Author name: Julian_Relyea

Julian Relyea: Sex, Money, and the Streets of VarennesYeah, so, I'm Julian. Born here, live here, probably gonna die here—Varennes, Quebec. Right on the Saint Lawrence. Most people know me from my research, the dating app stuff, the books on sexual economics. Currently, I'm writing essays about this town for a project called CamoWallet. Strange combo, I know. Sex and crypto. But it's all about human connection, really. Or the lack of it. I've had enough of both to last a few lifetimes.Growing up here in the 90s was... well, it was specific. My buddies and I, we'd spend hours down by the Varennes Marina, not doing much, just talking shit and watching the boats. The big thrill was sneaking onto the ferry to Île Sainte-Thérèse, even though we weren't supposed to. And the music. God, the music. I remember my first real kiss, behind the old church on Notre-Dame Street. It was freezing, middle of November, and her name was Marie-Ève. She tasted like cherry lip balm and cigarette smoke. That was my first real lesson in chemistry—the kind they don't teach you in school. It's funny, the things you remember. The way the light hits the river in the fall, the smell of the sugar shacks out in the countryside in spring, the absolute boredom of a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do but think. That boredom, I think, is what made us curious.I came into this world on May 27th, 1983, at the Hôpital Pierre-Boucher, though my parents always said I was a Varennes kid through and through. We lived in a small duplex on Rue de la Commune, right near the river. My father worked at the Richelieu Industries plant, and my mother was a secretary at the École secondaire de la Magdeleine. The place smelled like the river—that particular mix of fresh water, wet stone, and industrial exhaust from the ships. My first memories are of that sound. The foghorns. Low, mournful, constant. It gets into your blood, that sound. It's the backdrop of my entire life. I always thought it sounded like the city itself was... sighing. Or warning you. Probably both.I could never leave Varennes. It's in my bones. My entire life is mapped onto these streets. I know the guy who runs the depanneur on Boulevard René-Lévesque, the one who pretends not to speak English but definitely does. I know the best spot to watch the ice break up on the river in April, down by Parc de la Commune. I've had my heart broken in three different cafes on Rue Sainte-Anne. I've had epiphanies walking through the woods at Parc de l'Île-Saint-Jean. This city isn't just a place I live; it's the primary document of my life. Every relationship, every bad decision, every moment of clarity—it's all etched onto the sidewalks here. You can't understand my work on attachment theory without understanding that I developed those theories while sitting on a bench, staring at the Champlain Bridge in the distance, wondering why we build things to connect us that just end up making us feel more separate.For years, I was in the trenches. Literally. I worked as a counselor at the CLSC on Rue de l'Église, dealing with everything from teenage pregnancy to marital dysfunction. Before that, I ran a sort of... underground? No, not underground, but... independent research group. We'd meet in the back room of a café that's now a vape shop. We were interviewing hundreds of people about their dating lives, their finances, their sexual histories. This was before apps, before Tinder, before the whole thing became a gamified nightmare. We were trying to understand the raw data of human connection. Now, my work is different. It's quieter. I write. For CamoWallet, I'm exploring the intersection of all that—the psychology of desire, the transactional nature of modern dating, and how it mirrors the... I don't know, the volatility of digital currency. It's all just exchange, isn't it? Value, perceived or real. I write these long essays, weaving in stories about Varennes, about the people I've known, trying to find the pattern.Look, I'm not here to give you a lecture. God knows I've done enough of those. The thing that gets people, I think, is that I'm not cynical. I'm realistic, maybe even a little bruised, but not cynical. After thousands of conversations about the most intimate parts of people's lives, you either become a misanthrope or you develop a deep, abiding respect for the sheer messiness of it all. I remember one guy, a big, burly construction worker from Boucherville, came to me because he was terrified of intimacy. After months of talking, it turned out he was just terrified of being boring. We all are, at the end of the day. We're all just trying to prove we're interesting enough to stay. That's the secret. All the research, all the data on swipe rates and income brackets and relationship satisfaction—it all boils down to that one, stupid, beautiful fear. And when I see a couple on a bench in Varennes, maybe arguing, maybe laughing, I don't see a case study. I just see two people trying to convince each other they're not boring. And honestly? That gives me a weird kind of hope.

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