Dear Anonymous,

You don’t have to give up sex. Just use common sense, and understand the precautions you need to take. There are a couple of basic things to protect a partner from getting your infection, and to protect yourself from getting any other STDs. Do not have sex (oral, vaginal, anal) when you are having a herpes outbreak. Wait until all sores and blisters are healed and your skin looks healthy again before having sex. Then, always use latex condoms and spermicides containing nonoxynol-9 when you do have sex, because you can pass the herpes to someone else even when you have no sores or blisters.

That’s just the basic stuff. As far as wanting to meet other folks who also have genital herpes or to talk with professionals, one place to start would be on the Internet. There are many Web sites dealing with herpes — www.herpes.com, www.herpes.org, www.ibiblio.org/ASHA/herpes/hrc.html — are just I few I found that may have some useful information. There are a lot of resources and folks out there who share your medical situation, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to hook up with others who understand your situation. Good luck.

Dear Elaine,

You anger would be more properly directed toward yourself for hanging around with boneheads like your ex-boyfriend and best female friend. Dr. Lovemonkey assumes that your ex-boyfriend attained his " ex " status due to his promiscuous leg activities with your friend. If, however, he had attained ex status some time before this, your anger has a bit less justification, as it is presumes that you should have moved on. But that’s neither here nor there. You can remain angry with both your ex-boyfriend (whose explanation for infidelity is that " someone rubbed my leg. " Yep, as soon as someone rubs my leg, I can’t tell her to stop, I can’t ignore it, I must have sex with her), and what should be your former best friend (who betrayed your friendship by seducing your boyfriend). Or, you could just move on and find some better friends with a sense of loyalty and concern for others. You can at least be assured that even if your ex-friends rub their legs until they are severely chafed, it’s not likely to impede their mobility. I’m sure they’re the type who prefer all-fours to the far more challenging feat of walking on their hind legs for hours at a time.

Dear Jane,

Have you been taking all fours lessons from the former friends of our previous letter writer? One thing you could do is to both take a little moratorium on drinking, as that seems to have preceded both of your infidelities, and the fact that he " can’t remember if he slept with her or not " isn’t a level of intoxication that one should be striving for. ( " Gee, I can’t remember if I just threw my dog out of the fifth story building and then slept with my boss’s husband because I was so drunk . . . or maybe I threw my boss’s husband out the window and slept with my dog . . . Hey, can I have another gin and tonic? " ).