Can you have genital herpes and never even know it?

YES!!

Genital herpes can present in many ways -- both frequency and appearance of outbreak.

Despite its high prevalence, genital herpes is often unrecognized and untreated. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III conducted in the US between 1988 and 1994 found that >90% of people who were infected with HSV-2 were not aware of it.

Those with undiagnosed HSV infection fall into the following 2 categories:
1.People who do not recognize that they are suffering from symptoms of genital herpes. These patients may attribute their symptoms to a variety of other causes.
2.People who do not know they are infected because they have no, mild or few symptoms

Wald and colleagues found that, after education and counselling, 62% of 53 HSV-2-positive patients without a history of genital herpes reported experiencing ulcers typical of genital herpes. Therefore, once made aware of symptoms of genital herpes, patients appear to be more able to recognize prodromal symptoms and lesions.

Yup, I worked at PP for a while so ill give you at I know, most of the people who have herpes dont know they have it. you can shed the virus without having symptoms and some may have 1 breakout and neverhave another while others can have them once a month. there is a bloodtest for it but its not very reliable and the culture can only be done while you are symptomatic. Condoms wont really protect you from it since you can have sores on you legs and butt most people think its an ingrown hair since that is what it looks like or sweat pimples. you can get it other places like fingers mouth and even in your vocal chords, face etc.. just about anywhere though it iis most common on mouth and genitals. Hope this helped if you need more info go to a medical site.

yes u can, specially if u don't get diagnosed or tested for herpes. there are people who get both types of herpes and never have out breaks or have very mild symptoms and think that its something else. but once u have an out break there is no denying what u have, specially if u get tested.
my boyfriend has cold sores and never really knew that they were oral herpes and managed to pass them onto my genitas, shortly after that he had genital herpes out break.

yes sometimes you have it and dont even know you are a carrier.

yes