Michael_Crowley

Michael Crowley: Sex, Science, and the Soul of New Westminster I'm Michael. I’m from Eugene, Oregon, originally. But now? I live and work in New Westminster, British Columbia. I’ve spent the last fifteen years as a sexologist—researching, writing, and counseling on the messy, beautiful intersection of intimacy, technology, and money. I currently write about this city for the CamoWallet project on their website. It’s a gig that lets me merge my love for a place with my... well, my peculiar skillset. I was born in Eugene, Oregon, on January 26th, 1988. I remember the light there, a kind of soft, green-filtered glow through all those Douglas firs. My parents’ house was on a quiet street near Skinner Butte, and the McKenzie River always smelled so clean, so cold. But I was a weird kid. Even then, I was obsessed with why people did what they did. Why they coupled up. Why they un-coupled. Eugene in the 90s was all granola and earnestness, but beneath that surface, I saw the same quiet desperations, the same romantic chaos, as anywhere else. It just smelled like patchouli. After a lot of school—a degree in psych from the University of Oregon, then a master's in human sexuality from somewhere I won’t bore you with—I moved. I landed in New Westminster in my late twenties. I worked for a while at the Pacific Centre for Family Studies on Columbia Street, just a stone's throw from the river. That job was my real education. Seeing couples, families, trying to untangle the knots of desire and duty. It’s also where I started writing, first for academic journals, then for anyone who’d listen. Now, I write articles for CamoWallet, exploring the city's nooks and crannies. It’s a different kind of intimacy—getting to know a place, its history, its rhythms. And yeah, sometimes I tie it back to dating, to how money changes things, how an app can make you feel both more and less connected. We cover that on the site. Honestly, my competence comes from just... being there. From listening. In those early sessions, I’d have a guy, a software engineer from Sapperton, sitting in my office on 6th Street, telling me he felt nothing for his wife anymore. And I’d be thinking, okay, is this a biological thing? A psychological thing? Or is it because their entire communication now happens via Venmo requests for the grocery bill? Money and relationships. It’s always there, a third party in the bed. My job isn't to have all the answers. It's to help people find the courage to ask the right questions. Like, why do we swipe right on someone who looks nothing like our partner? I don't know. But I know it's not just because they're hot. That's where the work begins. Living in New Westminster... it’s a thing. You can't just visit and get it. You have to live through the seasons. I live near the Quay, so the river is my constant. In winter, it’s this cold, gunmetal grey. In summer, it sparkles, and the whole city smells like the fish and chips from Paddlewheeler Pub. I walk my dog—a ridiculous, neurotic terrier mix—up the wooden stairs from the boardwalk to Westminster Pier Park almost every day. It’s a killer climb. Good for the heart. I know the names of the streets like you know the names of old friends. Carnarvon, 12th, McBride Boulevard. I grab coffee at Old Crow Coffee on Front Street, where the baristas know my order. I’ve had more conversations about love, loss, and loneliness in that coffee shop than I ever did in a formal therapy room. The city has this grit, this history—it was a rough river town, then a respectable suburb. It has layers. And I like that. It feels honest. Growing up here—well, becoming who I am *in* this city—wasn't about wild parties or big events. It was smaller. It was realizing, in my early thirties, that I’d become the person my neighbors on 4th Street came to for advice. It was sitting in Tipperary Park on a bench, watching a couple argue near the fountain, and recognizing the exact pattern of their fight. It was writing a piece about the ghost signs painted on the brick buildings downtown and connecting them to the transient nature of relationships—the layers of paint, the faded promises. I remember once, walking down 8th Avenue after a particularly brutal session with a couple, I saw a bald eagle lift off from a tree near the river. Just massive, silent, and gone. And I thought, that's it. That's the goal. To be that present, that powerful, and then to let go. Maybe that’s what I’m still trying to learn. Right here, in this city on a hill.