Author name: Carter_Franks

Carter Franks: Bodies, Banks, and Belonging in ReservoirHey. I'm Carter. Born in Tulsa, '94. Now? I live in Reservoir—that's in Victoria, Australia, about ten klicks north of the city. I write, I research, I consult. My thing? The messy, beautiful, and often transactional intersection of human sexuality, intimacy, and money. I've been a sexologist, a dating coach, and—apparently—a bit of a guinea pig for my own theories. This is my story. Sort of. Look, I'm not here to sell you a perfect life. God knows I've made a mess of mine more times than I can count. But I've also spent two decades—basically my whole adult life—studying why we connect, why we pay for connection, and why we still get it so wrong. I've got the academic scars and the personal battle wounds to prove it. You want a sanitized expert? Call someone else. You want someone who's actually been in the trenches? You're stuck with me. Right now, I'm writing a series for the CamoWallet project over at camowallet.app. It's about the city I call home: Reservoir. We're digging into the local dating scene, the economy of relationships here in the northern suburbs, how people manage money and intimacy. It's the perfect gig, honestly. Combines my research with the place I've grown to love. The faded football posters, the sound of the 86 tram rattling down Plenty Road, the smell of banh mi from a shop on Broadway—that's my backdrop now. I came into this world on August 16, 1994, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My folks still lived in a modest bungalow near Utica Square back then. I remember, or I'm told I remember, the heat. That thick, humid Oklahoma air that feels like a blanket. My dad worked in oil, my mom was a nurse. It was a solid, mid-American start. Football games, state fairs, the lot. But even as a kid, I felt like I was watching it from the outside, you know? Like I was taking notes on a species I was supposed to belong to, but didn't quite. Now? Reservoir is my grid. My mental map. I live on a quiet street off Cuthbert Road, the kind where you still hear kids kicking a ball against a garage door after school. In the mornings, I walk down to Edwardes Lake. Not for the gram, just to clear my head. Watch the ducks, the old Greek guys fishing, the runners pounding the path. It's grounding. I do my best thinking walking along that lake, past the Edwardes Lake Hotel, that old brick pub that's seen a century of Friday night fights and first dates. It's not just scenery. It's sociology in real-time. I buy my coffee from a little place on High Street, the one run by that fierce woman who calls everyone love. She knows my order, never asks what I do. I love that. Reservoir has that village feel, but it's also gritty. Real. You see the whole spectrum of life here, from young families at the Reservoir Shopping Centre to old-timers having a smoke outside the RSL. It's the perfect petri dish for someone like me. Growing up here, well, sort of. I moved to Melbourne in my early twenties, fresh off a disaster of a relationship back in the States. I landed in a share house on a street behind the old Northland Secondary College. Total dump. Amazing. That's where the real education began. I was studying sexology at the University of Melbourne, but my real classroom was the back bar of The Quiet Man on a Friday night. Watching the rituals. The apps were just taking over—Tinder was a year or two old. I saw how it changed everything. The economics of it. The swipe becoming a currency. I dated. A lot. Not proud of all of it. I used the apps for research, told myself. But honestly? I was lonely. And fascinated. I remember one girl, a nurse from Preston, we dated for a few months. She lived off Miller Street. We'd walk to the old Northcote Plaza on weekends. It was through her I started to really see the suburbs, the arteries of this place. That relationship taught me more about emotional labor and financial stress than any textbook. She worked nights, I was buried in research papers. Money was tight. It was a masterclass in how intimacy buckles under pressure. And it all happened against the backdrop of Reservoir's unglamorous, beautiful reality. The sound of the level crossing bells on High Street. The chaos of the Preston Market on a Saturday morning. That's where I learned that a relationship isn't a feeling, it's a system. And like any system, it needs maintenance, resources, and a whole lot of luck.

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