What should I do - dating a guy with genital herpes?

we haven’t had sex yet but we”ve reached a point now where we want to have sex..I really like him (i’m 26), maybe even falling in love with him. He knows how concerned I am about catching genital herpes and we’ve already had frustrated arguments about it but he keeps telling me herpes isn’t as contagious as they make it out to be. He always downplays it and says it’s no big deal, that everyone has it anyway..I even asked about valtrex but he said it’s too expensive and he doesn’t have that many outbreaks for him to want to take it anyway. He’s telling me since he doesn’t have an outbreak now, it’s safe to have unprotected sex, that he knows people that have babies and never catch it from their partners. And he doesn’t want to use a condom b/c it won’t be as pleasurable.I don’t know anyone who’s had herpes before, is all of this true? I thought herpes was contagious from skin to skin contact of the area? I don’t know what to do..i love him and I want to be intimate with him but I definitely don’t want the herpes.