Josiah_Gunn

Josiah Gunn: Mapping Desire in the Shadow of the Falls I’m Josiah. Born in Montana, but my entire adult life has been here in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I study people. Specifically, I study the weird, wonderful, and often heartbreaking space between us—sexuality, relationships, the dance of intimacy. I used to do it with academic papers and clinical studies. Now, I write about it, and about this city, for a project called CamoWallet. It’s a long way from Billings. A long way. Growing up here? Man, it was weird. We’d ditch class at Stamford Collegiate and go hang out at the Whirlpool. You’d see these couples, tourists, all lovey-dovey, taking selfies with the mist in their hair. And at night, you’d see the same couples fighting outside the Boston Pizza on Lundy's Lane. It was like a live experiment in relationship dynamics. My first real, stupid heartbreak was with a girl from Niagara College. We’d walk across the Rainbow Bridge—just because we could, just to be somewhere else for ten minutes—and talk about everything except what was actually wrong between us. That was probably when I first got hooked. Not on her, but on the puzzle. The gap between what people feel and what they show. I’d see the same patterns everywhere. The frantic energy on dating apps like Tinder or Hinge, the quiet desperation in the bars on Clifton Hill. It was all data. I just didn't know I was collecting it yet. Look, I’m not a guru. I don’t have a ten-step plan for a perfect relationship. Honestly, the more I learn, the less I’m sure of. But I’ve been around. I’ve sat in countless sessions with couples, watched them tear each other apart and, sometimes, painstakingly put each other back together. I’ve been through my own emotional meat grinder. I think that’s why people open up to me. They can smell the difference between textbook knowledge and the real thing. I’m not judging from on high. I’m in the trenches with you, I’ve just... been there longer. I know what it’s like to have your whole sense of self tied up in another person. I know how money—or the lack of it—can curdle a connection faster than almost anything. These aren’t academic concepts to me. They’re scars. My official start? Billings, Montana. August 7, 1990. St. Vincent Healthcare. My dad worked the oil fields, my mom was a nurse. It’s a place where the sky’s so big it feels oppressive, and people are... sturdy. Practical. They don't talk about feelings; they talk about the weather. So I was this weird kid, always asking questions about why people did what they did, why my uncle couldn’t stop flirting at Thanksgiving, why my parents slept in separate rooms but never said a word about it. That unspoken tension, the stuff that fills a house but is never acknowledged—that was my first real education in human sexuality. Not the act itself, but the emotional architecture around it. It felt like a locked room, and I needed to know what was inside. For years, that search took me into academia. I did my undergrad in psychology at Brock University—right there on Glenridge Ave. Then a master’s, diving into the sociology of desire. I worked with a community outreach program on Queen Street, talking to people about sexual health. I saw how shame and secrecy could be more damaging than any disease. Then the tech world pulled me in. I consulted for a couple of dating app startups—the kind that promise you soulmates with an algorithm. I saw the sausage being made, and it wasn't pretty. It’s all engagement metrics and swipe velocity. They’re not designed to help you find love; they’re designed to keep you playing the game. That disillusionment... it was heavy. So I stepped back. Now, I write. For CamoWallet, I get to weave it all together—the human need for connection and the physical reality of this place I call home. My latest piece was about how the mist from the Falls creates these constant, fleeting rainbows, and how it's the perfect metaphor for the optimism you need to have on a first date. You can't hold it, you can't own it, but for a second, it's undeniably there. And that moment is worth the whole walk in the damp. Niagara Falls isn't just where I live; it's the lens through which I see everything. I live in an apartment just off Portage Road, in an old house that’s been split up. I can hear the constant, low rumble of the Falls—it’s the soundtrack to my life. I walk the Niagara River Recreation Trail almost every morning. It clears my head. I know the way the light hits the Skylon Tower at different times of year, the way the crowds shift with the seasons. In winter, when the tourists are gone and the mist freezes on everything, it’s just... quiet. And the city belongs to us again. My favourite coffee spot is a little place on Victoria Avenue. The guy who runs it has been there for twenty years. He's seen my life change—watched me come in with different girlfriends, come in alone, come in with a laptop to write about the very things I was probably messing up in real life. This city holds my story. Every street corner, every bench overlooking the gorge, every bar on Lundy's Lane—they’re all chapters. And honestly? Writing about it for CamoWallet, forcing myself to really see it again, has been like falling in love with an old friend. You forget how much you know a place until you have to describe it to someone else.