being too much work

[Glides]

one of the most well-meaning lies a person can be told is that they are not "too much work."

that is apparently something that i ask all potential and current partners. they lie every single time. not because they mean harm, but because they can't possibly understand the experience of being a constant inconvenience. and not in the usual self-loathing way.

i have now had two people get mad at me and either completely ghost (in one case, ghosted twice) or just get perpetually annoyed and mad. why are they mad? one has HSV (the twice-ghoster) and got frustrated we never even kissed. the other saw a person without them testing beforehand and now is upset that i refuse to engage in any sexual contact with them at all (including kissing) because of how sloppy they were. they are framing this as "STI stigma." maybe that's what it is. but i don't know what my autoimmune-issue-ass would be like if i did get something like HPV (if i don't already have it, as an AMAB i can't really test for it and i've never had sores). it's not shameful to have a STI, but i don't think being overly cautious about getting one makes me prejudiced? maybe it does? who the hell knows. i found that incredibly bizarre framing.

i don't like being an afterthought, and i feel like one to everyone. and the more this happens, the more Jerkbrain rears his (i am intentionally framing Jerkbrain as male, sorry) ugly head and says things like "nobody will miss you if you died" or "nobody remembers that you exist." the old whispers come back, and i am reminded of how little progress i have made. now dating is difficult for entirely different reasons than they used to be. i don't want to be too much for anyone. it doesn't help that i'm probably asexual and this partner is aromantic. it doesn't help at all. i don't know where the comfortable medium is. i don't know where the person is that fits all the specific ways that i am. i don't know. and i am so goddamn lonely. as it turns out, no amount of dating will make that empty gaping void in your chest go anywhere. some things never change, it seems.

but i just want to matter to people. i want to belong. i want to feel something. i want to do everything i said i couldn't do as a teenager.

[Enail]

That doesn't seem like you're "too much work," it sounds like different and incompatible risk tolerances for STIs, plus an asshole attempting to use social justice language to make you feel bad for your boundaries.

It sucks when you need to be more careful than the average, and it sucks that that's going to make you incompatible with some people, and I'm sorry you have to deal with that, but that doesn't mean you'll be too much for everyone or that you can't matter to people, or that you're an inconvenience. Chronic illnesses are the absolute worst, and of course they create issues that can be inconvenient, but lots of people find ways to work with their partners' illnesses and not experience them as an inconvenience (other than in the way life with other human beings involves inconveniences because no one can fit together 100% with another person without the occasional friction here and there and no one's perfect or has a perfect life). You're not doomed to be too much work for anyone.

WRT very common STIs like the ones you mention, since you're not sure how badly they could affect you, I wonder if you could get more information on how they might interact with your health issues. It could help explain things to partners, and there might be some chance it'd give you some places you could fine-tune your restrictions to keep things safe but maybe give you more options, like whether kissing someone with HSV while they're not having an outbreak is higher risk for your condition or not. If you can check with your immunologist, they might have more info, or it's pretty likely there'd be some studies, if not for your condition, maybe for other, well-studied immune disorders that could at least give you a sense of the territory.