How do I possibly express how badly I feel?

Um, my apologies for the bad spelling and the abbrieviated title. :( fixed

You definitely should have told him exactly what it was without assuming he knew. My girlfriend gets cold sores all the time and they’re nothing. He probably thought that’s what it was. The only thing you can do is sit down and talk to him about it, and hope he understands. Just make sure you do it in person and not over the phone or through instant messaging. You’d be surprised at how much body language can help your case.

When you apologize, one thing you do is tell him what you learned. If I were in that situation, I think I’d learn that I needed to be responsible about my disease, and not let anyone kiss me when I was contagious. I would never assume again that someone else already was infected.

Well, you did tell him before you kissed him, and he said he didn’t care, so it’s not like he wasn’t warned. Just tell him you feel bad that he got it and stop worrying so much about it. Just about everyone has some form of herpes during their lifetime. (It’s alot more common than most people think) He may have already had it in his system, and the outbreak happened after being re-exposed.

Enzo, I’m so jealous that your girlfriend’s cold sores are nothing! I was pretty much convinced that mine were too – I’d never had this type of thing happen before! I also think I’ve avoided kissing anyone in that situation too, just because it’s pretty unattractive/painful.

Most people have minor or no symptoms, and still carry HSV. The same with HPV, and 75% of sexually active adults 25 years of age have it. It’s very rarely a big deal.

The only time that someone is made to feel bad about it is when someone has minor symptoms, and they pass it along to someone who has minor or major symptoms. There’s a good chance that he already was carrying it, and it was latent. Though it’s less likely, I’d stress that you not beat yourself up too badly, because he was going to react this way whenever he contracted it. He just happened to after he kissed you.

I know this is convoluted and crazy, but so is the guilt and shame placed on people unlucky enough to exhibit symptoms of a minor STD.

Has he seen a doctor? If not, maybe you could print out some information on oral herpes, just so he can see how common it is and how to best deal with it. I would apologize sincerely, in person, for the bad reaction he’s having. Tell him you had no idea it would result in that, and that now that you know, you’ll be much more careful in the future.

If it is any consolation the first outbreak is usually the most dramatic. The subsequent episodes tend to become milder and less frequent. This is of course assuming that it is his first outbreak. As scamp and tonedef said many of us are walking around with a latent herpes virus. You brought it up, you did a respectable thing. Apologize sincerely, and move on. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Both of you, take zinc tablets and eat foods high in zinc, shellfish, nuts and seeds. Low zinc levels make you vulnerable to reoccurences. If you really load up on it during an outbreak it will tend to make them shorter and less severe. Good Luck!

Stop beating yourself up; you warned him and he didn’t run away. It takes two to tango.

A simple apology is enough, I wouldn’t go overboard as you did ask before you got into it and he said he didn’t care, so part of the responsibilty lies on him too