for three years, and I could really see myself marrying him. We&amp;#039;ve been going to look at houses here and there, but nothing seems good enough for him. I would be happy with a small house, enough food to eat, and him, but he won&amp;#039;t settle for less than his dream house on a huge property. For him to get this, he would have to have a much better job than the one he&amp;#039;s got. I know he loves me, but he refuses to even get engaged before getting a house and moving in, and he doesn&amp;#039;t seem to be in a hurry looking for houses or property. He actually puts it off by saying, &amp;quot;Well, when it&amp;#039;s right, it will find us and we&amp;#039;ll both love it, but until then nothing&amp;#039;s going to change.&amp;quot; Am I wasting my time with him? Help! That is such a typical macho hang-up. It&amp;#039;s infuriating, isn&amp;#039;t it? I&amp;#039;ve never, in my entire life, heard a woman say she can&amp;#039;t be married until she has the right car \u2014 but I&amp;#039;ve heard so many guys use that line it drives me insane. Here&amp;#039;s the thing: I want to give your guy credit for wanting to do what he believes to be the right thing. In his head, he may have some abstract notion of the right time and the proper way to propose to someone. And that kind of chivalry can run deep. (I&amp;#039;d bet money it has to do with his daddy issues.) But sometimes chivalry can be more about acting out the right thing in public than doing the right thing in private. Manly codes tend to be built on superficial tradition and, in cases like this, there&amp;#039;s often a kind of chauvinistic disregard for what a woman like you might actually want or value. In this case, it sounds like he&amp;#039;s either forcing his House Hunters values on you or using them as a cop-out.  I&amp;#039;ve known a few guys who have used that line and left the woman hanging in limbo for years. Several of the guys never found their dream jobs or houses, but they did find supposedly dreamier women. One of my best friends heard that line from her boyfriend for years until, finally, she got tired of waiting for her dream guy to build his dream house and she woke him up from his dreamy reverie by dumping him. He was shocked that she finally left him, but he had been ignoring her wishes for so long that she rightfully felt he didn&amp;#039;t respect them. Though he said it was all for her, the truth was pretty clear: He spent more time worrying about money and his dream house than his girlfriend. Your guy might have the best intentions, but he needs to learn that perfection is an illusion. Your future can&amp;#039;t be based on a bet that he&amp;#039;ll win the lottery. It&amp;#039;s entirely reasonable for you to explain to him that you think he&amp;#039;s being unreasonable. Tell him that you have all the faith in the world that he&amp;#039;ll work hard to get what he wants, but that&amp;#039;s not why you love him \u2014 and you&amp;#039;re not going to put your happiness on hold until he strikes it rich. I&amp;#039;m guessing that this issue goes beyond just houses and cars, so be on the lookout for other ways. If you do get married, you don&amp;#039;t want to be with the guy who needs everything to be perfect, either. No marriage is perfect. That old &amp;quot;for better or worse&amp;quot; line has endured for a reason. Parenting is hardly a dream. Jobs come and go. People get sick. And things always get hard. When things do get tough, you also want a guy who can enjoy \u2014 or at least deal with \u2014 the messy here and now. Moment to moment, life can be unpredictable or comforting, frustrating or thrilling, rip-your-heart-out tragic or blissfully wonderful, but it&amp;#039;s never, ever going to be perfect. At some point, your guy&amp;#039;s going to have to learn that. Almost three years ago, I dated a guy for about six months and was so completely in love with him. I know he felt the same way about me. At the time I was in kind of a bad place, and I didn&amp;#039;t appreciate anything he did and I doubt if he knew how much I cared. I hardly ever told him I loved him. I put almost zero effort into plans and even less into sex. Looking back, it was no surprise he broke up with me. We&amp;#039;ve both dated other people now and are still friends, but I&amp;#039;ve never been able to shake my feelings for him. I really want to ask him for a second chance, but I don&amp;#039;t feel like I have the right to because it was so long ago and I was so distant when we were together. I know I can be better to him now, and we&amp;#039;re both currently single. Is it OK to just ask him to try again, or should I finally try to just let it go? Here&amp;#039;s what you should do: Tell him exactly what you just wrote to me. Really, your question is lovely and honest, and I&amp;#039;m sure that he&amp;#039;d love to hear a full explanation, no matter what. Admitting your mistakes is hard. And it&amp;#039;s one thing to apologize for an obviously egregious mistake like an affair, but it&amp;#039;s clear that you&amp;#039;ve had to do some real soul-searching to figure out where things went wrong. I really I admire the fact that you can own up to how you basically took him for granted. That&amp;#039;s not an easy thing to admit. And I think that he will respect your sincere thoughtfulness too. So take him out to a nice dinner and explain it all. Then tell him that the next time you two go out, you want it to be a do-over date. And then listen to what he has to say. If he says no, at least your friend will understand you better \u2014 and you&amp;#039;ll know that you gave it a shot. If he says yes, well, then things get really interesting. Do you have a question about sex or relationships? Ask Logan here. RELATED:  &amp;quot;My Boyfriend Won&amp;#039;t Go Down on Me&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Do Most Guys Care About Vagina Size?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m Already Bored With My Marriage&amp;quot; Follow Logan on Twitter. Photo credit: Getty Images "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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