Aiden_Myers

Growing Up in Kirkland: A Sexologist's Story of Love, Money, and the 40 BusI'm Aiden Myers. Born here, raised here, still live here—Kirkland, Quebec. I write about sexuality, relationships, and the strange intersection of money and intimacy for the CamoWallet project. You can find my articles on their site, camowallet.app. Before that? Well, let's just say I've done the research, in every sense of the word.My current gig? I write. Deep dives into how we connect, or fail to. Pieces about the psychology of dating apps, the silent negotiations in long-term relationships, the way a bank account can feel more intimate than a lover's touch. It's for CamoWallet, but it's really about understanding why we do what we do when hearts and wallets are on the line. And I do it all from the same town where I first learned to kiss behind the hockey rink.Growing up here... you'd think it's all sleepy suburbs and safe streets. And it is. Mostly. But that safety creates its own kind of pressure cooker. I remember keg parties in the woods behind the old Renaud farm, long before they built those new condos there. The 40 bus was our lifeline—the rolling, grimy confessional that took us to Fairview Park mall, to cheap coffee at the Second Cup, to escape. My first real heartbreak? That happened in the parking lot of the Kirkland pool. Mid-summer, the scent of chlorine and asphalt, and she just... said it wasn't working. I walked home along St-Charles, the sun going down, feeling like the most dramatic person who ever lived. You feel everything so intensely when you're seventeen and the biggest decision is which movie to see at the Colossus.I was born on a snowy December 1st in 1993. Not just snowy—a proper Quebec whiteout. My mom always said the nurses at Lakeshore General Hospital kept teasing my dad, telling him he wasn't going to make it back from the parking lot. He did, but his old Pontiac was basically a snowdrift with wheels for a month. Kirkland was quieter then. Fewer cars, more fields. My first bedroom window looked out over what's now a bustling strip mall on Brunswick, but back then it was just an empty lot where we'd build forts. That specific cold—the kind that makes the snow squeak under your boots—it's in my bones. It’s the sound of coming home.Look, I've been where you are. Scrolling, swiping, wondering if the spark is just... broken. I spent years in academia, studying human sexuality at McGill. Then I went practical—worked with a sex therapy clinic on the South Shore, did a stint as a consultant for a dating app startup (disaster, don't ask). I've sat in sterile labs and in messy apartments, listening to people confess things they'd never told anyone. And through all of it, I kept coming back to one messy, undeniable truth: we're all just trying to be seen. To be chosen. And we've convinced ourselves that a profile, a paycheck, a perfectly curated life is the way to get there. It's not. I've seen the millionaires who are terrified of intimacy and the broke students who love with a ferocity that's almost blinding. So what do I know? I know the questions are better than the answers. And I know that the most important work happens when you stop performing and start actually showing up.I'm a sexologist. Or I was. Now I'm more of an observer. My past work? It taught me the mechanics, the psychology, the sociology. I ran focus groups in a sterile conference room near the Technoparc, trying to figure out why people ghost each other. I interviewed couples in a tiny office on Elm Street, just down from the old fire station. I saw how money—the lack of it, the fight for it, the secrets about it—could destroy a relationship faster than infidelity ever could. That's what hooked me. The silence around it. So now I write. I sit in a coffee shop on Chemin de la Côte-Saint-Charles—the one with the terrible wifi but great croissants—and I write about the things we don't say.Kirkland isn't just where I'm from; it's how I think. This place is my baseline. My morning runs take me past École Édouard-Montpetit, where I first learned that attraction wasn't simple. I do my grocery shopping at the Provigo on Brunswick, running into old classmates, their kids now, and we have these bizarre, stilted conversations that are full of subtext. This town is a paradox: meticulously planned, safe, almost aggressively normal. And underneath that manicured surface, it's a hotbed of the same human drama you'd find anywhere. The affairs whispered at community center events. The financial stress hidden behind the double garage doors. The kids at the Kirkland skatepark, navigating desire and identity with nothing but their phones and their nerve. That's what I write about. The normal chaos. The quiet desperation. The hopeful swiping. All of it, right here on these streets I've walked my whole life.