One Manhattan f**kboy recently pushed the limits of all being fair in love, war and New York City-specific streetwear, earning the nickname of the “Tabi Swiper” after dating a woman just to steal a pair of roughly $1,000 shoes and regifting them to his girlfriend.  

Style influencer @nextlevellexuss headed to TikTok with this hyper-specific tale of dating woe last weekend, warning her fellow “NYC Fashion Girlies” to “be-f**king-ware” of a 23-year-old man named Joshua, who she claimed swiped her Maison Margiela Tabi Mary-Jane shoes after their second date.

“This man is out here on Tinder and Hinge and he will steal from you,” she said of the Tabi thief, who messaged her on a dating app after running into her on the street.  

@nextlevellexuss Girls and gays of TikTok please get to work #nycdating #tinderhorrorstories #hingedating #margielatabis #nyc#greenscreen ♬ bad idea right? - Olivia Rodrigo

After reconnecting online, the pair decided to meet up. Though Joshua seemed “pretty resistant” about a second date, they gave it another go, ultimately ending their evening at @nextlevellexuss’s home, where they discussed, among other topics, the Maison Margiela shoes on display in her room.

While Joshua may have failed to steal her heart during this second encounter, the TikTok creator quickly realized he had stolen something else — her Tabis.

“I look high and low, look under my bed, look in my suitcase, look in my closet, can’t find them anywhere,” she recalled. Though she initially refrained from blaming her date for swiping her shoes — “I’m not gonna be accusatory,” she said — she was greeted with an unpleasant surprise upon trying to reach out about her Tabi’s possible whereabouts.

“I go to Tinder to message him, unmatched! Gone! And I’m like, oh no, this bitch stole my f**king shoes,”  she explained, noting that her date also even “deleted the history” of their past calls, leaving her unable to source his phone number.

She ended her video with a desperate plea for Downtown fashion fans.

“Moral of the story is don’t f**k with this f**ker named Joshua on Tinder, he’s a d**khead,” she said. “If you know who he is, where he lives or anything about him, f**king let me know because I deserve retribution and I want my f**king shoes back.”

Fortunately, @nextlevellexuss would get just that. As her video quickly racked up views on TikTok, she managed to track down the thief on social media. Though he initially denied taking the Tabis, even offering her large sums of cash for her missing kicks  — ”An innocent person would not offer $1,000 if they did not do it,” she added of his reply — Joshua was quickly outed as the culprit, the style influencer discovering he had taken her shoes and given them to his girlfriend.

“I found out he had a girlfriend, and he gave my Tabis to his girlfriend,” she said, explaining that he finally stood down after she sent him a photo of his S.O. in her shoes.

@nextlevellexuss Replying to @Calla Kessler #greenscreenvideo #greenscreen ♬ original sound - Lex

“Hours later at 3 a.m., I get a text message and he’s like ‘alright, you caught me, I’ll give you back your shoes, can you take down your video,’” she said, noting that he was “smiling the whole f**king time” during their meetup.

So take it from @nextlevellexuss — next time you take a man home, be sure to lock up your Tabis. Tinder Swindler, you’ve met your Lower East Side match.