Yes, you can get herpes from saliva but you can also get hit by lightning. The chances are very very low, much lower than having protected sex with someone with herpes. Just so you know 20%-25% of the population has HSV-2 herpes and 80%+ has HSV-1 (cold sore). So for every 4 people you have sex with one of them has herpes. It's not really even that big of a deal, the disease has been greatly exaggerated in sex-ed classes that intend on promoting abstinence. It has no deleterious health affects, gynochologists don't even test for it unless they see sores, and the vast majority of people never even have an outbreak in their life - which is why the virus became so prevalent among the population. With all the women taking birth control i'll give it 20 years before it becomes as prevalent as HSV-1