To the producers of The View on ABC

I am writing this letter in regards to the comments made on the View on Friday the 13th of Feb, and also the following Monday. The funny thing about holidays is they aren't always enjoyable. Christmas isn't a very happy time if you're a kid that is too poor to get a gift. What is there to be thankful for on Thanksgiving when you don't have any food to eat? How joyful is Valentine's Day when you're single with no one to enjoy the holiday with? All three of these holidays can be the highest and lowest points of everyone's life. This particular episode was on dating and the hosts were talking about "deal breakers" in a personal ad. I don't know who you are to judge someone you don't even know. The show could easily have pointed out the good ads and focused on that but instead it took the low road and made fun of people.

The whole idea for the show is to give your "views", I just hope your viewers are more educated on the wide spread problem with people that are over weight as well as the number of people who have genital herpes in the United States to discount the unfair and prejudiced comments. To say the guy was a loser stating he has herpes in his ad was an insult to every honest American. The man that was over weight was another slam on honest Americans. No one on this green earth is perfect. We all have our faults!!! Perhaps you would have liked to date this man that has HSV, and if he had not been honest, you found out later at your doctor's office... would that make him better? How about the over weight man? If he told you he was skinnier then he actually was would that have been better?

I really don't understand what you gained by belittling their honesty. Do you agree that it takes courage for each of them to put their shortcomings in a personal ad in the first place? Even if it means it limits the opportunities to find a connection. Sometimes the truth is not the easiest thing to accept, but you can't make fun of someone for being honest! I would be willing to bet money that if you read all of the ads and met these people, fifty percent would be nothing like they described. You choose to make fun of the honest men? Joy, you have done so much harm you have no idea. I just hope the guy who wrote that ad did not see your show!!! He is probably scared to death that people will find out his identity and follow your example and mark him a loser. Hopefully he is strong enough to deal with it and not end his own life due to your uneducated remark on this disease!!!

This is what my personal ad says:

SWM: 35 years young!!! I am a single parent of two little girls 9, and 12. I'm 5' 11" and weigh 175 lbs. I have brown eyes and brown hair but the grays are catching up... I would like to make friends first, and hopefully move on to a true love story!!!

Now let me tell you the reason I want to make friends first and then hopefully a true love story. I got genital herpes on July the 4 1998. (Yes this gave me a whole different out look on this holiday.) That was not the worst part, waiting the following 2 weeks for the HIV test to come back was the longest 2 weeks of my life... I went threw a lot of ups and downs with this emotionally and physically. I went on line to try and find some help and info on this disease... Lucky for me I did and have made a lot of great friends from sites that help to educate, and support other people that are in the same situation... No one asks for a STD... it happens. Don't say practice safe sex because I was and I still got it. I got it while I was using a condom!!! I thought I had an ingrown hair but when it came back in same spot I went to my doctor to find out!!! I had to wait till the next time I had one to get tested but it would have been just as easy for me to just think it was an ingrown hair and forget about it... But because I am a person who cares about myself, I wanted to be tested. I did not have problems urinating or any other signs of a STD. just a little blister that looked like an ingrown hair!!! I was 30 years old and I only had 4 partners in my whole life and I got HSV1 which is a cold sore but I have it below the beltline... there are many strains of HSV and also HPV.

Since that time I have been online helping others that were recently diagnosed with the disease... I don't even think you could start to understand how much pain and discomfort this disease has on a person physically and emotionally!!! When a grown lady has to sit in a tub of water because that is the only way she can get threw the pain of going to the bathroom that is a very scary feeling... and I can't even count how many people I have talked out of killing themselves or the people that gave them HSV... I will tell you this story I talked to a very young lady that was raped by a friend of the family, she was diagnosed with HSV, just like everyone else she was also tested for HIV. That came back positive also. I have talked to her for the last 4 years of my life and I consider her a great friend (probably my best). This was very hard for her to deal with but she has done extremely well for herself and is expecting to get married next year. I will be going to her wedding!!! We met each other under extremely bad situations and have turned it into a great friendship.

The scariest part is some women have it and don't even know it... (Very scary) But none of that is as scary in my life right now as the ignorance that goes with this!!!

I totally understand why this guy would put that he has HSV in his ad and only a few out breaks. A lot more people than you could imagine have HSV and I would be willing to say someone in your family or someone that is very close to you has it and with your comment I don't think they would talk or confide to you about it!!!! Statistically one of you women on that show should have it (think about that, 1 in 4). The reason I can understand him putting that in his ad is because you have no idea how hard it is to meet someone once you have this disease. I am bound and determined to not let this get the best part of me and I have dated a few woman that did not have HSV...This was how they ended after a few dates. One girl got up and told me thanks for wasting her time, another girl got up and threw her drink in my face and walked away. I have not seen them again and that is ok with me because love is supposed to be unconditional for better or for worse. If some one can judge me on just that, then I don't want them in my life and I definitely don't want them around my girls!!!! I don't need simple-minded, uneducated people in my life!!! Especially some one like you that thinks I'm a loser!!!

I will tell you this about myself. I own a very responsible and respected roofing company, I raise my 2 girls all by myself, and not that it's any of your business but the little one is not mine biologically... So for you Joy, I say you find another man like me out there that would raise his own daughter never mind another that is not his biologically, and call him a loser!!! I love my girls to death and I hope I can educate them enough to know (just like a book, you can't judge people by their cover). Love is something you work for every day of your life not something that you get just for being alive. I just hope that with all the good I do in my life not everyone will be so quick to judge me, or all the other people that have to live with this for the rest of their lives. Thanks, Joy, for airing over a national televised show the significance of your ignorance...you opened your mouth before you so much as considered all the people you were potentially hurting!!!

You can't change what you did, Joy, but you can make a positive out of what you did. I'm not going to ask you to do anything more than to educate yourself on the subject of HSV and HPV and then do what you and your co hosts think is the proper thing to do is!!!

Sincerely,

Single Daddy

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