A TikTok user took to the platform to tell a shocking story of love, lust, betrayal, and high fashion. A quintessential New York City tale that, like most New York City tales, begins with Tinder.
The victim opens her TikTok by explaining that a "cute" guy she had spent time with swiped her prized Maison Margiela Tabi Mary-Janes shoes, which retail for around $1000, and were a birthday gift from her father. After a chance encounter with the man on the streets of SoHo, the woman says she didn't realize she had previously matched with her alleged "Tabi swiper" on the app. After some conversation, they agreed to grab drinks.
After the first date, the fashionista claims he was persistent on hanging out again and invited him over to her place for a "fling." They talked about fashion and the man mentioned wanting a pair of Tabi boots before they slept together. Before the man left and just after a second romp at sunrise, he asked the woman to show her a Spotify playlist she might love, even though he himself didn't have the streaming platform. She handed him her phone to "look up" the playlist but then claimed he couldn't find it. The two parted ways and all was good, or so she thought.
Hours later, the woman said she suddenly looked over at her shoe rack and noticed her Tabis were missing. She remembered that during his stay, the man had glanced at her coveted shoes momentarily. "I looked high and low, looked under my bed, looked at my suitcase, look at my closet, can't find them anywhere," she said. "I'm like 'Okay, that's fine. I'm not gonna be accusatory, I'm just gonna see if he knows where I put them.'"
That's when she discovered he had unmatched her on Tinder and deleted his number and any call logs between them. She concluded that he did all this when he claimed he was looking for the playlist on Spotify and that stealing her shoes was likely his 'sole' mission of the night.
The Tiktok quickly went viral and the community at large helped track down the Tabi Taker.
In another update, the woman shared a screenshot of a DM she received from someone who claimed to be indirectly connected to the situation. "My friend has been dating him for months and he just gave her a pair of tabis!!!!!," they wrote. "Do you have receipts I can show her?? so freaking out for her rn."
The woman was able to get her assailant's number who then asked her to "take that tik tok down" until she could prove he did it. "People are dming me for something I didn't do," the man wrote.
With no additional comment, she texted him a photo of the alleged bandit's girlfriend wearing her Tabi shoes. "Ight you got me, I'll get them back to you give me a time and place & I'm just asking to remove the tik Tok is all," read the messsage.
"Plz don't involve this guys gf y'all she's not at fault," said the woman, encouraging people invested in the story to react tactfully. "But I will be picking up my shoes with homies at grand central."
In a subsequent post, the woman explained that she was actually able to get her shoes back from the alleged thief. "SECURED!!" she wrote as her alleged boot bandit was filmed in the process of returning the stolen shoes. "This man is a demon. He was smiling the whole time."
After tons of memes and social media commentary, the woman provided more clarity on the situation. She claimed that at first he tried to deny he stole the shoes but then offered $500 and that's when she was sure he'd done it.
"When you're offering money, that means you did it. An innocent person would not give $1000 if they did not do it," the woman said in the video.
When asked how he got the shoes out of the apartment, she clarified, "I'm pretty sure he put them in his pants waistband because he was wearing cargo pants, like kind of baggy pants, baggy shirt."
She also reckoned he may have put them in his pockets if they were deep enough.
"[The shoes are] kind of slim, so you could probably finesse," she said.
As with all viral social media stories, it's important to take them with a grain of salt. But if the way to a man's heart is through your designer shoes, then you should probably give dating apps the boot.
