The Day That Changed My Life

An evening in the Australian winter of 2022 was the night that Dongqiao Li first came into my life and one which was to lead me down rabbit holes and feelings of banging my head against brick walls. I wish I had never met him, but I did. I have been left feeling confused, frustrated and at times not taken seriously or let down by the very people I should have been able to trust.

I cannot change the past, but I can use it to expose the wrong doings of Li and perhaps encourage other gay and bisexual men to come forward with their experiences. Minor details have occasionally been changed in this blog to protect the identities of others but for the most part everything is written as I experienced it.

That evening in 2022 I was lying on my bed in my hotel room in another Australian city that I was visiting when I heard that all too familiar beep of Grindr. Li introduced himself. I have obscured the photos he sent me for reasons which will become obvious very soon.

He seemed reasonably attractive, and I took a look at his Grindr profile. Nice torso I thought!

I told him I thought he was handsome before I went to sleep. The next morning, I woke up early to a message from him asking if I had any plans for the day. I said I was planning to take it easy in the city for the day. I asked him what he was after on Grindr. He also explained that he was looking for fun after work. He asked me where I was staying and then told me he was at the five-star hotel in the city. He sent me two pictures of what appeared to be his penis. He told me he was from Melbourne and asked me if I wanted to ‘play’ that night or another day. I said I could visit him at his hotel that evening.

I was struck by how beautiful and modern the hotel was and felt that this was certainly one of the top hotels in town. However, I wish I had never gone to his hotel as I had a bad feeling from the moment I arrived. He kept me waiting around 15 minutes which I found strange. As he came down in the lift to meet me, he messaged me on Grindr to tell me he was wearing a pink sports shirt, and his hair was longer than in the photos he sent me.

When I met him, it was clear that not only was his hair longer, but he was not even the guy in his photos. I should have listened to my instincts and backed out, but I was horny, and he was mildly attractive. Looking back, I feel like an idiot for going ahead with the meeting. From the moment we met he was a mixture of nervousness and arrogance. I put some of it down to shyness, social awkwardness or perhaps simply nerves. However, things went from bad to worse. To be continued…