The early stages of a relationship can be exciting, but they can also be nerve-wracking. If you come down with a cold sore just before you're due to go on a big date, the nerves can quickly overwhelm the excitement, potentially leading you to cancel your engagement.
However, in many ways a cold sore at this stage is an ideal way to filter out those who are serious about you from those who are only looking for an Instagrammable encounter to share among their social networks.
Quite simply, a cold sore is so commonplace—around one in four suffers from recurrent outbreaks—and so inherently uninteresting that if your prospective romantic partner has a problem with it, you are likely better off with someone else. In fact, with up to eight in ten carrying the virus, there is a very strong chance that your date at least carries the virus themselves, but they may be one of the lucky individuals for whom the virus remains dormant and doesn't cause visible symptoms.
Do you need to disclose?
There are some conditions that we have a duty to disclose to a prospective life partner—for example, HIV, a terminal illness, hepatitis or anything else similarly serious. The truth is that unless you are dating someone who is immunocompromised, there is little to no imperative for you to disclose your cold sore status.
Cold sores are not a serious health condition. Sure, tell your partner about them at some stage, but unless you have a particularly interesting cold sore anecdote, there is little point discussing it during the formative stages of a relationship.
Cold sore treatment
Of course, if you are going on a date, you will want to be sure that you minimise the impact of a cold sore. This is why it is useful to have a regular cold sore treatment routine in place in order to lessen the severity of symptoms and to reduce the duration of an outbreak.
Herstat does this so that you can keep your cold sores under control. Who knows, it might even come in handy if, between courses, your date begins to feel that tell-tale tingling: simply introduce them to the benefits of Herstat's cold sore cream and they'll be thankful to you for life.
