Grayson_Eagan

Grayson Eagan: Saltwater, Sexuality, and the Search for Something Real G'day. I'm Grayson. I was born here, left for a while, and, like a lot of us, ended up coming back. Forster, New South Wales – that's my home. These days, I write about relationships, intimacy, and the strange economy of modern dating for the CamoWallet project. It's a gig that lets me sit on my deck overlooking Wallis Lake and untangle the messiness of human connection. I've spent twenty years studying sexology, not just from textbooks, but from living it. And I've got the stories—and the scars—to prove it.I live on Head Street now, just a few blocks from the water. My mornings start with a walk along One Mile Beach, the same stretch of sand I've known since I was a kid. The place gets in your blood. You can't understand me without understanding the lake, the bridge, the way the light hits the water in the afternoon. It's where I come from, and it's where I finally figured out what I'm trying to say.My past is... well, it's a bit of a labyrinth. I spent fifteen years as a relationship counsellor and sexuality educator, working everywhere from youth centres in Sydney to private practice in Melbourne. I ran workshops on consent and communication. I've seen couples tear each other apart and put each other back together. But about five years ago, I felt the pull back north. Now, I write articles for CamoWallet.app, exploring the intersection of money, dating apps, and human behaviour. It's a different lens, but the core question is the same: how do we find authentic connection in a world that's gamified everything?Growing up here in the 90s was a peculiar blend of freedom and isolation. I remember sneaking into the Forster-Tuncurry RSL club as a scrawny 16-year-old, trying to look older than I was, just to feel part of something. We'd drive our beat-up utes down to the breakwall at Cape Hawke, crank up Silverchair on a crackling cassette deck, and talk about escaping. The local pool on Little Street was the summer hub; I worked there as a lifeguard for a couple of years. It was a great place to watch people, to see the awkward flirting, the jealous glances. Even then, I was fascinated by the undercurrents. I had my first serious girlfriend on the benches near the Forster Shopping Village. It ended messily, predictably. The kind of teenage drama that feels like the end of the world. But it planted a seed. Why do we hurt the people we love? Why do we say one thing and do another? I didn't have the vocabulary for it then, but I was already a sexologist at heart.I was born in July 1981, in the old Forster Hospital, which isn't there anymore. They've turned it into apartments, I think. My parents had a little place off Wallis Street, near the showground. Back then, Forster was quieter. A fishing town, really. The big Coles wasn't there. The sound of the lake lapping against the oyster leases was the background music of my infancy. My mum always said I was born restless, which is probably why I spent so many years moving. She'd wheel me in my pram down to the wharf where the fishermen were unloading their catch. Maybe that's where I first learned to read people—watching the silent negotiations between the fishermen and the buyers, the subtle dance of price and value. It’s not so different from the swipe-and-match economy, honestly. Just a different kind of catch.You know what the hardest lesson was? It wasn't about technique or psychology. It was sitting across from a couple who'd been together forty years, their silence thick enough to cut with a knife. They had a house on Lakeside Drive, a boat, the whole picture. And they were utterly, completely alone. I had no textbook answer. I just sat there with them. After a long while, the wife looked at me and said, We just forgot how to be interested. That broke something in me. All my knowledge, all my training, and it boiled down to that one simple, devastating truth. We forget to be interested. We get comfortable, or we get scared, and we stop asking questions. I'm not perfect. God, no. I've made every mistake in the book. I've been the avoidant one, the clingy one. I've chased validation from people who had none to give. But that moment taught me that competence isn't about having all the answers. It's about having the courage to sit with the questions, especially the uncomfortable ones. That's what I try to bring to my writing now. Not judgment, just... a willingness to sit with the mess.Life in Forster now is a daily reminder of cycles. The tide goes in and out. The pelicans wait at the cleaning tables. Tourists come and go. I'll grab a coffee at the Little Street Café, maybe run into an old school friend. We'll talk about the new developments, the traffic on the bridge. But underneath it all is this deep, grounding sense of place. It's a town that forces you to be real. You can't hide behind a persona here. People know your story, or at least they think they do. And that's why it's the perfect place to write about authenticity. Because living here, you learn that the facade doesn't last long. The lake doesn't care about your Tinder bio. The beach doesn't care about your bank balance. They just are. And maybe that's the only real lesson I've ever learned: that the goal isn't to find someone who completes you, but to find someone who wants to sit with you and watch the tide come in.