I will not repeat my entire history here, as it probably is quite known already, but I am a male who is still single/virgin at 30. I already have a lot of problems in dating and social interactions. However, since I was around perhaps 10 or 11 or so, I remember in sexual education having to learn about STIs, with a special emphasis on HIV and AIDS. Now I remember the well-known ways of infection, i.e. blood, sexual fluids, etc. But on and off I heard how there was a debate about whether saliva and tears were possible dangers of transmission. Also, I have OCD with my handwashing, so I often have open cuts on my hands.

I have zero experience in both relationships and sex, so I have never had any form of sex, never have had any sort of kiss, and have not really held hands other than a few times when a couple times when girls laced fingers with my hands without my expecting it.

I just realised how my deep fears about STIs, specifically AIDS, also could hinder me in any future relationship. I remember when I was a teenager being extremely paranoid about HIV virii being everywhere, that I wondered if I could get AIDS from kissing even. I remember that when I was a teenager, there was something on the TV news that had said that HIV could contrary to popular opinion be transmitted via saliva if in great amounts. That really scared me and basically confirmed my fears. It did not really matter, since it seemed like no girl wanted to kiss me anyway, but still. Up to now I still have fears about this. Not to mention actual vaginal sex as well.

I try to imagine that in a relationship, I would be petrified of even hand-holding, not only from my own aversion to touch, but also my severe fear that I could get AIDS through cuts in my hands. As much as I would love to have it, I am still concerned about vaginal sex and possible AIDS infections. I have some sort of obsessive fear that what if some woman lies to me or does not know that she has AIDS and then I catch it. I keep replaying this hypothetical over and over in my thoughts.

I am 30, so I was not old enough during the early and mid 1980s to experience the paranoia about AIDS. However, I am just as paranoid as any random person was during for example 1981 or 1982 when AIDS started spreading like an epidemic throughout the West.

This sounds ridiculous given that I have a degree in biology, so I feel like I should know what really is going on by myself. But I am still confused ever since I saw the TV report that AIDS can be transmitted by large quantities of saliva. French kissing scares me a lot for this reason.

I have some other paranoid fears, for example sometimes I get paranoid if someone is putting AIDS in my food and stuff. But that is a completely different topic/fear.

Are my fears excessive? Or is there some truth to what worries me?