Herpes rejection as a relationship filter

0:01So as I was running I was um thinking about a uh a Facebook friend I gu friend a Facebook acquaintance um that I had uh recently deleted from Facebook and it was um it was because whenever I would read this person's Facebook posts I would either get angry or I would um I would feel sick to my stomach um there just a whole host of things that I just I didn't feel like bottom line I didn't feel good when I read this person's posts and and just a few days ago this person uh messaged me private messaged me and was like hey um I noticed that you defriended me what's up and basically just told this person straight up like this is this is how I feel when I read your posts and I I don't really want to I don't want to experience that when I'm reading through my Facebook posts and there was ...

1:22... a part of me that was thinking God am I am I denying uh reality in this or am I somehow like avoiding confronting something that I don't want to see you know like cuz there's a thin line between you know being an eternal optimist and like just avoiding the truth that is painful or whatever and um between that and actually saying well that doesn't I don't feel good when I hear that so I don't want to hear that anymore and it wasn't it was specific specifically things like you know just homophobia and um just really like really negative um like political statements like cutting down the other candidate that this person didn't believe in and calling them the devil and just just all sorts of stuff that I like I believe in discourse but I also believe in open-minded discourse and um and seeing another person's perspective discourse and um so I say all of ...

2:38... this to really um Drive the point home for myself of I want to surround myself with people who are true and and heartfelt and real and authentic aren't afraid to to speak their mind but also not afraid of being wrong or um or let's say that being right is more important than our connection or yeah that feels good so I'm reminded of that um of that quote that you you become the average of the five people that you surround yourself with and in in this day of having Facebook feeds of just like you know the amount of information we can take in in a day is astounding to me like amazing so if I have ...

4:01... a choice of what that information is going to be and I still want to actually get the real deal of what's going on in my world and not just avoiding the pain and avoiding what's out there that I don't want to see about myself or whatever that is then I choose to surround myself with those kinds of people who are authentic and will tell me like it is but also be positive and a heartfelt powerful force in in the world so that brings me back around as it always does in these little videos to the topic of herpes and how this how this connects with herpes and I've found that all of the people that I have told friends family romantic Partners all the people that I've told who have reacted in an accepting way in a loving way are the people who have stayed in my life the open-minded people even the people ...

5:18... who maybe in the Romantic side of things didn't want to take a chance in getting herpes they saw the Integrity they saw they saw what I was bringing in disclosing to them such that they still wanted to be in my life and I didn't I didn't see that as a rejection like regardless of when when I put myself out there of really being attracted to someone I might be rejected for whatever reason it's always risky to put myself out there so I no longer see being rejected because of herpes as being something intensely personal it's a preference but back to my point even those people in the romantic in the Romantic realm where we didn't end up being romantic we stayed friends so and I'm trying to think if there was even I mean like all the friends all the family that I've told are like cool thanks for telling me not a big deal ...

6:56... so herpes being a filter is what this is about in a way the kind of people that I want to have in my life anyway the kind of people who are going to be authentic and open-minded and loving and heartfelt are going to also recognize my heart and my authenticity and my integrity and if anything just the opposite will happen than what we may be fearing of them running the other way it might actually bring them closer which is exactly what has happened in my life imagine the kind of person that will share something with you that's intensely personal and scary and they're afraid that it might make you run the other way if care about this person as a person then how will that cause you to feel about that person it's probably going to draw you in and like wow thank you like thank you for trusting me that took a lot huh ...

8:22... so it may not feel like that at the beginning when you first get herpes of like oh my God I like I have to talk about this thing like that's horrible maybe maybe you're feeling like that maybe not but I've heard that from a lot of people like oh my God this is such a burden and you could look at it that way and another perspective is okay this is this is a skin condition that I have that for some reason a lot of people think is a huge deal and the kind of people who I want in my life are going to stay in my life regardless of what I tell them I mean not that this is a parallel in any way but I would imagine that even if I mistakenly killed somebody and I needed a place to hide from the cops I haven't killed anyone so that's just this is on video oh no um and I wanted to hide from the cops I'm sure a lot of my friends and family would put me up this isn't that this is just herpes this is just a skin condition so those kinds of people will stay in your life regardless so um yeah I think that I think that ties it up