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I got a call a couple of weeks ago from my single friend, Sam.

Sam isn't his real name - and it isn't because he swore if I ever wrote about what he told me and identified him in any way, it was the end of our friendship.

I promised, of course. But that he felt so ashamed and embarrassed about what he had to say was exactly the reason I felt impelled to write this column.

So here is his story, which could belong to any number of other people besides Sam.

Like about 67 million other people.

For many years, Sam has been desperately in love with a woman we'll call Susan. Theirs has been a tumultuous relationship, with splits brought on, at various times, by everything from addictions to immaturity, on both sides.

During the period after their most recent breakup - one which Sam had thought to be the grand finale - Sam became intimate with a woman who revealed to him, with difficulty but dignity, that she had what an egalitarian friend of mine calls "his 'n her-pes," (the herpes simplex virus, Type 2, if anyone doesn't know the reference).

After consideration - and with care about timing - Sam decided to accept the risk, a risk many singles have exposed themselves to, wittingly or not.

Months later the relationship ended but not before Sam had to make a trip to the doctor. He was devastated, particularly because Susan had been in touch with him, wanting to try again. He berated himself to the doctor, who only shrugged his shoulders and said: "You're the fourth case I've diagnosed today."

So now Sam was calling me, practically in tears, saying Susan had asked for a period of separation, to consider whether she was "willing to accept your stupidity and self-centeredness in exposing yourself and me to this."

The implication was that Sam was disgusting and dirty and deserved exactly what he got. Which is exactly how he felt.

"Sam," I said softly, in the moment of pause when he was obviously waiting for me to second her outburst. "Do you have any idea how many people have herpes?"

He said he didn't. I admitted I didn't either. But I told him I knew I couldn't count on one hand the number of my friends who have it. There is a lawyer, I told him, an interior decorator, a corporate executive, a school teacher . . .

"Really?" said Sam, who seemed to be under the impression - or Susan's impression - that the only people who contract the virus are pimps and prostitutes.

Really, I told him.

"I'll bet one out of every five of the people you know has it, though they'll never tell you," I added.

Sam said what I told him made him feel better. Then before he hung up, he threatened me again not to tell a soul.

Afterward, I went online and did some Googling. My estimate was low. According to a number of studies by legitimate health organizations, there are as many as 67 million people in the United States who have herpes.

That's one in every four people you pass by on the street, with an estimated 500,000 new cases in this country annually. Anyone born in the baby boomer years - after the birth-control pill but before "safe sex" - had probably been exposed before they'd ever heard of it.

Those are numbers that dwarf the prevalence and incidence of AIDS in this country. And yet, having HSV-2 is a source of shame that AIDs sufferers knew only at the beginning of that epidemic. These days, people are proud to contribute to AIDS benefits, to help raise money for a cure, to stitch a quilt to commemorate those lost. Very few people fault AIDS patients anymore for contracting the disease, feeling only pain for their diagnosis.

But the same can't be said of herpes sufferers. Is it because the virus isn't fatal - just resting in the body's nerve cells, reviving frequently or seldom - that makes it OK to condemn the victim? Is it because it is contracted through sexual intercourse and is contagious that justifies branding the sufferer with a scarlet H for life?

Everyone I know who has HSV-2 has told me about it only reluctantly or inadvertently and, in every case, with a sense of shame. One friend has dated no one other than men she meets through a "herpes only" online dating site for the past 10 years, too afraid to tell other prospects.

One concocted an elaborate story of her victimization by a truck driver while she was hitchhiking, a lie she later shamefully admitted, saying she had wanted to take the "blame" off herself. Another friend, sobbing, told me how he had infected - and thus lost - a woman he loved, because he had been too afraid to tell her before they were intimate.

Even when I mentioned that I might write about this topic to an editor at the paper, I heard a gasp. How could I write about this when, quite obviously, people - 67 million people to be exact - had a hard time even talking about it?

"That's exactly why I need to write about it," I said.

Who among us singles might not have found ourselves in the same position as Sam? You don't get herpes because you deserve it or because you're stupid or careless or "dirty."

You get it because - if you are a sexually active single person - the law of averages (one in four) may catch up with you sooner or later.

Do those with HSV-2 have an obligation to tell a prospective partner? Of course. Anyone deserves the right to accept or decline the risk.

But do those who have thus far escaped HSV-2 - often through nothing more than good luck - have the obligation to approach those who haven't with understanding, sympathy and a recognition that scarlet letters are a thing of that past?

One would hope so.